Local Monster.com-type sites

At the beginning of February I moved to Sarasota, Florida. Then I started looking for web-dev jobs (throughout all of Florida) at all the big websites, including:

- Monster.com
- Dice.com
- HotJobs.com
- CareerBuilder.com
- CraigsList.com

I found plenty of ads for employment whose skills matched mine, and I would send off my resume. In about 40 days I responded to about 40 ads. Not one company got back to me, and only one recruiter called (he found my resume through Dice.com).

At a recent job fair in this area I was told to look at a monster.com-type site called JobFocus.com that serves this area. I found two positions being advertised, sent them both my resume, and two days later got an interview with one of them. A week later I got an offer.

So I was wondering, do you see these types of local sites in your area of the USA, and in your experience do you get more feedback/ offers  than the big sites I listed above?

I ask because in my naïveté I never thought to look for sites like these until I was told about one of them.

Chi Lambda
Monday, March 22, 2004

Career Builder is allied with a lot of newspapers and offers the Monster.com type of website w/ local jobs, but in just about every area instead of tech only. Here in Iowa, there are a lot of area-related job sites that offer services to any local business, again, tech or not. Their commercials say they are effective :p but I've never used them so I can't really say. You might get a little better response from smaller sized companies at places like this though. That's my .01.

tim
Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Smart me didn't notice you listed career builder. Sorry.

tim
Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Here in Michigan the state runs a great job board as part of the Unemployment Agency, called Michigan Works.  I've gotten four jobs using their service.  It's mostly actual employers, rather than recruiters, so the jobs are real, rather than a recruiter hoping that a position will open up for them to fill.  The downside is that it's promoted to a lot of small employers, some of whom are on shaky financial ground (hence the need for four jobs found through the service).  For those of you looking to work in Michigan, it's at http://www.michiganworks.org 

I found it to be a huge life saver when I wanted to leave an employer I was unhappy with.

Clay Dowling
Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Anything like this for Canada? (Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto)

Li-fan Chen
Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Montreal has Jobboom; Canada has Workopolis. There are newsgroups too that may-or-may-not be a waste of time, i.e. tor.jobs.offered, can.jobs.gov, mtl.jobs, etc.

Christopher Wells
Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Check local newspapers and their associated websites - they can have all sorts of useful things, including job ads that aren't just an online copy of what's in the newspaper.

Alternatively they can be a complete waste of time, in which case move to an area with smarter people  ;)

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

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