Job Searching Resources

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Positives:

1. You will see more jobs listed on AJB.org than many of the most popular job searching sites.
2. Searches are done by choosing a job title and a zip-code & radius. Ie, How far are you willing to commute? I see this as a plus because sometimes, when you use a city name as your search key, you may miss some listings because someone typo'd. They typed "St Louis" (without a period) or "Saint Louis" but you searched on "St. Louis", which means you miss those. Also, let's not forget a large city is comprised of little cities. So suppose someone typed in "Kirkwood" or "Clayton" or "Hazelwood"; although those cities are part of the St. Louis regional area, if you didn't use that as your keyword, you may not see those ads either. As long as the person who entered the job info didn't "fat finger" the zip-code, you'll see everything that's available.

Negatives:

1. You are not 100% automatically logged out when you leave the site. "Why is that a 'negative'?" you ask. The ability to logout quickly is a big plus from a privacy perspective.. for example, if you happen to be job searching at work when suddenly,  "*Gasp!* Here's comes the boss... Close the window!" Normally, closing that particular window logs you out of a site but ABJ.org seems to cache your logon info as long as you have one browser window open.
2. The search function is rather odd. You have to sometimes guess what category a particular job title will be found under because of the weird way the government categorizes some jobs (that's the government for you). I've yet to quite figure out where Cisco engineers fit in, for example.
3. Dates. None of the job listings have a date. Thus you have no idea how old a posting might be. They put a red dot next to "new" postings (those under 7 days old) but that's the only clue you get.
4. Because it's by state, when you sign up, you have to choose which state you're interested in. After you logon, it may not let you view jobs in other states. Here's how it works. You choose a zip-code and a radius (10, 25, 50, 100 miles). If you are interested in a city that sits smack on the border of two states, you get listings from both, which is good. Kansas City, for instance, lies half in Missouri and half in Kansas. If you choose KS as your main Job Bank, you also see listings from Kansas City, MO as long as it's within the radius of your search. But you get fouled up if you're interested in two states/areas that don't happen to be close to each other. For instance, I'm currently looking in Illinois but I've been thinking about moving to Utah. I want to get an idea of what the job market there is like but after I logon to the Illinois site, it refuses to let me see the other state because it's well over 100 miles away. What I've done to get around that is to create additional accounts for the other state(s) I'm interested in. This works fine as long as I close all web browsers inbetween logging on to each state's job bank.

Positives:

1. You are automatically logged out when you leave the site.

Negatives:

1. I ran a test search and most of the leads were very out-of-date: 5 or 6 months old. Those may have been the "Best Jobs" in the US at that time, but chances are very good those jobs are long since filled or closed for other reasons.
2. The test search I used was on a specific area (I took the choice of "Illinois - Peoria/Pekin") yet it still listed jobs that were far outside of that area (Chicago, of course). Note to other people who are in smaller towns like myself: some sites seem to think the whole rest of the state doesn't exist outside of the one or two major city/ies of that state. For instance, I live in Bloomington/Normal which is very close to Peoria. Bloomington/Normal, Peoria, Pekin, we're all at least 2.5 hours from Chicago. There's no way I'd consider anything in Chi-town, I'd be on the road my whole life! As irritating as it is for me, I can only imagine how pissed the poor folks down in Carbondale feel!

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1. You are automatically logged out when you leave.
2. Not only does it offer employer blocking but you can also "hide" your contact info so you are doubly protected against your present employer finding out you are job hunting. Employers just see the body of your resume. (So be careful how you word your present job description!!)
3. You can have multiple resumes (up to 5).
4. They also offer a free email account. This can be important if you don't have a non-work account where potential employers and your search agents can send email to you.
5. They do offer a quasi-form of job tracking in that you can put jobs you are interested in into your "cart". (Looks like they are re-using some online shopping cart program. Heheehee.)

Negatives:

1. Oddly, the email you get from your search agent only contains ONE listing of all the jobs it found. 
2. Statistics are pretty basic.

