 The
best job-search Web sites
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Here's my current list of essential job-search Web
sites.
For identifying career goals
The government offers terrific sites: www.acinet.org
and, for people just starting out, www.careervoyages.gov.
To explore self-employment, visit www.sba.gov.
Another standout comes from the University
of California, Berkeley.
For creating your resume
Resumemaker.com
($29.95 for students and entry-level workers, $39.95
for more senior professionals.) Here, the site holds
your hand through crafting your resume and cover
letters from start to finish. Resumemaker.com offers
dozens of resume styles, and for inspiration, hundreds
of professionally created sample resumes and thousands
of employer-pleasing phrases.
For networking
Participate in your field's online discussion
groups. Not only will you learn about industry trends, tips
and tricks, after you've established credibility, you may be able
to solicit job leads. To find on-target groups: groups.yahoo.com
and groups.google.com,
or through your professional association's Web site.
Alumni Web sites. Most
college alumni Web sites contain databases of their alumni, including
job titles, employers and contact information. It's a bit surprising
to me, but fellow alumni, even if strangers, are often willing to
provide an informational interview or even job leads. That's especially
true at private colleges. Perhaps that's because people feel a bond
with others who, like them, were willing to spend so much money
on that college.
Linkedin.com.
Here's how it works. After completing a profile
of yourself, you're allowed to find people you know
from among linkedin's 5.5 million members. You can
search them out by name, employer or keyword. You
then ask them if you can link to them. That gives
you access to all of the person's linkedin connections,
including profile and contact information. That
can be very useful. For example, when you're applying
for a job at a particular company, linkedin.com
lets you search your network to find all the people
who work there. You can then e-mail them with a
request for an informational interview. If you're
a salesperson or consultant, linkedin can be a source
of leads.
To research an industry
Margaret Riley Dikel, creator of the highly regarded career Web
site portal www.rileyguide.com, recommends the following starting
places: Yahoo
Directory, the Librarian's
Index to the Internet, Scout
and the University
of Delaware Subject Guides.
Richard Bolles, author of "What
Color is Your Parachute," adds the Internet
Public Library, InfoMine
and www.refdesk.com.
To research a prospective employer
Step 1: Obtain objective information.
Useful clues can often be found on the employer's Web site. Look
for the mission statement, press releases, annual report, and analyze
how the site is structured. For example, which aspects of the employer's
business are most prominently featured? Want more information? See
the employer's listing on Hoovers.com
or Reference USA. The latter is available on many public libraries'
Web sites.
Step 2: Obtain more subjective
information. Likely source: Go to google,
and click on the "news" tab, "groups" tab, and
"Web" tabs. Also use www.A9.com,
which searches all of the books on Amazon.com.
Scuttlebutt on large companies may also be found in the by-company
discussion groups on www.vault.com
and the $20 insider profiles on www.wetfeet.com.
Employment ads
Simplyhired.com
and indeed.com
aggregate job listings from hundreds of employment Web sites, including
the big ones such as Monster,
craigslist
and America's Job Bank.
Work.com
aggregates the job openings listed on hundreds of employers' own
Web sites.
Once you've identified target employers, especially
smaller ones, there's no substitute for checking the individual
employer's site every few days for new listings. Or at some large
corporation's sites, such as Microsoft, sign up for their service
that e-mails you every time it posts a job opening that matches
your chosen keywords.
For government jobs, the easiest option is usajobs.opm.gov,
which, as of this writing, lists 18,767 job openings scattered all
across the country, including some overseas. Find 10,000 more federal
openings on individual federal agency sites. A gateway to those
sites is: www.federaljobs.net.
You may find less-noticed job listings on the Web
site of a local chapter of your professional association. For example,
if you're a technical writer, visit the Web site of the Society
for Technical Communication and find the link to your local
chapter.
For a wealth of other job-related Web sites, go to
www.rileyguide.com.
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