Finding a job through the internet

Finding a job on the internet is a great place to start. Nowadays the Internet seems to be all things to all people - you can buy your pants on it, order beer and even meet the love of your life at the touch of a button. But can it help you find a job?

The last few years have seen a surge in job-related sites. From Stepstone to Top Jobs and Workthing, entrepreneurs are taking advantage of the medium to make money. They do this by saving job-hunters hassle and saving recruiters time and money - advertising in newspapers or magazines costs considerably more than the annual membership subscription to most online 'job centres'. The Internet has therefore become an important tool for graduate recruiters - today 75% of employers use online recruitment methods, 60% use the Internet to advertise specific vacancies and 46% have an online application form.

Of course, the Internet is still not 'properly' regulated and it's not always easy to assess which sites are genuine and which are not. It's hard to find someone to shout at if you turn up for an interview at a company but the job has already gone. Websites don't shout back.
And it's not always easy to tell when a job was first advertised. You may wonder how long it's been there and when the site was last updated.

Another downside of job-hunting on the Internet is that less-reputable recruitment agencies sometimes post non-existent positions on their websites to lure unwitting people into their offices - that job will have mysteriously gone, but they'll have no problem finding you another, less attractive one.

Despite all this, the Internet can be a quick, convenient way to job-hunt and, if you sign up with the right people, jobs could land on your doorstep with very little effort on your part. Reputable online recruitment agencies such as TheBigChoice provide services specifically for graduates. You just log on and input your CV. The numerous graduate recruiter members of the site can search the database for a CV matching their requirements and get in touch. It's as simple as that.

A word of warning: make sure when you sign up with any agency that, if you are giving personal details, the site is secure. No one should be given access to these details without your express permission.

You need to be comfortable using the Internet and applying online, so here are some tips to help you:

• Get as many relevant addresses as possible and keep a note of them.
• Know what you're looking for - trawling through websites can take time. Ask others with experience where to look.
• If you're looking for a specific site, make sure you type in the full, correct address or you will be unsuccessful.
• When applying online, print the form out and fill it in on paper before you complete it on the website.
• As well as locating websites through their addresses, search engines can be useful if you don't know what you're looking for. According to market research conducted by Park, 84% of students find Internet sites using search engines.
• The following are the most useful:
  • www.google.com
    
  • www.yahoo.co.uk
    
  • www.lycos.co.uk
    
  • www.excite.com
    
  • www.altavista.co.uk
    
  • www.go.com
    
  • www.msn.co.uk
    
  • www.ask.co.uk
    
  • www.northernlight.com
    
  • www.ukplus.com
    
  • www.beaucoup.com

But there's more to using a search engine than just typing a word in a box and pressing 'go'. Most search for all the words typed into the search box and have time-saving options that allow you to narrow the search at the start. Here are some useful techniques to help increase the success rate of your online searches:

• Attaching a + means the search engine only looks for words in a particular order eg. if you type 'lake district', all sites with the words 'lake' or 'district' will be found but if you type 'lake+district', only sites with both words in that order will be listed
• Attaching a - will exclude a certain word eg. a search for 'lake-district' would only look for 'lake'
• Search for phrases by adding quotation marks - words enclosed in double quotes will appear together in all return documents exactly as you entered them eg. "finding a graduate job"
• Wild card matching can be specific to particular search engines so you need to check this when searching. But as a general rule, wild card searches will allow you to search for different elements of a word eg. 'grad*' would search for 'graduating', 'graduate', 'gradual' etc.
• Attaching a t: will search for that phrase within a document title eg. 't:graduate jobs' will bring up all documents with 'graduate jobs' in the title
• Attaching a u: will look for that word within the URL address eg. 'u:job' would look for website addresses containing 'job'
• Most search engines are not case sensitive so it doesn't matter if you type in upper or lower case.

Make sure you look at the search tips page on each engine's home page too, as some will have specific search tools. There are millions of websites out there, so these techniques are a good way to refine your search and find the job you want.

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