Job Search on Steroids – Flex your Job Search Muscles

“Are you tired of sand being kicked in your face? I promise you new muscles in days!” – Charles Atlas

Is your job search feeling a little like the 90 pound weakling? Are you not getting the results that you expected? Are you just not finding the jobs that are right for you? Well I don’t know if this post will solve all of your problems (and I can’t make the same promises as Charles Atlas), but it will certainly show you how to leverage the strength of job search engines.

We are all guilty of “going through the motions” on job search sites. But many of the newer sites are incredibly powerful if used correctly. Many of the older sites have caught up (or attempted to catch up) as well. There is definitely truth to “not all job search engines are equal”, but today’s post will hopefully show how to tap into the strength of the “more than equal” search engines.

I will review a few of the top 20 sites, using a sample search and show how to tailor it to your needs. There are also a few additional tools offered by some of these sites (see below). The following paragraphs assume that you have registered with these sites and have signed in (you will see why later).

Careerbuilder.com – One of the standard sites and always on the “top” lists, Careerbuilder has a powerful search engine if you know how to tweak it. Using the main page, enter your keyword (such as Finance or Sales), enter your location (like Los Angeles, CA or New York, NY) and then click “find jobs”. You will now see an expanded screen. Next to your keyword and location is now a “Posted within” field. If you are checking this site every few days, change the value to 3 days and click find jobs. But now you can narrow it more using the next set of criteria. You can click on the Category, Company, City and State to further narrow your search. Last, but not least, you can narrow (or widen) the “found within” field to include the area you are most interested in. Now the important part – SAVE THIS SEARCH. You should have a number of saved searches on the site which are focused so that you can quickly view new jobs when viewing the site. This will save you time and will create a focused approach.
Jobcentral.com – There are a number of ways to leverage the flexibility of this site. Similar to the above, enter your keyword, your location and WAIT! Click the “Add Advanced Fields” in small print below the Keyword box and enter your time period, industry (if you want to narrow the search) and click your preference in “Jobs posted by”. Now click “Add Location” (small print directly below the Location box). You can click this twice if you want to enter up to three locations. Now click Search (right hand side). Now you have a host of options on the left hand side of the screen, using “My Filters”. You can further narrow your search as needed and then SAVE THIS SEARCH using the “My Search” option on the left hand side of the screen. Create and save a few specialized searches so that you can access them quickly. One additional advantage of this site is the additional cross-search engine functionality. On the right hand side of your screen you should see a few additional search engines that have picked up the same criteria, take a look at these as well.
Oodle.com – This this site is a little different in that it searches classifieds rather than job posts by employers or headhunters (first covered in my post “Job Search Aggregation, Your Shortcut to a Job”). Same deal, type in your keyword, you can enter the range and city, state or zip then use the criteria (see Refine on the left hand side) to further filter your search.
SimplyHired.com – Okay, can’t have this type of post without including SimplyHired. Type in your keyword and location and select Search Jobs. Same deal here. Use the Distance drop down (directly below the Keywords box) and then use an assortment of criteria from the left hand side of the page. SAVE YOUR SEARCH and create a few to narrow your search. Don’t forget to sort by Date (see the right hand side of the page) so that you are only looking at the jobs posted since your last review (not including past reviews).
Indeed.com Tools – A slightly different approach on this site. Rather than show the search criteria/filters, I am reviewing the Indeed Tools. This page (using the link at the beginning of this paragraph) lists all of the job search plugins you can use. There are plugins for Firefox, Google (toolbar, desktop and Homepage) and Windows Live. Additionally, there are a number of ways you can get job alerts, look at trends, salary search and even find you jobs on Google Maps. Lastly, there is a free iPhone app for Indeed.com called iJobs.

Good luck with your search.