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Slide 1: List of Job Search Sites and How to Find Job Sites By Harrison Barnes Here is a list of job search sites to help you with whatever type of job search you may be doing: List of job search sites In addition, I’ve also added what I feel are some good job search resources (including employers) from different industries to this list as well. However, because new job sites are launched just about every day it is important you know how to find these sites on your own without using this list of job sites I have put together for you. I want you to think back to thirty years ago, before the Internet changed the face of the job search, when newspapers in every small and large town in America had job postings. For job searchers, this was the primary source of job listings and the job listings were the primary source of a newspaper’s advertising revenue. Back in the late 1990s when a lot of people started using the Internet, job boards started popping up. The idea was that there was no cost for employers to post because it was just electronic. It was online, after all. By putting the job online, it reduced the cost of advertising and printing because there was no printing and distribution of the newspaper involved. In addition, it opened the jobs to a much larger market. As the job postings migrated to these online sites, it affected the newspaper industry negatively. Due to a lack of readership and ad revenue, print newspapers across the country are going out of business. In the realm of career postings, job sites have taken over the market. You simply cannot afford to do any job search without having a thorough understanding of job sites. Interestingly enough, unless you are looking for a job with a print newspaper, this is good news for you. The number of job sites out there is astronomical, and the more websites you look at in your job search, the more opportunities you will find. The total number is probably about forty thousand job sites, but I’d estimate there are ten thousand decent ones. Obviously, that many job sites also presents a problem. How can you possibly review that many sites? Plus, with the sites being so ubiquitous, you might find you have lots and lots of competition for just one position. The first movers in this space came along and they set up job boards. The larger ones—CareerBuilder, Monster, and Hot Jobs—historically had the most jobs. These job sites followed the model of newspapers: Charge employers to post jobs. In the newspaper world, the more circulation a newspaper has the more it can charge for its classified advertising. Therefore, early entrants into the job board space sought to get as many job seekers as possible to their sites so they could charge higher rates to advertisers posting jobs. Accordingly, these sites did (and continue to do) massive amounts of advertising to attract as many applicants as possible to their jobs. While having lots of traffic benefits the job sites and employers, it should be pretty obvious that this also makes it much more difficult for you to get a job when you are on these sites. For example, it is not uncommon for an employer to receive upwards of 1,000 applications when they post a job on a site like CareerBuilder. The drawback of the larger job sites is that the employers typically receive incredible
Slide 2: numbers of applications. The job of the larger site is to promote the employer’s openings, so you will see ads during the Super Bowl, on buses, on television, and so on. There are many places where these sites advertise with the goal of driving lots of applications. In addition, because there is very little filtering of these applications, the employer may not even get the sorts of applications they need. Many people will indiscriminately apply for jobs for which they are not qualified. For example, it is common for people such as dishwashers to apply for attorney jobs on these sorts of sites. In addition to these “mega sites,” there are tens of thousands of smaller sites. These smaller sites typically do not receive a lot of applications. Because these smaller sites have less competition for the jobs, it is often much easier for you to get the position you want. There are numerous smaller sites for niche sorts of jobs. For example, there are sites for different types of engineers, job sites for attorneys, job sites for accountants, and so forth. Because they do not receive a lot of applications, they are generally a good way to track down jobs where the competition isn’t quite as fierce. Because there are so many job sites, you have to think of who is constantly looking for employees. Historically, recruiters have been the ones looking for the most people. They are always searching for different types of employees and the larger the recruiting firm, the more likely it is that they will consistently have openings for certain types of people. Recruiters always advertise and they tend to have the most jobs on job boards. This is an important thing for you to understand. Recruiting firms generally also get special “preferential rates” with job sites. While it may cost an employer $500 to put a single advertisement on a site like Monster, a recruiting firm may be able to purchase “packages” of jobs, which lower its cost to post each job to around $75. Recruiters may also have “slots” with a job site, which they need to use at all times. This means the recruiter may be forced to advertise its jobs whether or not it has openings that it is actively looking to fill. Therefore, it is important to be somewhat suspect of the jobs you see advertised online for recruiting firms. It is also important to remember that a recruiter is a middleman. When you apply to a recruiter job, you are not applying to the employer. You are applying to someone who will screen your résumé and who may or may not submit it for a particular job. There is a final factor, which is important to understand. Recruiters charge employers fees that are a percentage of your annual salary and can be as high as 40 percent to maybe 15 percent for low-level administrative positions. If the employer hires you, they are charged this fee. Obviously, this can potentially prevent you from being hired unless you are extremely well qualified for the position. It is important to understand that using a recruiter can help you tremendously for many positions regardless of the fee. For example, many recruiters have very close relationships with various employers. In addition, a large extremely successful business will almost never care whether there is a recruiting fee involved when it hires you. Successful businesses simply want the best people and are unconcerned whether or not there is a recruiting fee. Nevertheless, a recruiting fee can put off many smaller businesses and unsuccessful businesses. There are also issues of credibility with certain recruiters. Some recruiters are simply not trusted by employers and may have bad reputations with employers. This means that using a recruiter could hurt and not help you when you are involved in a job search.
Slide 3: The main thing I want you to be aware of is that applying to a job through a recruiter — and most job sites are littered with recruiter jobs — is putting you in a position of not knowing exactly what will happen. It’s important to be aware of this as you send out applications. Finding Job Sites With 40,000+ job sites, the main issue is finding the sites you should be using—and there are tons and tons of methods for finding them. There are many small sites that typically have relationships with certain employers, which is good. For example, a small job site for people in the medical device industry may have very close relationships with various manufacturers of medical devices. These manufacturers will be very comfortable posting jobs on this site due to the fact that the job site has developed a close relationship with them and is able to provide them a steady stream of candidates. Therefore, when you go to this job site for medical device professionals, you will see some excellent jobs that match your interests. In addition, the jobs you see on this site for medical device professionals likely won’t be advertised on other job sites. If you are in the medical device industry and looking for a job, you would be well served looking at this specific site. With these sites, it is important that you understand there are lots and lots of very specific job sites for different careers. Then there are larger sites. There are many sites out there and you really need to look at a lot of different ones in order to find jobs. Confining your search to a few large legal sites is not a good idea. It is very important that you are also searching niche sites for your profession for jobs. A good way to track down job sites for your profession is by using online directories. Let’s look at some specifics.