Job Search Sites

[Shangri-laschild]

Does anyone have any recommendations on job search sites. Which ones to use, which ones to definitely avoid, etc. I haven't really dealt with any of them before.

[mjr]

A lot of it depends on what type of job you're looking for.

The "big" ones are Monster.com and Dice.com, but there's also CareerBuilder, Jobs.com, and many others.

Also, there are "pay" and/or "subscription" ones. Some of them you can pay for additional services on their site.

Further, don't hesitate to go to GlassDoor.com for reviews of companies you may want to work for. You have to sign up, but there's no fee.

[silverstaff]

From my experience over the years, Monster and Careerbuilder are complete and total wastes of time. Most of the jobs I've seen posted on there for the area around me have either been for scams or questionable jobs which were only a half-step up from a scam.

The few times they had jobs that I was qualified for, I applied for them and never heard anything back. Some jobs frankly had ridiculously specialized job requirements, I'd be amazed if more than one person actually met the requirements and the posting itself wasn't a facade just so a company could say they posted the job to meet some corporate requirement, then gave it to the internal candidate they already had in mind and had custom-built the job requirements to meet.

Correction: I did hear something back once, and it wasn't good. One listing was for a job only a couple of miles from my house, at a very good salary. It had this ridiculously long laundry-list of requirements, a most of which seemed rather irrelevant and superfluous to the actual job. I clearly met and exceeded all the normal requirements for the job, so I applied. I got a call back late that day from that company, someone saying they were from the HR office of that company, chewing me out saying "they are called requirements for a reason" and telling me to not waste their time not applying to jobs unless I met all the requirements for them and to not presume any listed requirements are optional.

Also, when I put my resume on those two sites, I got a lot of cold-call recruiting calls for people wanting me to do purely commissioned based sales. . .despite having absolutely no sales-related experience. All I've gotten from there is spam (after a data breach stole e-mail addresses) and cold-calls offering very dubious jobs, and lots of job listings that

If your career field has specialized sites you may have better luck with those. I had at least reasonable luck with a job search website in my field, better than I had with those big mass-market sites at least.

[aqutalion]

Monster is okay, in my experience. It seems to be the one most of the recruiters that contact me find me on.

If you're of a technical bent, Dice.com is better. Stack Exchange also has a job search section, which has some listings I didn't see on the more mainstream sites. Dice has a sister site called ClearanceJobs, for those with security clearances, if that's your thing.

I don't even bother with Careerbuilder, any more, as it was too full of spam, "sponsored" listings, and listings that outright falsified things like their location. That's a thing to watch out for. There seems to be an epidemic of companies posting the same job for multiple locations, and only putting the real location in the job description. Sleazy, in my opinion.

LinkedIn has a decent job listing area, but I recommend using the site itself, rather than their job search app, as the app is pretty buggy.

Some others I've used: ZipRecruiter, Indeed, AuthenticJobs. Avoid the pay-only ones, as they're unlikely to have anything the free ones don't. In my experience, companies that post their jobs on job-search sites do so on every site they can find, and often have recruiters and staffing firms doing the same, so there will be a lot of duplication and overlap.

[mjr]

There seems to be an epidemic of companies posting the same job for multiple locations, and only putting the real location in the job description. Sleazy, in my opinion.

Another thing to look out for is the false job posting, in general.

I had a tech recruiter one time flat-out tell me that they post bogus jobs just to get resumes. And he told me this after he wasted my time on a face-to-face for a different position. I asked him about a different, specific job listing, and that's when he said to me that the posting for that particular job wasn't real, it was just to get resumes.

[Seanette]

Why bother to collect resumes? To get email addresses for spamming?

[csquared]

Why bother to collect resumes?

So that they can show them to potential customers and brag about their extensive personnel resources (that they don't actually have). I have had numerous head hunter contact me about positions, but they won't tell me about the position until I give them a resume. Ah, no.

[mjr]

Why bother to collect resumes? To get email addresses for spamming?

Essentially. It's so they're "proactive". Because apparently they have lists of jobs that come in, and/or they're on job sites all day, and if they already have your resume, they can just call/email you and see if you're interested.

Though I've heard a number of stories about recruiters changing resumes, and not just their formatting. I mean adding stuff (incorrect stuff, too) to resumes. So I've made it a habit, as a preventive measure, of sending my resume as a PDF.

[aqutalion]

Another thing to look out for is the false job posting, in general.

I had a tech recruiter one time flat-out tell me that they post bogus jobs just to get resumes. And he told me this after he wasted my time on a face-to-face for a different position. I asked him about a different, specific job listing, and that's when he said to me that the posting for that particular job wasn't real, it was just to get resumes.

Or a bait-and-switch ad. A couple of years ago, there was a company posting a HUGE amount of vague, almost-identical job ads on pretty much every site I was looking on. When I applied to one, they had me take not one but two "aptitude" tests, (If they make you jump through these sort of hoops before even having a phone interview, run. Run quickly.), then a rep calls me for I think is an interview, but he starts talking about admissions and class schedules.

But wait, I applied for a job, not a training program, I say. Oh, they "sometimes" have direct placement jobs, he says, but mainly they offer training. Ugh.