Best Job Sites to Find Your Ideal Career
Gone are the days when you printed out paper copies of your resume and went door to door to businesses you wanted to work for. Now, everything is done online, which can be a tedious and stressful task. Where do you look? How do you decipher which jobs are a good option for you? There are endless job search sites out there, making it easy to get lost in the interwebs and end up making you feel overwhelmed.
With this in mind, we asked our career experts to share the best job sites to find your ideal career.
Besides being the world’s largest professional network with over 433 million members in 200 countries, LinkedIn is also a great place to find a career in your field. You can tailor your job preferences and set up alerts to be emailed new postings on a regular basis or search by job title, keywords or company name.
“Having a good profile that truly matches your resume and what you want to do in life along with good references and endorsements is important,” advises career coach Marla Williams.
Indeed
With over 180 million unique visitors every month from over 60 countries, Indeed is the world’s #1 job site. It has helped millions of people find a job, with over 10 million success stories on their website showcasing this. You can post your resume, search jobs by title, keyword or company and set up email alerts.
“Indeed is one of my favorites,” says career coach Marla J Williams. “Here is why: You can enter various job titles such as cook, planter, or teacher and enter the zip code and Indeed will not only find the job of interest, they will send you updates are they become available in your area. You can search by location, company, salary, experience level, and distance. You can also upload your resume and do a “Easily apply”. This means with just one push of a button and answer 3 quick questions you can apply. Indeed keeps your resume on file and you can update it at any time. ”
Simply Hired
Simply Hired (available in both Canada and the US) allows you to browse local job markets and search through millions of jobs by job title, job skills or company. It also has a salary estimator, to help you compare job offers and get detailed information about salaries for different careers.
“My first advice for a job seeker is to set up an alert on a  job aggregator site, such as Indeed.com, Simply Hired.com or ZipRecruiter.com. Also, set up a job search in LinkedIn,” advises career coach Lynden Kidd.
Glassdoor
Glassdoor offers up some great information about job positions, details about thousands of companies, average annual salaries for different positions and even features a comprehensive interviews section. Through the interview section, you can search for companies and see written ratings on their interview process (broken down by position), the difficulty level of the interview and even see how hard it is to get an interview at the company.
“Glassdoor.ca is a good site because you can glean inside information on not only salary and benefits, but also people names, which you can then contact through LinkedIn as well as information about the culture of the company. You can also learn what interview questions companies are currently using. Often company size, revenue and other information is available. Information is provided for both Canadian and U.S. companies,” says career coach Mary Kruger.
Industry specific job sites
There are also a number of sites that are industry specific, which makes it easier to stay focused and find a job in your field. If you already know exactly what you would like to do and have gotten the training or credentials to apply for specific positions, you can even take it a step further and go directly to company websites to apply. Another option is researching the company and reaching out to inquire about jobs before they are even posted. This kind of initiative is often well-received if done properly and even if there isn’t a job available at the moment, they will likely keep you on file when it does if you make a good impression.
USAJOBS
USAJOBS is the official employment site for the US Federal government and helps ” recruit, retain, and honor a world-class government workforce for the American people.”
Featuring job postings from over 500 agencies and over 300,000 job announcements in 2015, it is a great place to look if you are seeking a career in civil services.
“If you are interested in civil service, USAJOBS is the place to look. Practically every position within the U.S. Federal government can be found there,” says career coach Reginald Jackson Sr.
ClearanceJobs
ClearanceJobs is a security-cleared career network for US citizens that have an active Federal security clearance. Here you can find jobs “requiring various levels of security clearance like top secret, polygraph (and more), in disciplines such as intelligence, geospatial, cyber security, logistics, aerospace, technology, engineering and many more.”
HigherEdJobs
HigherEdJobs is the place to go to find jobs and career information in academia. Institutions provide HigherEdJobs with descriptions of their open positions, which are then posted to their website in order to give them national and international exposure.
“This website is geared more towards those who are wanting careers in the higher education realm. It has the same features as Indeed. You can search by category, location, school, or type. They also send you updates as jobs come available in your area,” says Marla J.
Fitness Jobs
“If you are looking for a career in the health and fitness industry, try Fitness Jobs. A word of advice, most fitness related jobs require a nationally recognized CPR and First Aid certification, so make yourself standout by having that in advance and list it on your resume. You will be surprised how something that won’t take a lot of time to obtain (usually just a few training hours) can help your chances of getting hired,” says career coach Tonya Echols.
For entrepreneurs
“If your ideal career is running your own business or freelance work, don’t forget to utilize services like LinkedIn’s Profinder and Thumbtack. These sites allow you to create your professional profile for potential customers to view, as well as submit proposals to specific requests from people specifically seeking the services you provide,” says Tonya.
Have you got any suggestions for other great job sites? Share them in the comments below.
About the Author Kristen Moran
Kristen is the editor and community manager at Noomii.com and the Noomii Career Blog. Kristen's desire to ask questions and share information with others led her to pursue journalism. While she has worked at various publications, covering everything from municipal politics to local restaurants, it was her love of self-improvement and sharing inspiration with others that made Noomii the perfect fit. Connect with Kristen on Twitter and LinkedIn.