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1. Allows you to post your resume either by using their editor (which is pretty full-featured) or uploading your resume if it's in a Word-doc format and editing it after it's been received. 
2. They are a little different than the other sites. Along with their own postings, Career Builder searches other job search sites thus you could use this site to see the newest Hotjobs postings along with Dice, Net-Temps and a ton of others. However, search agents will only email results for those jobs specifically posted on Career Builder. Still, it can mean only logging into one site to search dozens.

Negatives:

1. Automatically logs you out when you leave but it "remembers" your log-on name (your email address) when you return. This is probably done via cookies so if you're at work, remember to delete the cookie file afterwards.
2. I have to wonder why the site gives you the option of choosing a particular area (for example, Illinois - Bloomington/Peoria) yet it returns results that are far beyond the scope of that area (ie, Chicago, I can understand.. but New Jersey? California?!, geez..)

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Positives:

1. Job listings are updated hourly.
2. Allows you to create a "Consultant Profile", for those who want to work independently. This is a free option, unlike similar sites (specifically Guru.com and Sologig.com). 
3. Statistics show how many times your resume turned up in a query by employers and who those employers were.
4. News, news, news! You can configure your account for news links for a wide variety of computer related subjects. News links are updated every 15 minutes.

Negatives:

1. When you apply to a listed job through ComputerJob's site, you have to "upload" a copy of your resume so you need to have it around somewhere (if you're at work, carry it on a diskette). (This is unlike other sites that also give you this same option. They usually send your posted resume or, if it's a site that allows you to create multiple resumes, they let you choose one of those.) After you click "send", it SAYS they will send a copy of your application to your email account. Out of 3 application, I've only received ONE confirmation email. So, truthfully, I'm not sure that it sent the other applications. Thus this is listed as a negative because I feel it gives you a false sense of actually having sent in an application. 
2. Doesn't automatically log you out when you leave the site. Not even if you close all browsers. This can be bad if you are using it at work and don't want to leave "evidence" if you must close the window quickly. Along those same lines, the "logout" link doesn't appear on every page. However, you don't have to log-on to use the site. Logging on just means you can create, save and use search agents so you won't have those options but you can still search for jobs. (I believe the site uses cookies so if you have to close the window quickly, don't forget about deleting the cookie file.)
3. No option to receive search agent results daily via email. Since so many others allow this, I decided it was a negative that ComputerJobs doesn't have this option.
4. Using the site to create a resume is a bit clunky but not as bad as some.

Neutral:

1. The "job tracker" merely allows you to save jobs you find interesting to a quasi-clipboard. I sometimes use it to keep notes to myself, like, when I sent in an application, etc. Unfortunately, after the job "expires", it won't let you see the description so I've been using the notes to keep some of that too.

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Positives:

1. You are automatically logged out when you leave the site.
2. Email from your one and only search agent contains all jobs that the agent found with the full description and contact information.

Negatives:

1. Tries to use your default email client if you click "apply for this job". You may not want to do that, especially if you are job hunting while at work.
2. You might not want to bother posting a resume because your Dice resume isn't search-able by potential employers anyway. Instead, you "list" your skills. Try to use words that employers will search on (there doesn't seem to be a limit as to how many you can list), how many years of experience you have with that skill and year you last used it.
3. The job search agent is only for having its results emailed to you, there isn't a link to run the agent whenever you log into the site, unlike all other sites that have search agents.
4. No job application tracking. (That is: it does not keep a list of where you have sent resumes. Guess they figure that's up to you and your email client.) Because so many other sites offer this in some form, I decided it's lack was a negative.

Neutral:

1. Creating an online resume can be a bit clunky. If you know HTML, however, you can make a very nice resume. If you don't, be sure to review it because there's a good chance the format is screwy looking.

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Positives:

1. Some companies may only post openings on their website and not on any job search site. Thus, unless you went through the websites of every company in your town on a regular basis yourself, FlipDog may be the only site where you'll see the job posted. This also means there might be fewer competitors for a job. 

