| “Skimpy
searching will give you skimpy results.” |
Can't take your boss anymore?
Or the coworker who hogs all the glory (or the only
chocolate donut in the box)?
Thinking of switching careers?
Laid off?
We job hunt for many reasons, and the Internet has made
it easier by a thousandfold. At the same time, finding
the right sites can be hit or miss. I’ve job hunted
for full-time jobs, part-time jobs, and freelance, so
I’ve seen many different avenues to pursue and
they were (and are) confusing!
Until I found Job-Hunt.org at http://www.job-hunt.org.
It became my one-stop shopping trip and there are days
when I wonder if I’ll ever get through everything
on it. (A freelancer’s life is a never-ending
search for work.)
Articles
Job-Hunt.org begins by offering articles to help you
get started. Some of the more important ones are “Protecting
Your Privacy,” “The Dirty Dozen Online:
Job Search Mistakes,” “Beating the Job Search
Blues,” and “Tapping the Hidden Job Market.”
I thought I knew all the angles in my search, but these
articles proved me wrong. The best part (for me) is
that a number of them are written for people who aren’t
new to the hunt, a welcome relief from the ole “make
sure your resume doesn’t have any spelling mistakes”
tip. Note to those new to job searching: These articles
offer a lot of good basics too and are pretty matter-of-fact
about it.
Site Links
For every site Job-Hunt.org especially likes, a little
smiley face goes in front of the link. That doesn’t
mean they don’t like the others. But the site
in favor usually has something that makes it stand apart.
Still, it’s subjective—I’ve found
some sites that weren’t flagged to be more useful
to me. So it’s really your call.
Listings
Job-Hunt.org’s other easy-to-see
symbol is the highlighted word “new,” which
tells you that a new listing has been added within the
past 30 days. This makes searching go a lot faster on
return visits. I also appreciate the simplicity of this
site so that I don’t have to keep checking a legends
list to see what the symbol means (as I’ve had
to do elsewhere). Graphics and ads have been kept to
a minimum and are to the point, which is something I
appreciate, given the relatively short loading time.
This site means business.
At the top is their category Job Networking and News,
where recent articles on the job market are listed along
with resources such as Associations and Societies, which
in turn lists over 300 groups. Clicking on that link
breaks it down into categories and then general sites
to search for more. While these associations are also
available in the job hunting links discussed below,
it’s still worth checking this category out. Here
you will find general sites that you might be interested
in but that wouldn’t fit into the category you
want. If you’re serious about your search, check
everything out here—it’s a gold mine. Skimpy
searching will give you skimpy results.
Job Hunting
Okay, enough lecturing. Let’s
move to the hunt itself. Each of the links takes you
further into the world of finding that job. The next
category listed is Job Sites and Career Resources, which
lists different paths to follow. Most people know about
the major players and here they lump them under Employment
Super Sites and offer some great choices, like America’s
Job Bank at http://www.ajb.dni.us
and CareerJournal at http://www.careerjournal.com.
Presently, two choices, 6FigureJobs at http://www.6figurejobs.com
and Job.com at http://www.job.com
are site sponsors. The fact that Job-Hunt.org is up
front about saying this goes a long way in my book.
The Guidelines link at the bottom of the site is very
clear and specific about why and how sites are accepted
for listing.
What’s also interesting is the “Be careful”
warnings Job-Hunt.org offers about some of the sites
and their privacy policies, with a special note of uncertainty
about Monster at http://www.monster.com.
They do say that they aren’t sure of the validity
of what they’ve been reading, but pass along the
information so that you can decide.
My personal irritation with Monster is its refusal to
remove ads that are not job listings but a blatant request
to “come to our site and spend your money to buy
our list of potential employers.” My request to
remove that specific ad went unanswered and it still
clutters my mailbox due to the automatic agents I’ve
created. A small aside: A most welcome feature about
Job-Hunt.org is its information on the super sites,
especially when these sites merge. I had no idea that
FlipDog was acquired by Monster until I read it here.
You can also search by industry or profession and a
multitude of links are offered to sites in such categories
as Academia and Education Jobs; Law and Law Enforcement
Jobs; Engineering Jobs; Freelancing, Consulting, Contracting,
and Temping Jobs; and Science Jobs, among others.
Dipping into the Academia and Education Jobs link brought
me to enough sites to make my head spin. They really
do try to cover every level, so you have to sort through
the choices. But I was very impressed with the selection.
There are links from Academic360.com at http://www.academic360.com
to National Teacher Recruitment Clearinghouse at http://www.recruitingteachers.org/index.html,
which is organized by state, to Psychological Science
at http://www.psychologicalscience.org/jobs.
Job-Hunt.org provides each listing with a short explanation
to help you decide what you want to visit.
Farther down the list are other categories to help in
your search, such as Employer Sites, which allow you
to go straight to the individual school and check out
their offerings to Professional and Industry Associations
for Educators, which includes links from Learning Disabilities
Association of Canada at http://www.ldac-taac.ca
to Association of Research Libraries at http://www.arl.org/index.html.
And finally, the category Recruiters Specializing in
Education and Teaching offers a number of search firms
with a brief explanation of their function. I really
do like that it stresses whether or not a privacy policy
is in effect.
Whew! That was just from one link on the main page,
which led to other links, which led to other...well,
you get the idea. You might want to keep track of the
routes you take when you start jumping. I once jumped
from link to link until I didn’t know how I got
to where I was and realized that keeping track would
prevent this. Job-Hunt.org says there are 8,178 links
on its site—and I believe them.
You can also search by location by clicking on the link
to Job Sites and Resources in Every State in the U.S.
The word “new” next to a state tells you
that a new listing has been added inside that state.
Job-Hunt.org offers other job sites and career resources
as well, including Classified Ads, Newsgroup Searches,
Job Fairs, and Reference Material. Clicking on Reference
Material led me to links that didn’t necessarily
offer jobs but did contain solid information on helping
me to package myself better, such as the Creative Job
Search Guide at http://www.mnworkforcecenter.org/cjs/cjs_site/cjsbook/contents.htm,
which happens to be by Richard Bolles, the author of
the What Color Is Your Parachute books.
Newsgroups
I was interested in what Job-Hunt.org
had to say about Newsgroups, which mostly consisted
of a lot of warnings, well taken, and a few links to
explore, such as CyberFiber at http://www.cyberfiber.com/index.html
and JobBankUSA Newsgroups at http://www.jobbankusa.com/newsgrou.html.
Aside from the terrific links on locating jobs, Job-Hunt.org
provides links that help with the basics. Basics doesn’t
mean these sites should be overlooked. Their resume
links should be required reading, even for someone who
thinks their resume can’t be beat. The name of
the game, folks, is, “If you get complacent, your
job hunt lasts longer.”
Judith M. Levinton is a freelance writer who’s
currently studying to become a hospital chaplain. She
lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her e-mail address is jlevinton@aol.com.
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