SEARCHING FOR EMPLOYMENT BY WAY OF THE INTERNET

Employers are increasingly using the Internet as a recruiting tool. With regards to your job search, the Internet allows you to view job vacancies 24 hours a day, seven days a week—communicating with professionals in specialized fields, researching organizations, posting your resume, or even applying online.

GETTING STARTED
In addition to providing the resources available for you to conduct a job search, the Internet allows you to browse occupational titles and learn about your career management.

When searching for a job, regardless of the method, preparation is the key. To make the most of your search you should first be able to identify what your career needs are. This is a process that begins with the self-exploration and discovery phase which includes asking yourself, "What career field am I interested in working in" as well as "What skills do I have to offer an organization?", just to name a few. You want to make sure your career provides a good fit with who you are and what you want. The following list of questions will help you compile information necessary before you begin your search.
Take a few minutes to answer these questions before you go online:
What Do You Want to Do? What Can You Do? (Skills and Occupations)
-What skills do you have, what interests, etc. Identify general occupations that interest you, not specific job titles.
-Think healthcare or sales, not Chief Medical Officer or Director of International Sales

Who Do You Want to Work For? (Industries and Employer Preferences)
-What industry interests you, what type of employer? If you have some specific organizations you want to target, great! Fortune 500, Inc 500, high-tech start-up, family-friendly organizations, etc.

Where Do You Want to Live and Work? (Location, location, location)
-Is there a particular city, state, region, or country?
-California, Southern Maryland, "someplace with sailing, good golf courses, and very little snow."
-There is just too much stuff online. However, you can take the time to research the industry or occupation you are interested in and find out what positions they are hiring for.
What careers are available within and related to my major?
-Formulate a list of possible careers within your field of study, but be careful not to limit yourself solely to these occupations.
-For example, if you are an Education major, Admissions Director and Institutional Researcher are viable career options in addition to teaching.

THE FUTURE WORLD OF WORK:

SEARCHING OCCUPATIONAL INFORMATION
After you have taken a few moments to think about these questions you should have enough information to focus on occupations of interest to you.

Salary, employment outlook, and working conditions are some of the many factors that influence an individual’s career choice. The Internet provides a tremendous amount of such occupational information, available at your fingertips. The following sites are excellent resources you may find useful in obtaining information about today’s labor market with regards to specific occupations.

Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://www.bls.gov/

Information compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor, such as wages by area and occupation, state and county wages, earnings by industry, cost of living, employment and unemployment, projections, foreign labor and more.

Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH OnLine)
http://www.bls.gov/oco/home.htm

Sometimes referred to as the Dictionary of Jobs. The Occupational Outlook Handbook is a nationally recognized source of career information, designed to provide valuable assistance to individuals making decisions about their future work. Revised every two years, the Handbook describes what workers do on the job, working conditions, the training and education needed, earnings, and expected job prospects in a wide range of occupations.

Career OneStop
http://www.acinet.org/acinet

Find wages and employment trends, occupational requirements, state by state labor market conditions, millions of employer contacts nationwide, and the most extensive career resource library online. Also provides links to nearly 5,500 online career resources.

WHERE DO I FIND JOB OPENINGS?

Once you have completed the self-exploration and occupational information-gathering phases, you are now ready to begin the search for a new career. There are thousands of employment databases, both large and small, on the Internet. Monster.com and Hotjobs.yahoo.com are just a few of the many large, international, job search engines. Whereas, AustinJOBS.com and sanantoniojobs.com are examples of smaller, regionally specific, job boards that caters to jobseekers in the vicinity. Many job search services and resources on the Internet, such as the one’s listed above, are free, but some are not.

Employer Websites (both private and public sectors)

May provide current job opportunities, recruitment schedules, and an online application process. For example, Sony’s website, http://www.sony.com/index.php, allows you to view current vacancies by clicking on ―corporate information‖ then, ―Job Postings.‖ You may also follow a link to a Human Resources department to view openings. Chances are if an organization has a website, they will have their current postings listed online.

Job Database Services

These contain listings that allow you to search by criteria such as location, industry, occupation, salary level, and so forth. The following sites provide links to the most frequently utilized job search engines by job seekers:

http://www.careersite.com/
http://www.vault.com/ (Access through Jobs4Cats)
(Provides access to industries, companies, salaries, and jobs.)