Negatives:

1. I have to wonder how long this site will be in operation. Other search sites make their money by charging the employer a fee to post jobs. Career Builder seems to make their money from banner ads. JobsOnline (which leaches off of Net-Temps.. I'll explain below) seems to make their money partly by banner ads and partly by selling your email address to spammers when you neglect to change a default setting (see below). FlipDog doesn't do either of those.. so, umm, how do they stay in business?
2. Sometimes the listings are a bit dated.. now and then, you'll see "please reply before February xx, xxxx" yet it was only listed on FlipDog starting in April of that same year. That usually happens because the company just never bothered to remove the listing from their webpages.. then FlipDog's spider finally found the site/page. So, if you see an ad on FlipDog that you're interested in, open another browser window and visit that company's site to make sure you see all the details about the opening.

Neutral:

1. There might be a good reason why the company isn't posting the job anywhere except their website.. say, if there is an internal candidate for the job but HR has to, you know, "go through the motions". Thus they may only post the listing on their website and not on any job boards nor in the local newspaper because "why waste money?" A situation of that nature can't really be looked at as a negative against FlipDog, but it is something you should be aware of.

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Positives:

1. Automatically logs you out when you leave the site.
2. Allows you to create multiple resumes which can be handy if you want one resume tilted towards one type of job and another towards a different type.
3. Statistics show how many times your resume was listed during a query and how many times a potential employer clicked on it to view your resume in detail. Statistics cover weekdays only (ie, Monday through Friday).
4. You can post your resume and "hide" certain details (like, your name, phone number and email address) if you don't want your present employer to know you are job hunting. 

Negatives:

1. Although it does send you one email with results per job search agent, each email is limited to listing only the first 5 jobs found. There's a link, however, so you can see all the new listings that the search agent found. Just watch the wording when you receive a search agent email to ensure you don't miss something.

Neutral:

1. Headhunter.net has added something new this year. Normally, when you use their site to apply for a job, (which is as easy as 2 clicks), NORMALLY you receive an email with details about the job you just applied to, plus HeadHunter.net lists the job on your "applications" page.. However, now when you click "apply for this job", you could be forwarded to another site. (Potentially, the folks at HeadHunter.net added this option so employers can send you to their own online application. More often than not, however, I find that the employer uses this option to forward prospective employees to their same ad posted on Net-Temps. Weird, huh?) Since Headhunter.net cannot tell if you actually applied for the job (because you left their site), it will not send you an application tracking email nor will it list the job on your "applications" page. So, usually, their tracking capability is a plus but I can't count it as one because there's the chance it won't "kick in".

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Positives:

1. Automatically logs you out if you leave the site.
2. Applying to a listed job is easy as 2 clicks if you have posted a resume on their site.
3. Keeps a list of where you have applied for a job PLUS it sends you a tracking email with the job title.
4. Has a message board where you can talk to other people about the joys of job searching. However, I do have to mention the bulletin board doesn't seem terribly consistent. I sometimes run into errors when I try to logon to it, errors when I try to reply to a message, errors when I try to create a new message, errors when I.. hmm, wait, maybe it is consistent.

Negatives:.

1. Supposedly will send you an email with search agent results but it seems to me it gets behind quite a lot (I'll get nothing for 3 days then suddenly get all three "daily" emails at the same time, post-dated, of course) so you're best off visiting the site daily.
2. Doesn't seem to get as many postings as some of the other "less popular" sites. This can be really obvious when you live in no-where-ville like I do.

Neutral:

1. Statistics are pretty basic.
2. The resume editor is a bit ugly. Be sure to look at your resume afterwards because you'll probably have to do some tweaking. If you know a bit of HTML, you can create a truly nice resume.

1. You are automatically logged out when you leave the site.
2. To be honest, I don't think there are any other positives. See Negative #1 below.

Negatives:

1. CLAIMS to be the #1 website for job seekers. (Don't they all?) The reality is that they just access Net-Temp's database. LEACHES!
2. OH BOY, signing up with them means potentially surrendering your email address to spammer lists! There are 5 on the screen where you create a new account plus every time you logon, there are another 4 or 5 more lists. The default, of course, is always "YES, sign me up!" which translates to a lot of extra mouse clicks, definitely more than other sites, just to avoid spam. And have I mentioned the PLETHORA of pop-up windows with "Special offers" as you move around the site and another when you try to leave? Hmmm, look at this cute little blurb from their "about us" page (emphasis added by me): "JobsOnline’s President, Tony Priore, joined JobsOnline from yesmail.com™, bringing to JobsOnline his 20 years of experience in virtually all areas of marketing, from direct/database marketing, Internet marketing and electronic commerce to consumer services and packaged goods marketing." Do you see a pattern here?

