Public Survey of Job Search and Career Sites Completed By US Department of Labor
The US Department of Labor (“DOL”) has just completed an important informational project sure to be very useful to the millions of Americans trying to find a job in these trying times.
On Feburary 2, 2010, the DOL announced the results of its Tools for America’s Job Seekers Challenge, in which public input was invited on a large variety of job hunting websites.
During a two-week period in January, more than 16,000 members of the public registered to vote for these online job search tools and leave comments.
Public reaction was tallied, and top-rated sites in each of 6 categories are now available at www.careeronestop.org/jobseekertools. According to the DOL, these lists are “the culmination of an eight-week effort to offer members of the public an opportunity to weigh in on their favorite career sites and to provide the sites themselves with a chance to raise awareness about the tools they offer.”
The sites are organized into the following categories, sure to be very useful for anyone trying to use the Internet to find a job:
- General Job Boards, Listing Sites, and Aggregators
- Niche Job Boards
- Career Planning Tools
- Career Exploration Tools
- Social Media Job Search
- Other Job Matching and Career Advancement Tools
It is important for job seekers to note that there is much more in these lists than just sites that are the Internet equivalent of newspaper classified “help-wanted-ads.” Such sites, which basically provide access to vast quantities of job vacancies, are covered by the first two categories.
The other four categories of sites provide an amazing array of useful resources to help guide and organize a job search and career change. They can be very useful in trying to tap the hidden job market — the many job vacancies and opportunities, even in a slow economy, that never get publicly advertised.