Employment Classifieds

If your preferred method for searching jobs is through your local papers classifieds section, you can also view these positions online. Most newspapers now post their classified sections online. For example, the Austin American-Statesman’s Classifieds section is available online at http://www.statesman.com/classifieds/content/classifieds/index.html

To search other local newspaper’s classified sections see:

http://hotjobs.mysanantonio.com/ (San Antonio Express-News)
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase (The Austin Chronicle)
http://www.sanmarcosrecord.com/ (San Marcos Record)
http://herald-zeitung.com/index.lasso? (New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung)
http://www.seguingazette.com/ (Seguin Gazette-Enterprise)

Government Jobs

Positions listed in Federal, State and local (county and city) governments.

http://www.usajobs.gov/ (Federal Job listings)
http://www.govtjobs.com/ (Listing of Government jobs in the public sector)

Agencies listing positions with govtjobs.com include cities, county and state, and other governmental jurisdictions as well as non-profits.

Association Websites
In addition to providing career information and professional development resources, association websites provide up-to-date information relevant to a particular field such as current research projects, leaders of the in-dustry, innovative trends, and upcoming conferences and training workshops. Also, association websites can serve as excellent networking resources.

http://www.asaecenter.org/ (American Society of Association Executives Gateway)
From Accounting to Zoology, this site provides links to trade, professional, or industrial associations)

Usenet Newsgroups

Sometimes called discussion forums, allows you to ask/answer questions of interest to the group, and post job openings, career fair announcements, and resumes. You need to actively access the newsgroup in order to participate and find archival information. To locate newsgroups in your career area, try:

http://www.jobbankusa.com/newsgrou.html

Specialty Sites
These focus on certain geographic regions (local, state, or international), type of work (industry, trade or profit/not-for-profit), or populations (minority, persons with disabilities, or career changers). Job openings may be found at:

On-line newspapers for certain cities, such as San Antonio’s http://hotjobs.mysanantonio.com/

Profession specific job lists, such as the site for accountants at http://www.cpanet.com/

Diversity career sites as http://www.iminorities.com/

JOB LISTINGS, RESUME DATABASES, and RECRUITING SERVICES

AfterCollege: http://www.aftercollege.com/ – Career network specialized in recruitment at the college level.

Career OneStop: http://www.jobbankinfo.org/ – Compiled by U.S. Dept. Labor, operated on state-by-state basis.

Best Jobs USA: http://www.bestjobsusa.com/ – Massive site, huge job database. Post resume, check profiles.

Beyond.com: http://www.beyond.com/ – Various job seeker tools and resources.

Beyond.com Network: http://www.beyond.com/Network – Portal site, comprised of many national, regional and
industry specific sites to serve many different niches.

CareerBuilder: http://www.careerbuilder.com/ – Find new jobs posted daily.

Career.com: http://www.career.com/ – Free job resources.

CareerMag.com: http://www.careermag.com/ – Provides industry specific career channels with a wealth of
information tailored to your career goals.

CareerPath.com: http://www.careerpath.com/ – Career advice, assessment, job search engine.

CollegeRecruiter.com: http://www.collegerecruiter.com/ – Internships and entry-level jobs for college students .

ContractJobHunter: http://www.ceweekly.wa.com/ – Specialized for contractors and consultants in technical disciplines.

EmploymentGuide.com: http://www.employmentguide.com/ – Part-time, full-time, and work-at-home jobs.
Online solution to the print publication of the Employment Guide.

JobBank USA: http://jobs.jobbankusa.com/ – Job seeker tools, career resources (career videos, tests, salary report).

Job-hunt.org: http://www.job-hunt.org/ – Job search, career news/resources (e.g., international & state employment).

National Technical Employment Services: http://www.ntes.com/ – Tailored for technical industries. Log-in required.

NationJob.com: http://www.nationjob.com/ – Different services for job seekers in addition to job search.

NowHiring.com: http://www.nowhiring.com/ – Job search, post resume, and links to other job search engines.

Partnership for Public Service: http://www.ourpublicservice.org/OPS – Non-profit, non partisan organization with helpful tools for your federal job search.

Recruiters On-line Network: http://www.recruitersonline.com/ – Find a recruiter who has the right job for you.

Telecommuting Jobs: http://www.tjobs.com/ – Freelance, telecommuting jobs. Payment required for search, posting.

TopUSAJobs: http://www.topusajobs.com/ – Job search portal site. Review opportunities posted on top career sites.

Top 100 Electronic Recruiters: http://www.interbiznet.com/top100 – Web portal for best Online Recruiting Services.

True Careers: http://www.truecareers.com/ – Tips from other job seekers and career articles/assessments

Yahoo! HotJobs: http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/ – Job search engine and career tools (e.g., job winning resumes).

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