Finding the Right Job Search Site

Looking for a job? With new job boards opening left and right, how do you know which sites are the best use of your time and energy? Below are some of the top sites out there, so pick a few websites that seem best for you and start hunting!

While Craigslist offers a much more comprehensive classifieds listing service for your regional location, it has become one of the leading sites for job posters and searchers alike. Find your location and browse the jobs listings. It’s the best way to find employment opportunities posted by smaller, local businesses or those employers who are looking for a more technologically savvy applicant base than the mainstream job search boards.

LinkedIn is an excellent professional networking tool, allowing you to first customize a profile listing your professional goals and work experience and then to add your business contacts to your network. In addition, you gain access to a fairly robust job search tool. The LinkedIn system denotes which jobs are unique to LinkedIn, and the social networking aspect of the site allows you to find the hiring manager and introduce yourself to her/him via your profile.

The most comprehensive job sites around are those that aggregate hundreds or thousands of job boards and newspaper listings to provide you with one interface through which to search for positions in your field and location. SimplyHired and Indeed are two of the best out there, with simple, user-friendly interfaces and the ability to save your searches or have the results delivered to your inbox. These sites are a great time-saver and offer a much more comprehensive view of the job market than other sites do.

JobFox is unique in that it acts more like an online dating site than a job search board. You will be asked a series of questions about your employment status, overall employment goals and preferences, which their site will then use to match you to relevant jobs in your area. You can also ask to be introduced to the hiring managers for these positions, which seems to be a much more intimate way to apply than simply emailing a resume and cover letter.

LinkUp claims that around 70% of jobs are not advertised by employers, but instead are simply posted on their individual jobs pages – which means that job seekers would need to visit all of their potential employer’s job pages to find the listings available to them with one quick keyword search on LinkUp. The postings available here are monitored to ensure they are legitimate opportunities from legitimate employers, which means you aren’t wasting your time reading spam in your search results.

CareerBuilder is another site that is mixing social networking components with the job search engine functionality. Some of the best features include a resume upload tool paired with a keyword scan that will automatically tailor search results to your skill set, and a system that remembers which jobs you have applied to and adapts search results to your preferences.