By Jay Martin, guest writer
Even though unemployment is still high--and maybe going higher, it does not mean there are no jobs to be found. It does mean that there is more competition for every opening, so managing all the job search resources is one key to job search success. The internet is the resource, but managing the over 50,000 job related sites is no simple matter. A detailed consideration of this subject could be a book length project, but here I will provide some important basics as a starting point.
With the economy as competitive as it is, searching for jobs online becomes that much more important given the need to be pursuing and being aware of as many opportunities as possible. Latest unemployment figures combined with the CareerCast.com/JobSerf Index show that getting a job from the internet is far more competitive than just two years ago.
The CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index is an exclusive barometer showing the change in managerial job openings posted online nationally. The recently launched Index utilizes data from multiple job boards and job search engines to gauge hiring activity across the country. Unlike other Indexes, it uses various boards and has a research team which goes on the internet and hand-counts actual jobs within the listings of the search criteria provided. The criteria is focused on Management level jobs because lower level jobs are sometimes not for a single job, but for many openings.
Understanding the myriad of places to look for jobs on the net is complicated, and below I offer structure and advice for better navigating the estimated 50,000 plus sites in the career space. There are a variety of different types of places on the internet which a job seeker can find jobs. Some sites charge employers for listing jobs, others crawl other boards or employer websites and then finally there are boards which charge the job seeker to access select jobs.
MAJOR JOB BOARDS / GENERAL JOB BOARDS
This refers to the large boards, such as Monster, Careerbuilder, and Yahoo HotJobs, which have 'everything' on them and do not focus on a specific industry, function, geography or special area. These are 'must' visits for every job seeker. The great thing about them is they have a huge amount of jobs, but the downside is that everyone else visits them as well, so the people who have success here are the ones with very impressive resumes or backgrounds very in tune with what a specific employer is looking for. There are also smaller versions of these, referred to as General joboards, given they are simply non-niche sites that just do not have the same scale as the Major Boards. They usually have a fair amount of jobs, but given their general nature and low volume, they can be of questionable usefulness to the average job seeker. Examples of these include www.bestjobsus.com and 400.careersite.com.
NICHE JOB BOARDS
Niche boards are those which focus on a specific area. One easy way to think of these is using what I call a FIGO structure to better categorize them. 'F' stands for Function of the employer, examples include Sales, Marketing, IT, Supply Chain or Finance. The jobs on these target the specific function, role or job description and these boards usually have jobs from a variety of companies. 'I' is for Industry, such as Consumer Goods, Telecom, Automotive, Financial Services and Retail. These sites are cross-functional but focused on a particular industry or group of industries. 'G' is for Geography, which could be at the country-level (non-US), region, state or city. These sites allow for people to review positions which are most relevant to where they live, and also allows companies to focus on receiving resumes from local candidates. The 'O' is for Other, which is used as a catch-all and includes all sorts of other attributes from veteran status, ethnicities to more obscure groups like 'animal lovers.'
Sites such as 6Figurejobs.com are excellent resources for more senior job searching candidates. Some additional examples include www.accountingjobstoday.com, marketingjobs.com and texasjobs.com.
AGGREGATORS
In recent years, there has been a rise in prominence in what are called Aggregators or Job search engines. These websites scour hundreds or thousands of other sites and provide all of their job listings in a single search - almost like a Google of Job Boards. Some of the largest include Indeed, SimplyHired, Jobster and CareerCast. The job seeker does not need to do anything different in using these sites, just understand that they will source their jobs from many of the job boards that one may already be using. Though they are excellent resources, and I encourage everyone to use them, one drawback is that many companies list the same job on multiple sites, so you will be flooded with both duplication and chaff. Most smaller job boards are not rife with advertisements and work-at-home offers given that their audiences are too small, so their inclusion improves the yields of the aggregators from that perspective.
FREE / PAID
Most web resources that provide leads are free to the job seeker, but require the company to pay a listing fee. Some websites, such as Exec-u-net, Netshare and The Ladders require job seekers to pay a small monthly fee to members, and then provide job leads which are not always available to the general public. This both saves time in searching as well as reduces your overall competition with the masses. Depending on your financial situation, trying these out to see their usefulness for your particular search criteria should be considered. Other services do not provide leads, but may do the searching for you, or in the case of JobSerf, actually have their people do the applying for you.
EMPLOYER SITES
Most companies have websites where they usually post their own open positions. Sites such as JobCentral.com, created search engines to scour the company websites and then provide job seekers with an interface to search company sites directly. In addition, you should always search companies that you are very interested in, because they will sometimes post on their site before they pay to put the job out on larger boards. People who apply on their site can be assumed to be that much more interested in their company, and you may also be able to set-up a notification for jobs fitting your background as well.
OTHER AVENUES
Networking has always been an important component of job searching, but the last few years has seen a rise in the Social Media phenomena, and sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have their own job searching capabilities. Networking is no less significant then it was in the past, but the manner by which it is done follows social trends. LinkedIn offers an excellent resource for finding personal connections, so regardless of your job search status, it should be on your list of sites to learn.
One aspect of job searching which has changed as a result of the internet is a lack of direct human to human interchange early in the process. In the current job search environment, the initial screening is almost always done by e submission. Gone are the days of introducing your self over the phone to a recruiter. Now, more then ever, if your electronically submitted cover and resume do not separate you from the other job seekers, you are not likely to get a chance to sell yourself.
BEWARE OF....
In executing your online job search, you need to identify sites that you want to create profiles and visit. But, beware of sites that say "Powered By .......", not because they are a waste of time, but their job search application is simply a window into other boards, and thus not really anything different if you are already searching the original board. The web has an enormous potential to waste your time, which you cannot afford.
More importantly, beware of bogus websites. They serve to collect your personal information and then market services to you, or possibly a more nefarious objective, such as assisting in identity theft. Companies who work directly for job seekers, such as JobSerf purposefully do not ask for SSNs, birthdays, license numbers and encourage people to use passwords different than what they use for their other private personal accounts, like banking.
Overall the internet is a great resource for finding and applying to job leads. The different categories of websites above will greatly assist in identifying where and how you want to search for a job online. Checking out the various websites, making a program of periodically checking the sites and then balancing how much time you spend online versus doing other parts of your search (e.g. networking) should allow you to efficiently, and hopefully successfully, search for and find a job online.
Editor's Note:
Our guest writer, Jay Martin, is the creator, founder and Chairman of JobSerf. The company is a privately held corporation that pioneered the job search outsourcing (JSO) industry with its revolutionary ‘Find & Apply’ service. Click here to go to the web site at www.jobserf.com.
His past experience includes international consulting to over a dozen industries in areas as diverse as Aerospace, Theme Parks, Plastics and Counterterrorism. He has been an employee with PepsiCo, Arthur D. Little, Ford Motor Company, B.F. Goodrich/Rohr and Rockwell International’s Rocketdyne Division.
