Cybersightings

How the Web can help you find a job

 

By Christina Sponselli
Illustrations by Malcolm Garris/PhotoDisc
August 18, 1997

Online job-hunting is like a pair of good shoes: it accessorizes your search for a new job. But just as wearing shoes doesn’t mean you can walk out the door without the rest of your outfit, using the Internet to find a job doesn’t replace talking to colleagues, reading classified ads, or rewriting your résumé.

The Web has certain advantages: You can browse some of the approximately 11,000 sites that deal with jobs, careers, or job-hunting whenever it is convenient for you. Once you know your favorite sites, getting to work is fairly easy; bookmark the sites in this article to get a good start.

Be sure to use the Web for more than reading job listings. Web sites can help you conduct research on industry trends and on your prospective employer. Other sites help you brush up on interview skills and rewriting your résumé.

Some sites even allow you to post your résumé at no charge. But whether online résumés are a successful way to find a job is a point of debate. Few recruiters read online résumés when hunting for candidates to fill a job opening. Those recruiters who do say they do so only as an alternative to using headhunters to recruit upper management positions.

Buy the book "What Color is Your Parachute?"

Three full-service sites are good places to start regardless of whether you are job-hunting or re-evaluating your career goals. Richard Nelson Bolles’ classic job-hunting book, What Color is Your Parachute, is online at The Washington Post Web site. Bolles discusses how to use parts of the Internet, such as newsgroups and mailing lists, to make contact with people who can assist you in your job search. He also has links to sites to help you get started. There’s also a section on résumés; Bolles believes posting your résumé online is not effective for everyone.

A second popular general job hunting site is The Riley Guide, compiled by internet recruiter consultant Margaret F. Riley. Recently redesigned, the site is divided into Opportunities for Employment, Resources for Career and Work Options, and Help With Using the Internet in Your Job Search.

Lastly, no career tune-up would be complete without a visit to Career Magazine’s Web site. Aside from a suite of career services, the site uploads and indexes job openings from the major Internet newsgroups every day.

There are many sites that post jobs, and more are coming online every month. Some of the sites that post healthcare positions are America’s Job Bank, CareerMosaic, Career Web, E-Span, Nurseweek/Healthweek, Monster Healthcare, Springhouse Corp., the publishers of Nursing97.

CareerPath.com features a searchable database of thousands of jobs listed in the Sunday edition of newspapers across the United States. It is a pleasant surprise to see how easy it is to conduct a search, and you can search as many, or as few, newspapers as you like. The jobs database contains positions advertised the past two Sundays.

And once you have landed your dream job, go back online and research salary surveys and polish up your salary negotiation skills.