The Best and Worst Places to Look for Employment Online

There are several major players among the big job sites online. Three of the biggest are Monster.com, Career builder and Yahoo Jobs. There are also the government employment websites that are run by each individual state. On those websites they often link to outside websites that are more localized.

Three other major players in the employment website scramble are indeed.com, jobsidic.com and Craigslist. Both indeed and jobsidic scrape job listings from other job websites. They act like a one stop shopping market for jobs. Craigslist on the other hand is a mixture of local businesses trying to snag the internet savvy job hunter and the scam artists just trying to harvest email addresses.

I have first hand experience with the Craigslist harvesters. I once wrote a reply to a job ad on there simply asking for more information on where they were located. Twenty four hours later I got a suspious email thanking me for my resume' and asking me to fill out their online application. Their website stated they were a big investment company that needed help in their New Jersey offices. The problem is that their Craiglist ad was running on the west coast and so was I. So I Googled their company name and came up with nothing on their company name but I did find out that one scam artist works the same way. How it works is that they write a very vague employment ad. They get people to apply. Sometime during the application process they ask for your social security number (which unfortunately is standard for legitimate companies to ask for) and now they have your identity. One scammer managed to get credit card numbers as well, but with your social security number they can find out those credit card number by doing a credit check. So if you look for work on Craigslist - it is employee beware.

So besides the big job websites, where else do you look? You could try the individual company websites that are in your town or city. Most companies have their own websites now and list job openings on them. Major hospitals often have large data banks that list all their job openings and portals that you have to register with in order to see them.

Another option is to look at specialized job boards. They are job websites that cater to just one type of employment. For example prosewingjobs.com is a website that lists only sewing jobs for tailors, clothing designers, embroiderers and others in the field of sewing. Not only does the website list job openings, they also have listings for people looking for work in professional sewing.

Job hunting on-line does not have to be hard if you know where to look, you just have to be creative in your search.