I came across a listing of the “20 best job search websites,” according to PCMag.com (see Cheezhead’s comments here). I think this list of sites is… well, junk.
Seriously, I would not recommend many of these sites to anyone who is starting a job search. If you find them on your own, and find value in them, great. But none of them are on my top list of anything. Here’s what they are:
1) Beyond.com Beyond claims to be the “largest network of niche career communities” on the Net. It essentially hooks together different organizations like PRJobForce.com and PhillyJobs.com all in one place, which makes it easy to find leads in your community.
2) CareerBuilder.com As the Web’s biggest job site, CareerBuilder gets more than 23 million visitors a month. The company has been around since 1995, and has developed an incredible network of listing sources and job search centers since that time.
3) Craigslist.org The granddaddy of online classifieds gives those who are focused on searching for jobs within their communities an easy way to look. It might be one of the least-polished entities listed here, but the sheer number of local job listings makes up for it.
4) Execu|Search This site looks to be a selective, higher-tier job search property. Execu|Search screens and reviews every resume that is submitted, and helps employers find the best possible candidates for their open positions.
5) Hound Hound’s search engine shows jobs from employer Web sites only. In theory, this cuts out duplicate listings and shows opportunities that are not posted on other job boards.
6) Indeed Indeed works as an aggregator for listings from major job Web sites, company Web sites, associations, and other online sources. Its simplicity and ease of use are its best features.
7) JobCentral JobCentral is a service formed by a nonprofit consortium of U.S. corporations like IBM and Dell, which makes it ideal if you’re looking for corporate job listings.
8) JobServe JobServe claims it was “the world’s first Internet recruitment service.” In 2008, JobServe advertised more than 2.5 million jobs across 15 industry sectors.
9) Jobster Jobster uses an active approach to help employers and recruiting teams of all sizes find their candidates. The company calls its method “social recruiting,” and it services 24 different job categories.
10) LinkedIn Best known for being a social network for professionals, LinkedIn also has thorough job listings, some of which are exclusive to LinkedIn.
11) Monster In addition to being arguably the best-known global job-listings site, Monster also offers advice on resumes, interviewing, and salary information.
12) Oodle Oodle, which specializes in online classifieds, includes a job classifieds section that finely cuts job opportunities down to job title, category, industry, and company. Did you know, for example, that Best Buy has nearly 10,000 openings?
13) onTargetJobs onTargetjobs owns a lot of smaller niche sites like BioSpace.com and MedHunters.com. Its expansive niche database allows users to find compatible job listings more easily than with general sites.
14) Simply Hired SimplyHired is similar to Indeed, as it also aggregates listings from major job Web sites, newspapers, company Web sites, and associations. However, the site goes a little deeper and allows users to send their resumes out for posting on five other sites for free.
15) SnagAJob SnagAJob is basically the antithesis of sites like TheLadders and Execu|Search, as its focus is on hourly employment only. The site has partnered with companies like 7 Eleven, Red Lobster, and AMF, to bring the most up-to-date hourly job openings.
16) TheLadders This job site has branded itself as the place to look for $100,000+ jobs only. Job seekers have to pay $30 per month to fully take advantage of the site’s services.
17) Trovix Trovix’s free search engine makes the job-search process more personalized. Users input their work experience and qualifications and the site matches results to what info they have given. Trovix also has an innovative feature called Job Map, which allows you to type in your location and see on Google Maps how many jobs are available in your area.
18) TweetMyJobs One of the newest sites to take advantage of social media, TweetMyJobs supplies Twitter users with instantaneous job listings that are derived from TweetMyJobs’ Job Channels.
19) USAJobs.com USAJobs is the official job site for the U.S. government. With the government looking to significantly increase spending during the next few years, looking at federal jobs might not be a bad move if you’re in a tough place.
20) Yahoo! HotJobs As one of the biggest job sites on the Web, HotJobs distinguishes itself by focusing on features such as status (which shows how many times one’s resume has been viewed) and the ability to block companies from seeing your resume.
Out of this list, here’s what I’d recommend:
Indeed (#6) or SimplyHired (#14): using one job board aggregator instead of poking around dozens of job boards makes a lot of sense. For some reason I’ve migrated to Indeed, but I last I’ve seen, SimplyHired is just as good.
LinkedIn (#10): of course. No explanation needed. If you don’t get it then buy my LinkedIn book or get the new LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD.
The Ladders (#16): I think their resume reviews are shady (more on that later), and not everyone is getting value out of them, but many are. Not free, but could be valuable if you are a six-figures person.
That’s it… from my last 3 years in this space I can’t say that hear any career experts evangelize any of the rest (and some are harsh on The Ladders)… I’m kind of surprised at the suggestions in their article but this seems on par for articles like this.
What sites would YOU suggest?
Great stuff Jason, and I’d totally agree that the huge aggregates are having less and less utility as competition increases. I read somewhere that 8 months ago the avg. CB job listing got ~70 submissions and now we’re at ~250. The more you dig and the harder a listing is to find – the less people you’ll be competing with once you get there. Good luck out there everyone.
I would suggest checking out this list of best job websites, some of the sites have been mentioned here but there are others listed there that are worth a look.
I like Indeed and Craig’s List. It’s easy to look at several sites, and even have several searches at these sites if you use their RSS feeds. I have 3 different Indeed searches and 2 Craig’s List searches feeding into Google Reader all day long.
It’s simple to do – set up your search and look for the RSS feed button, usually near the bottom of the results page. If you’re using Firefox, it brings up a nice screen that asks if you want to read the feed in Google Reader. IE is a bit more complicated. I’ll write up the process for my blog some time this week if anybody needs instructions.
Again, I agree with you, Jason. As you know, I’ve posted my own big list of job search and career planning resources, and it has very little overlap with PCMag’s. I’ve mentioned before my recommended approach to job boards (I wish I could remember who I stole it from!): 2-3 “big” job boards, 2-3 local ones, and 2-3 specialized ones in my field. I feel there is a lot of dross in PCMag’s list, and it makes me wonder whether those sites were advertisers on PCMag. One could waste a lot of time on those sites!
I would love to know the inside story on how a brand like PC Magazine could produce such a shoddy list. I was speechless when I saw it. I’m working on at 2009 version of my top 100 list at https://www.internetinc.com/top-100-job-board-niches and there will be lots of changes!
— Eric
@eric shannon: You’d like to know what could produce such a shoddy list? Mechanics, most likely.
I’m not talking about the profession, I’m talking about the practice of wanting to automate and mechanize so many things nowadays in the name of efficiency. It’s what’s happening to journalism in general as newspapers decay, there’s no time nor value in really investigating a topic.
If you really want to see a good list, have it written by people who’ve had to actually search for a job. Unless those writers have had to actually pound the pavement, they very likely only know the surface. This is especially true when so few people actually plan their careers and can tell you step by step just how they got to where they are today.
Incidentally, what would be my nominee for good sites to locate job postings? I’d opt for industry-specific ones, where people know and speak the nuts of bolts of their field. For instance, what about a Web site for mechanics?
In my last job search I used
http://www.dice.com
http://www.computerjobs.com
http://www.linkedin.com
http://www.theladders.com
http://www.indeed.com
http://www.simplyhired.com
Dice and computerjobs paid off for me very well. Indeed and simplyhired let me find new resources. Linkedin.com and TheLadders.com did pretty good for me. But I’ve found careerbuilder, yahoo, and monster have pretty much lost any usefulness for me.