Finding a Job on the Internet

With the penetration of broadband to every corner of the world, Internet has brought the world to your home. If you have a problem, a solution must be lying somewhere in the wild world of cyberspace. All you require is the skills to find the exact location of the solution to your problem.

Similarly, finding a job on the Internet is not a tough ask. But you must be knowledgeable about basics of Internet, especially the Search Engine. The next few paragraphs will try to educate you on how to find a job on the Internet.

Start out with a search engine such as Google or MSN. The keywords you use for your job search are paramount. For instance, if you are looking for a job title of “web designer”, in addition to searching for the term “web designer job”, also try related searches, like “website designer job”, “web designer vacancy”, website designing vacancy”, etc. If you are looking for job in a specific location, you may add that location to your search query. For instance, “web designer job Cardiff”, etc. There is no set rule for keyword search. The only thing you must keep in mind is that the popular synonyms of the keywords should also be given a try.

The other indispensable places to search for a job online include the job search engines or Job boards. There are thousands of Job Boards to choose from:  Generalist ones like Fish4jobs.co.uk or careerbuilder.com, specialist ones such as Careerengineer.co.uk and simplymarketingjobs.co.uk or regional sites such as Jobstoday.co.uk.  Hundreds and thousands of prospective employers and recruitment agencies post their requirements on these sites.  Our general advise is to choose a few job board sites from a selection of generalist, niche and regional, ensuring that they have a good selection of the vacancies you are looking for.

The best thing about job search engines is that they’ll throw up job results, unlike Google or MSN, which make it virtually impossible to scan through all the results. Job Search engines offer you two kinds of searches:

1. The common keyword/keyphrase search and
2. The option to refine your search (Advanced Search) by job location, job profile, experience, annual salary, company type, and job freshness. There is another option to search for job in a career field, like marketing, finance, IT, Sales, etc. Direct links provided for location search should always be explored if the city/region is a constraint.

The results thrown up by a job search engine will take you to a job description page containing all the particulars concerning that particular opening including how to apply.

Some job search engines also allow you to set up alerts so that whenever a job matching your skills is posted on the site, you get an immediate email alert about it. For this facility, you need to register on the job search engine (mostly free!) and make your profile indicating your skills and type of job you are looking for.  Usually when you do this, you also “allow” your profile to be seen by recruiters.  Employers and Recruitment Agencies can pro-actively search most of the job board sites for CV’s, by using the keyword search facility, they will be able to find your CV and contact you direct. Although recruiters are experienced at using a variety of job titles to search as keywords, you can make it further foolproof by ensuring that all the keywords relevant to the role you are looking for and contact details are included when you create your personal profile.

There has been an upsurge in the use of social networking sites to find employment within the last 12 months.  Many employers and recruitment agencies now have their own jobs pages on networking sites such as facebook.com and linkedin.com.  Recruiters are also pro-actively searching and asking for referrals for specific vacancies they currently have both on networking and forum sites.  As social networking becomes ever more popular, it is always a good idea to ensure that any information you put on your personal networking account is information you would not mind a potential employer knowing about you.

Finally, there is of course, the official websites of the companies and organizations, over 70% of companies now have Jobs/Careers sections.  If you have specific companies or organizations in mind for which you would love to work for, try visiting their official websites direct and follow their online recruitment process.