SOYOUWANNA FIND A GOOD JOB SEARCH ENGINE?

When searching for a job, most people comb the classified ads, or look for help wanted signs in the windows of businesses. Some people even send their resumes out to several companies blindly and hope to hear from them. If you are searching for a job, perhaps it's time to try an online job search engine. Job search engines are search engines that are tailored specifically for job hunters and employers, to allow them to see all kinds of classified ads and to allow job seekers to post a resume in hopes of an employer reading it. But which ones are good, and how do you decide which to use?

1. STARTING THE SEARCH

Not everybody wants to be a fireman or a scientist. Deciding what you want to do for a living not only makes your search for a good job search engine a little easier, your active decision to pursue a chosen field means you are far more likely to wind up with a job you love, rather than a job that you put up with. You don't have to find exactly what you want right away, but when you're looking for a specialty job search engine, you will want to know what you're looking for.

Not sure what you want to do? Here is a great site for a career assessment: http://www.livecareer.com/

To begin searching for a job search engine, log onto the Internet. A good way to begin your search is to try a broader search engine, such as Google or Yahoo. Put job search engine into the search field and see if it brings up anything useful. Now you have a list of the names of job search engines. Some of these you may have heard of, and some you may not recognize, but the important thing is that they offer job advertisements. A search like this on Google will yield a lot of the big name ones, such as companies like Career Builder or Monster.com, but don't ignore the smaller companies as well, simply because they may have job listings that the larger sites may not have.

2. DIVERSIFY YOUR SEARCH

Restraining yourself to just a few engines is not the best course of action when looking for a job. Try some of the little engines as well as the large ones. If you go for a multitude of search engines with a variety of options granted to them, then you will be more likely to get a hit in your target field. The way a lot of them operate is by taking all of your personal information, resume, references and anything else they feel pertinent for pre-screening and then finding potential matches for you from your resume. The big job search engines use computer programs to find key words in resumes to match the desires of the company. That means that you need a resume that is in RTF format with no special formatting, and key words that will help you stand out among the other many job seekers in the market. Once you've diversified your options, you can consider narrowing down what you're looking for.

If you know what you want to do, find companies that offer careers in that field and learn everything you can about them. They might have a link that will send you to a job search engine where they gather all the resumes they consider, and you will find a new search engine that you can look through when doing your job search. Another way to diversify your search might be to look at local job search engines. These will only have jobs in them for your area, or at the most, jobs in other areas that might be willing to help you relocate to different cities. Career fairs can also be a place to find out about some other job search engines. The businesses there might require you to go online and submit your resume through an online job search engine before they will consider it.

3. NARROW YOUR CHOICES

If you have something in mind for a specific field of work, then you can continue your searches for search engines that deal with exactly what you need. You can use a general job search engine to narrow down the field of your search, or you can go back to a major search engine like Google and put in something like agricultural job search engine. Some of the results you get from this might be linked to colleges that offer training programs, or it may not be what you're looking for. It is best if you stick to job search engines to find real job listings. Another thing to think about is the big engines contain postings from all over the country, while finding engines from your local area will only yield jobs around you. Check out community action organizations or local newspapers to find a local only job search engine. However, so many search engines have advanced searches, so you can search for jobs only where you want to.

You can also narrow down your search with websites like Local.com, found at http://local.indeed.com. On this website all you have to do is put in what kind of job you're looking for, and the city and state, and it brings back job listings in all the cities around your chosen city as well.

4. TOSS OUT THE LINE

Once you have finally found a search engine that you think can help you, then fill out the proper information and send it out into the world. While you may seem to be doing this over and over again, it is best to keep working at it. Many of the large job search engines have been operating for years and have helped many, many people to get a job this way. An excellent resource for finding search engines of any kind is www.allsearchengines.com, which can help find the links to all job search engines available.

Just because a search engine gives you a few possibilities, it doesn't mean that those are your only options. Try for different jobs in similar fields on two or three different engines, and compare the options they send back to you. One website might not have anything you are looking for, while some other search engine with the exact same search have precisely what you needed to find. With the advice and information above, here is a list of well-known and established job search engines that would not be a bad place to start. These are broad-based search engines, so you should be able to search for any job on these, and find something in the field you are looking for.

UGA Careers - This is a website that has been in operation for more than five years now, and is aimed towards helping small businesses.

Monster - Everyone knows Monster! It's a friendly website with a cartoony mascot that can help you find a job, or if you are running your own business, it can help you find employees.

Juju - A basic, does everything, job search engine. You can search by jobs, category or company.

Career Builder - Another big one, where you can search 1.9 million jobs by keywords, location and category. Or you can do a more advanced search, including what employment type you're looking for, how long ago the job was posted and even what type of degree you have.

Indeed - Basic job search engine. On the main page you can see how many new jobs were posted in the last seven days.

Simply Hired - Boasts over five million jobs to offer, and thousands of other job sites available as well as a free resume builder.

Remember, one of the best ways to find a job you will enjoy is to find a company you desire to work for. Then your job search engine will be personalized. Find the companies in your area that are potential candidates, and systematically and periodically check their websites for openings. Good luck!