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Positives:

1. Gives you the option to either automatically logout if you leave the site or never logout. 
2. Allows you to create multiple resumes (up to 5). If you create a "hidden" (ie, "not active") resume to use when you apply for jobs via their site, you can use the statistics function to give yourself an idea if those particular employers are taking an interest in your application.
3. After you apply for a job through their site, it sends you an email about the application for your records.
4. It also keeps a list of your job applications (when, to whom, job title and a link if the job description is still currently listed).

Negatives:

1. The "email notification" option. Technically, it does alert you that there are new jobs that match your search agents, but that's ALL it says: "your search agent found new jobs!" Nothing to say how many were found, no short description of the job(s) or a job title; not even a link to the job listing. So it's pretty much just spam.
2. You can create an online resume but it will take a lot of your time (30+ minutes) to do so. Seems like there's a never-ending list of questions to answer or blanks to fill. If you take the trouble to create one, however, applying for a job is simple as two clicks.

Neutral:

1. Resume "blocking" can be done but only by "hiding" your resumes.

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Positives:

1. Gives you the choice to either automatically log out after you leave the site or to automatically log in whenever you come back.
2. Allows you to create multiple resumes.
3. You get one email that contains listings of jobs with the results from all your search agents (instead of one email per agent). The email contains the job title and a link to the posting.
4. Statistics show how many times you turned up in a query (note the "negative" about Skill Words mentioned below) and how many times your resume was viewed in detail by a potential employer. Statistics are by month, however.

Negatives:

1. Doesn't track where you've sent applications. There isn't a link on their site (like many have) nor do they send you an email (like many do). I once got an email asking if I'd gotten a response immediately after I applied using their site but that seemed to be a one-time only deal. (I actually received that email less than an hour after I had sent in the application. I specifically waited a week before sending in my answer in order to give the potential employer a chance to read my application and respond. Which, unfortunately, they didn't do.)
2. Although you can post your resume, it's not actually "search-able". Instead, you choose "skill words", whatever keywords you think a potential employer might use that would normally lead them to finding your resume. You are pretty limited on how many "skill words" you get, however: you only get 3 so better make GOOD choices.
3. The resume editor is pretty basic. In other words: no bold, no italics, no bullet points, no special formatting of any sort.

Neutral:

1. Once again, here's another site that doesn't offer employer blocking. Only way to block is by "deactivating" your resume.
2. Don't be fooled into thinking you can use the "clipboard" as a quasi-job tracker. Once you leave the site, your clipboard is emptied. UNLESS you have it set to NOT automatically log out after you leave.

1. Automatically logs you out when you leave the site.
2. You can create multiple resumes. 
3. The email you get from your search agent merely contains a link to their site where you can see the agent's results. It doesn't say how many jobs were found or which agent found them.. I decided that this was a "plus" but just barely one.

Negatives:

1. This is basically a web front end for Tek Systems / Aerotek / Maxim Group (these are all "sister" companies) and a few similar companies. So you're not going to see very many jobs listed here unless a customer happened to have requested a consultant from one of the above mentioned companies. Still, it is a resource for job searching.

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1. All of the above listed sites need an email address in order to create a search agent. Same applies with Yahoo. However, when you create an account on Yahoo, you are also creating a  free email account which, if you wanted to, you could use as your job search agent "deposit" address for all those other sites.  

Negatives:

1. Could be I'm doing something wrong but I've created a couple search agents ("alerts") and specified the time the agent/alert is supposed to send results to my email account but I've yet to see it actually work.

Positives:

1. Applying via a newspaper ads seems to enjoy a higher success rate than online job search sites. (I've heard that the book "What Color is your Parachute" confirms this.)

Negatives:

1. Some newspapers allow you to create search agents, some don't. Some have good search engines, some are very basic. All depends on who's running the show at the paper.