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Overview of Monster.com:

Monster is one of the big two of Job Boards (CareerBuilder is the other). It is truly a full service job board, in that it not only allows you to search jobs on it, it also gives you tools for organizing your activities.  Some of their most useful features include advice, training, salary data and even discussion groups and forums. Monster serves not only the United States, but all of the major developed countries.  Monster used to boast that they had over 5 million job listings, but they have retracted that claim probably because of the poor economy.

How to Join:

Monster is free to browse, and then free to join. Once you sign up, it is easy to navigate and figure out where things are. Upon joining, you get an opportunity to post your personal profile, up to five resumes for the various job categories you intend to apply for, and even cover letters.  You can also sign up for weekly updates, which we recommend you do.  You can customize your degree of privacy, which could be important if you are currently employed.

The Good:

Monster’s basic services are completely free to the job seeker.   These include excellent job search organizing and tracking tools. While they sell premium services such as resume writing, most of their income is derived from advertising, fees for job posting and recruiters.  This eliminates the need for those annoying pop-ups urging you to upgrade your membership or buy services or seminars that you really don’t need. Once you sign up, you can get a weekly email alert of jobs that Monster says are good matches for your profile.  Your profile and resume are visible to many thousands of recruiters and hiring managers, so you will get emails from recruiters inquiring about your availability for a position they are looking to fill.  You can personalize everything to a high degree, giving you the flexibility to define the amount of visibility you desire.

The Not So Good:

The biggest issue we have with Monster, is, we don’t know anyone who ever found a job by simply responding directly to a posting on this Board.   We do know a number people who have been contacted by recruiters who found them through Monster, and have found work that way. The emails that you get from recruiters are usually mass emails, sent to thousands of people, whose profiles have similar keywords to yours, so the quality of the matches can vary greatly. We also find it very annoying when receive a posting that looks interesting in the weekly updates, and after clicking on it to learn more, you have to navigate through pages that try to sell you training or other services.  Finding the next button to continue through to the job posting is deliberately designed to be a challenge.  The organizing and tracking tools they offer are great, but they are only usable for your job search activities while you are on Monster, and therefore they are not sufficient for organizing your entire job search.

OEC Ratings of Monster.com:

Cost:  4

• It’s free for job seekers, lots of good tools

Quality of Listings:  1

• Most real job openings do not appear on Monster

Ease of Use:  5

• It is intuitive and easy to use

Friendliness to Mature Workers: 3

• While it offers no special features for mature, experienced workers, it doesn’t have anything that would discourage mature workers from using it, either

Return on Investment: 2

• Although it is free, there are much better ways to spend your job search time

Overall:   3.0 out of 5

Our Final Thoughts on Monster.com:

We whole-heartedly recommend that you post a profile and resume(s) on Monster, especially if you are currently out of work. It will not hurt. You will get weekly job posting updates. The email contacts from recruiters may lead to something. More importantly though, is that you should not make the mistake of spending all your time looking at Monster and all the other large job boards, because while you may think you are looking for work, the likelihood of success with this job search strategy is very small.

Overview:  Craigslist.org is a no-frills site.  Think of it as your local swap meet for jobs.  It can be fun, it is easy to navigate and chock full of job offerings, but just like the swap meet you have to be on your guard for things that are ‘too good to be true, and you have to do the equivalent of walking around the entire market to locate what you are looking for.  Mid to small size companies still rely on it to save recruiting expense.  But, ironically, the site is losing effectiveness as a recruitment source under the weight of its own success. Job seeker traffic has exploded during the current downturn and at the same time, the number of quality job postings has fallen along with the slow economy. Being wide open and accessible to almost everyone, the entry bar is set very low. Every posting generates a flood of responses from unqualified applicants, your resume has to easily and quickly jump out and get noticed by overworked staff trying to do the hiring.  This means you have a lot more competition for fewer jobs and it also means those doing the hiring have to cull through a lot more unqualified applicants to find the winners.

