This question is open to all, but I’m especially hoping to hear from engineers. Would/have you pay to join a job board? I have had no success with Monster, and Flip Dog is too cumbersome. Other job websites have been just as (seemingly) useless.
Jogul wants $14.95/month or $49.95 a year (saving 70%). Sounds like a bargain, but is it just a high-staked gamble? Would I be throwing my money away?
All thoughts welcome, but do some SDopers have any personal experiences to share? To help me decide, please tell me your occupation in your reply…because it might be better for someone in nursing or IT engineers, as exmaples, vs. other vocations.
Not exactly what you are looking for but when I was job hunting I used a subscription based career periodical, which listed job opportunities from all across Canada.
They did have quite a few IT jobs listed that I did not see anywhere else, and even though none of the resumes I sent out resulted in an interview I still consider it a worthwhile investment.
The above statement says it all. It doesn’t sit right with me to pay for the right to apply for a job, and this confirms my suspicions and fears. - Jinx
I haven’t used them, but it strikes me as a Very Bad Idea. Very bad. The potential for ripoff is so great that it’s hard to believe a legitimate source would ask for a fee.
Absolutely not. In all likelihood they are just collecting advertisements that you could get elsewhere for free. I recently finished a job search and helped my husband with one. There are all kinds of parasites out there very eager to collect a few bucks from frustrated job hunters. Here’s what we did to land jobs within six months:
Go ahead and use monster, flipdog, etc. when you have nothing else to do. I set up automatic searches so I didn’t have to wade through their stuff.
Find out what your best local source is. Our local paper (the San Diego Union Tribune) runs its own job site and that’s where I got all my real leads.
Check out the websites of companies you are interested in. Don’t just dump your resume on them–apply for specific jobs they have listed.
Find out what your local professional organizations are. If you are going to pay to join anything, it would be much better to make specific local contacts. Here in San Diego there is also a publication called the San Diego Business Journal which puts out periodic lists of companies which were very useful to us in locating local places that might be hiring.
Try temporary services. This is more of a long shot, but may work better in engineering than it did for us. There are probably local and national companies that specialize in providing specific types of technical personnel. Some of them also have services for placing people in permanent positions. The downside is that competition is fierce right now and they are all trying to lure job hunters by dangling positions in front of them that somehow never seem to materialize. (If you’ve spent any time on the big job sites, you’ve already seen these.) The upside is that they are free. Make sure you go to see someone there is person–don’t just apply to their service online. And keep bugging your representative once you are signed up.
