Are you searching for a job? With unemployment at high levels, you should use every tool available to look for a job and to promote yourself. Below are reviews of several career websites which can greatly aid you in your job search.
Monster.com is the largest job website among the career websites. This should be your very first stop when you are job searching, as it is the most popular website with employers. You can post your resume for prospective recruiters, or simply start a search for your desired job based on various criteria, such as geographical location or industry. There are many tools available to job seekers, including creating custom RSS feeds of your searches so that you’ll be alerted whenever a new job posting occurs. Monster is especially appropriate if you are contemplating a possible overseas job, as it is one of the very few websites with a large number of overseas job postings. In this age of high unemployment, job seekers who are willing to move overseas are at a distinct advantage.
Careerbuilder.com is another good site to visit. Like Monster.com, you can search for your desired job based on your location or industry. The number of job postings is comparable to Monster. However, the quality of the jobs offered is somewhat inferior. There are also many ads on the Careerbuilder website, which is irritating. One gets the impression that Careerbuilder caters to the low end of the job market, and probably charges employers less per job posting compared to Monster. To make up the difference, they resort to posting ads to job seekers. There are no overseas jobs on Careerbuilder.com.
Craigslist.com is the free online classified ads site which is very popular with both providers and seekers of all kinds of goods and services, including jobs. From an employer’s point of view, the main advantage of using craigslist is that it is very nearly free. Submitting a job posting costs less than a hundred for most cities, versus several hundred dollars at least for both Monster and CareerBuilder. Job searches are relatively straightforward, but are restricted to only a handful of the largest cities in the US. The jobs are also not well categorized unlike at both Monster and CareerBuilder. Again, the low fees charged also seems to attract a correspondingly lower quality of jobs on offer.
Indeed.com is not a traditional job website, that is, it does not charge employers for posting jobs. It is instead a job aggregator website, searching other websites for job postings and aggregating them for the job seeker. It is entirely supported by Google ads. Indeed.com does a surprisingly good job of looking for job postings, especially the more specialized jobs which are posted on specialist websites and generally not posted on Monster or CareerBuilder. It also provides tools such as RSS feeds of job searches and the ability to save your job search.
Yahoo HotJobs is another popular job website. Like almost all the job websites, you can search for jobs based on location and industry, and you can upload your resumes for employers to look through. Jobs are restricted only to the US, and basically only to the major cities. Even in the major cities, the number of jobs on offer is far less than what you can find on both Monster and CareerBuilder. In other words, HotJobs is worth a look, but only as a last resort.