How to Join:  Craigslist.org is free to use – no membership fee.  We like free!  Again, you get what you pay for so be prepared to serve yourself and accept that few of the postings are high-end, permanent positions.  There is also a cost to you in lost time and wasted effort to weed through spurious postings and to back track from prospects that eventually turn out to be dead-ends. 

The Good:  There are lots of jobs posted.  It is very easy to search by location and type of job. You can select your geographic area and further slice it by city or neighborhood.  The postings are separated by job type sorted into around 30 categories.  You want to search in several categories – not just one.  Often the same job title is placed among multiple categories.  For example, Web Developer may be found in internet engineers, software/qa/dba or web/ info design.  Craigslist is very strong for part-time or project-based opportunities (their ‘gigs’ section is loaded with interesting ‘survival’ type jobs).  Because small to mid-size companies tend to rely on Craigslist your strong work experience can give you an easier time being regarded as the ‘big fish’ in their small pond.  The jobs are listed with the most recent postings at the top and older ones as you scroll down.  You want to focus on the recent postings first; the older ones have already been deluged with replies.  The best way to find a job is always to network – you can find lots of activities on Craigslist’s ‘community’ and ‘discussion forum’ sections. Craigslist has lists of classes, social events and volunteer opportunities to help you conduct your job search networking.

The Not So Good:  An uncomfortably high number of the postings are dubious or unreliable.  Craigslist has methods to police and remove bad listings, but there are just too many scammers and too many ways to get around the filters.  Be prepared to wade through a lot of bogus work-at-home listings and companies that are willing to hire you without a job interview, or ones that want too much personal information or those that want YOU to pay for your own training.  Plus, some of these are outright scams – not jobs at all, just lures to trick you out of some cash.   Craigslist postings can be anonymous as well – you won’t always know who the company is.  For these reasons, I do NOT recommend posting your resume on Craigslist. Only send your resume for jobs that have a company name and contact.  From that you can use LinkedIn and other sources to perform your due diligence research to ensure it is legitimate before providing your personal information. 

Ratings: 

Cost:  4

Quality of Listings:  2  

(I give it a 3 for part-time and projects, but only a 1 for permanent jobs.)

Ease of Use:  5

Friendliness to Mature Workers: 3

Return on Investment: 2

Overall:   3.2 out of 5

Final Thoughts:  Craigslist.org does have valid opportunities. Trust your instincts and use your experience when sending queries for jobs – if it feels too good to be true it probably is.  Be aware of the downsides, but take full advantage of those legitimate opportunities where your successful work history makes you shine.  Be patient and diligent; remember that Craigslist postings get inundated with responses so it can take time for the employers to review them.

The Internet is like having the greatest library at your fingertips.  You don’t need a library card and you don’t even have to leave home.  On-line research into job openings is the easiest way to gather a lot of information about companies and career choices.  It is almost too good to be true, and it can be.  There are over 50,000 job related job sites with more being added every day.  A job seeker could spend months on research using the Internet and not be any closer to getting a job as when they started.  Over 95% of job seekers apply for jobs on the Internet, but less than 3% actually land jobs that are posted on the largest websites.  Source: U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

The Internet (Web) is constantly changing and a lot of the information is not up to date.  Job postings posted at company Web sites are only as up to date as the maintenance of the Web site.  That being said job postings are great for research.  You can learn key words, typical salary ranges, and job requirements which can help you to “power up” your resume.  This kind of research can help you clear up any fuzzy logic you have about the kind of job position you want to target.

Targeting is a key concept.  If your attitude is that you just want a little income to supplement your retirement, then you may want to target driving a limo or some other low income, low responsibility type job position.  If on the other hand, you want to use the life skills and your God given talent to make a difference, it will require more research and thinking on your part.

One of the best places to start is at your Church, Synagogue or Mosque.  Is there an active job support on-going at your place of worship or in your faith community?  Do they help place people in jobs with employers?   Think about it.  People that attend these groups are pre-qualified, so to speak, and they can help you determine which job sites are the best based on recent experience.

