Greener Pastures: Job Hunting, Web Style
by Joe Dysart
As with many things Web, job-hunting on the Internet has brought
new meaning to the phrase "level playing field." Currently,
there are literally thousands of "jobs boards" - or Web
sites tracking new job openings - in cyberspace these days, which
together represent a potential career jumpstart that is far ahead
of the traditional newspaper advertisements.
Generally, using such boards is easy. Simply plug in the job variables
you're seeking - such as title, location, salary and the like -
click "enter," and the boards will instantly return links
to every job they track that meets your criteria. On the biggest
jobs boards, that can often mean hundreds of offerings.
You'll also find that using the Web means it's just as easy to
search for a job across the street - as it is to search across the
planet. Plus, you'll discover extremely sophisticated "search
agents" at the most cutting edge of jobs boards, which can
search for jobs fitting your personal criteria, and email you anytime
a new match pops up.
One easy place to start is the "Big
Boards," or mega jobs-tracking sites that regularly offer
hundreds of thousands of openings in nearly every field imaginable,
plus sophisticated extras. More often than not, the Big Boards enable
you to do detailed searches that sometimes employ a dozen or more
search criteria. These boards also generally enable you to "save"
searches for the kind of job you want, for use on a repeat visit.
Almost all of these sites have search agents that can be programmed
with a few keypunches to email you word of new job postings with
the features you're seeking. And you'll also find all sorts of supplemental
support systems on the Big Boards, such as chat rooms, bulletin
boards, breaking employment news and the like. The downside here
is that the competition for offerings can be extremely fierce, since
the boards are so popular.
Fortunately there are also a great number of relatively small,
industry-specific job boards on the Web. The advantage of these
boards is that fewer people are surfing there as compared to the
Big Boards that appeal to nearly every job description. So the competition
for jobs offered there is less intense. The downside: job listings
here are not always updated as often, and the search tools are often
less sophisticated.
If you've exhausted the Big Boards and communication industry boards,
you may also want to check out your local city and regional jobs
boards. These boards are generally not as sophisticated as the global
site, but the competition is less intense. TexasJobs,
for example, offers a career classifieds section, as does LondonJobsGuide
and Hong Kong Jobs.
To find regional jobs where you live, enter key-phrases like "(your
region) jobs directory" in search engines like Yahoo!
and Google.
Communications industry veterans may also want to consider using
a "Web anonymizer" before they begin making jobs search
and posting their resumes all over cyber-creation - especially if
they are using a company computer. Such online services are designed
to prevent a company's computer systems from tracking where you're
surfing on the Web, where you may be posting your resume, and who
you may be emailing you a job offer.
Top service providers in this area include Anonymizer.com,
Idzap.com, Megaproxy
and SafeWeb.com.
They start at about US$ 29/year.
Joe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based
in Thousand Oaks, CA. Voice: +1 (850) 379-3673. Email: joe@joedysart.com.
Web: www.joedysart.com.
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