Employment Spot

Evaluating Job Sites

If you have any experience looking for jobs on the Internet, you know that not all job sites are created equal. In fact, some job sites are difficult to navigate and offer few job listings or employment opportunities that match your individual interests.

Within the past decade, many companies dedicated to providing job seekers with online job postings have sprung up. Again, not all of these job sites are equal in terms of number of job postings or ease of use. Before investing time and energy in one of these job sites, carefully consider which criteria you require when searching through job sites.

In order to find the best job sites that will facilitate your search for a new employment opportunity, follow some of these tips.

• Visit a Popular Job Site – There are many job sites dedicated to connecting employers and job seekers all over the country. The most popular site in the United States is CareerBuilder.com, as it has the most job postings to choose from. When using a job site like this one, you enter search keywords and you then have the option of further refining the results to your particular area or salary requirements. Job sites such as CareerBuilder.com are probably the first place to begin a job search. If you are not actively job seeking, you can always post your resume to see which employers contact you!
• Find a Career Channel – The next time you find yourself browsing a site you already visit often, take some time to see if the site offers a “Career Center” or “Career Channel.” Many regular sites offer job postings that are tailored to its specific interests or industry. For example, science lovers who regularly visit ScienceNews.org can access jobs that relate to them via the site’s career search page.
• Read the News – More and more people prefer to read their news online rather than taking the morning paper. The traffic to online newspaper sites has taken off in recent years. If you, like many Americans, read a popular site like ChicagoTribune.com or LATimes.com, you will already be familiar with these sites. The next step is to search these newspapers’ job sites to find job postings that relate to your specific skill set and location.
• Look at Your Homepage – The next time you look at your web browser’s homepage, which for many Internet users is a site like AOL.com or MSNBC.com, see if there is a link to a job site. Both of the previously mentioned sites have career pages for users. You may already be looking at the best job site for you every morning when you check your email!
• Find Smaller Job Sites – A site like EmploymentSpot.com may not be one of the largest job sites in the country, but it provides helpful information for job seekers and allows job seekers to refine their search immediately according to parts of the country. For example, if you want to find all Texas jobs, it may be easier to use an interactive map, like the one found on EmploymentSpot.com. Smaller job sites may be more comfortable for some job seekers to use.