Is Your Next Job a Click Away?
Brian Burnsed
Although Singh eventually found a job, some in the industry caution against such a Web-heavy approach to a job search. "People have this mistaken impression that the job board they're using is magic," says
Site sorting. Not all online job seekers endure an odyssey like Singh's, but career counselors agree that job sites should be a small part of anyone's employment hunt. Only 13.2 percent of external hires in 2009 were made via job boards, according to a corporate study done by staffing consultancy CareerXroads.
In an effort to improve the experience for users,
Career experts say that the big job boards are best for job seekers in professions that are typified by high turnaround--like sales--but that they are less effective for highly qualified applicants or those looking for work in smaller industries. But
Industry insiders claim that job hunters would have much better luck if they invested time filling out detailed profiles on sites like Jobfox, which filter the best job matches to users based on their profiles. While a job hunter may be able to apply to 20 jobs in the time it takes to fill out a comprehensive profile, such a résumé blast is most likely a wasted effort. If people used matching technology more frequently, "the industry would be transformed overnight," notes Rothberg. "There would be much less dissatisfaction."
Job seekers may have more success at smaller boards that are broken down by job category or even geographic region. According to
Ultimately, career advisers feel there's no substitute for phone calls and handshakes. "[Job boards] can be effective, but it's not the only thing someone should have in their arsenal," says
How Job Boards Can Help You
Careerbuilder.com The most widely visited job site. Analyzes a user's job search history to recommend openings the user is likely to be most interested in www.careerbuilder.com
Monster Has online communities specific to various fields--sales, healthcare, and public relations, among others--that offer job-hunting tips and networking opportunitieswww.monster.com
Jobfox Utilizes a detailed user-created profile to find and recommend jobs that are most relevant to the user's experience and interests www.jobfox.com
Dice Considered by many to be the best place for technology professionals to find a jobwww.dice.com
LinkUp An aggregator that searches the careers page on thousands of corporations' websites, producing job listings that are often not found on traditional job boards www.linkup.com
Indeed An aggregator that combs other job boards and compiles results in a single list. A good place to start because of the high volume of results is this Indeed-based job search engine ... Job Search Engine Click here
Looking for a job -- Check out our job search engine -- Click Here
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