In the two groups that I lead in Northern California, the members all give thumbs up to Linkedin and Craigslist.  Linkedin is emerging as the “go to place” for researching companies and finding old colleagues to network with.  Craigslist.org is a no-frills site and is used in all kinds of research from used power tools to the number of yard sales in your neighborhood this weekend.  Both sites can be used at no cost for most people.  One of your first tasks is to get your Linkedin profile up to date.  This simple effort is going to help your networking immediately.  You will be surprised about all the former colleagues and friends that you can reconnect with through this simple exercise.

John R. is a good example.  He has not had to look for a job in 30 years.  John started filling out his Linkedin profile and made contact with a former assistant from a job that he had several years ago.  That person replied immediately; glad to hear from John after such a long time.  And knowing John’s skill set, he asked John if he knew anyone that would be a good candidate for a job opening at his current company.  John replied that yes he knew someone.  John himself was interested.  And guess who the hiring manager is?  This general manager is also John’s old assistant.

Real research and the real inside scoop on job openings still comes from first hand contact with a live person who works at a targeted company or knows someone that works at that company.  Linkedin is a great place to research jobs and people working your target market.  www.simplyhired.com is closely affiliated with Linkedin, so both websites are good places to research jobs.

If you are going to post your resume on a job board, be careful not to disclose too much personal information.  Identity theft is a real threat.  Take your home address off and use an email address that is one that you use just for your job search.  Use the power or key words from your research and put them all in your resume.  To make sure the search engines find you put in a paragraph titled “Keywords” and list all of the power words from your research.  If you are still working and there is a chance your current employer could find out that you are planning to leave; use generic names for your company and your name.

www.Indeed.com is another useful site that people in my groups use to target companies and job positions within the persons target geography.  If you know that your will never move and that you are not willing to commute more than 30 minutes; limit your research to this geography.  On the other hand, if you have always wanted to move to another area, this is your opportunity.  Target that geography.  Target that job position.  If your first goal is to determine what job to target try using www.wetfeet.com.  Wetfeet will provide insightful profiles of companies, careers, and industries to guide you toward finding the right career, the right industry, the right company, and the right job for you.

Many sites charge fees to belong and access their services be careful, talk to your networking group to learn the pros and cons from the various web site.  Many sites are targeted to support certain professions, such as www.dice.com for high tech and IT professionals.  Biotech professionals can research at www.biospace.com.  Healthcare workers can research at www.healthcareerweb.com.  Hospitality workers can research at www.hcareers.com.  Research government jobs at www.usajobs.com.  Non-profit jobs can be found on www.idealist.com.

The best place to start using job boards and to get you started on the process is to use the volunteer job boards.  Do something worthwhile as a service to others.  It will help you to clarify your thinking regarding values and purpose while providing a service and learning how to use job boards; go to www.taprootfoundation.org/.   Good luck with your job search and remember that the job boards are best used for research.  Once you start to brainstorm your next job position, refine your research and target the job sites that specialize in your demographic.  The Internet is a great resource; the world’s greatest library is at your fingertips.  Use it wisely to build your job search plan.

By: Ken Castle – May 5, 2009

Overview: While initially launched as a networking board for professionals, LinkedIn is now often cited as the primary on-line source for recruiters to find prospective candidates.  That’s because the service offers powerful search tools that can quickly deliver profile details, geographical search and automatic alerts on new candidates.  Less well-known to job-seekers is the Jobs tab, which provides access to one of the most comprehensive job boards on the Internet.  Enter your search criteria and access relevant positions – some of which are flagged “exclusive” to LinkedIn members – and often get names of recruiters and hiring managers.  Another killer app is the ability to search companies, which accesses LinkedIn profiles of their employees — including key executives, new hires and former employees.  Click on a name and LinkedIn tells you if any of your connections can make an introduction.  The companies search engine also brings up corporate profiles and staffing dynamics such as percentage of male versus female employees.

How to Join: Click on www.linkedin.com. You’ll be given four account options: free, Business ($24.95/month), Business Plus ($49.95/month) and Pro ($499.95/month).   Most job-seekers will find the free version adequate, but power-seekers may want to consider Business or Business Plus.  What these provide is the ability to send InMails (cold-calling emails) and 15 to 25 requests at a time for introductions (versus 5 in the basic plan).  InMail can be a potent asset for directly contacting a hiring manager or recruiter who is unknown to your list of connections.

Your personal LinkedIn profile allows you edit information, add recommendations from past or present colleagues, post updates on your activities, and embed links to your blog and other social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter.  LinkedIn allows you to make and accept invitations, and to access the networks of your primary connections (as long as they haven’t toggled them off on the privacy settings).  Contacts are divided into first, second- and third degrees of separation, and the critical minimum to build your network is around 65 first-degree connections.  At 100, you could easily have an extended network of hundreds of thousands, even more than a million.

The Good: Ease of use and a powerful reach make this the top choice of professionals.  Few job boards can provide this level of detail and the ability to network your way into a company by accessing insiders.  Having a thorough profile, including references and their recommendations, makes this a one-stop shopping experience for recruiters.  And with exclusive job postings, you may get a jump on the hordes that peruse other job boards.   Another great trick to get noticed: You can send blast emails in the form of a question to as many as 200 primary contacts at a time. And you can join LinkedIn discussion groups. These help build your brand on the Internet since your comments come up on Google searches.

The Not So Good: People you don’t know, including recruiters at companies where you are applying, often pitch or coerce you into letting them join your network, where they can fish for information.  So you need to be guarded and include only well-known contacts.  Changes, including any names you remove from your network (like former bosses who laid you off), are broadcast to your entire group, which can cause some embarrassment.  Biggest drawback to the free or basic plan is the inability to send InMails. Also, posting your photo – or not posting it – can send an undesired message.

Ratings:

Cost: 4

Quality of Listings: 5

Ease of Use: 5

Friendly to Mature Workers: 3

Return on Investment: 4

Overall: 4.2 out of 5

Final Thoughts: Whether you are unemployed or employed and looking, LinkedIn is essential to your career.  You will find the most leads and the greatest ability to use personal referrals.  If you are not on LinkedIn, recruiters will rarely consider you for hire. Because there are numerous features, and new ones being added regularly, you may want to buy a how-to book or take an advanced course to maximize your leverage.

How to Join: Click on www.theladders.com.  You’ll be given the option of signing up for free or Basic service, which has minimal features, or Premium service, which costs $30/month or $180/year and allows you to post your resume, get details on job listings and be in a database that is searchable by recruiters.

Overview: TheLadders.com is a membership job board, which bills itself as a white-collar professionals’ job-searching and consulting site, with a focus on positions over $100,000.  Its motto is “Exclusively $100K+ jobs, exclusively $100K+ talent”. Quickly, by going to TheLadders.com website, you can determine if this is a job board that will be valuable to you in your job search process.

The Good: The search agent on The Ladders.com is easy to set up, and it is easy to post your resume. Once you do that, you will get a steady stream of articles, which are written by TheLadders.com staff. Many of them will have a least one or two valuable tips. There is also a free resume critique for members.

The Not So Good: Although you can join for free, the jobs are hidden, unless you purchase a membership package. If you do join, you will find that many of the listings are not exclusive, as claimed in the promotional material, and you can find them on other, free boards. As if this is not enough, there is constant upsell of seminars and other products. The sales material gives you the feeling that if you just purchased this one additional product, that is all you would need to get your next job. The resume services are a particularly onerous purchase — $700 versus $300 to $400 on other job boards.

Ratings:

Cost: 2

Quality of Listings: 3

Ease of Use: 4

Friendliness to Mature Workers: 3

Return on Investment: 2

Overall: 2.8 out of 5

Final Thoughts: The focus on higher-paying positions can make this service valuable if you fall into that category. But if you are going to pay for membership on a job board, you may want to consider other alternatives.