About six months ago I went through each
of the job sites that list jobs that I knew of and collected a bit of
information about each. I was
specifically looking for GIS jobs in the Bay Area but I think the list is a
good one. I wanted to do more with the
list but I recently got a job and my research on this subject has slowed. However, I am happy to share it with you.
I look for resources—websites mostly but
also email lists and personal contacts—that provide me with a lead on how to
get a job. For instance there are three
websites in particular that I spend a lot of time looking at and learning about
and they are the ones I have used the most.
I have been calling these sites integrators: Craigslist, Monster and
Career Builder. This group I call the aggregators
because they really only aggregate job listings. I suggest looking only at the top ten in this
list because the ones at the bottom are likely just fakes.
The information I collected for each
site is broad. I identified where I
learned about the resource and with what it is affiliated. This is important for aggregating those that
seem to be disassociated. For instance
Beyond is an easy example but there are several that don’t have an easy
description. Also, some websites are
just dummies that are only the last step in a set of emailed links. I tried to identify what the site says. This is simply an extension of what I have
been doing already. Many markers, like a
log in and a search filed are common but every site has something
different. To continue with this process
I then used the search field and described what it did. Sometimes the websites I am looking at don’t
have this option at first but if you look hard enough it is usually there. I think that there is one site that didn’t.
Finally, I have been using two sites, Website
Informer and Alexa, to figure out each sites ranking and ownership. The list has 36 aggregators and one might
note that every entry in the list below is ranked based upon the Alexa website. This tactic has been invaluable in
identifying which sites are even worth looking at. I went each entry and made a simple
description
186: Rank Indeed.com is similar to Bright but the site is ranked 187 meaning
it is possibly the best site available.
It has grown considerably in popularity over the last few years. It says it has 500,000 job listings and SF
GIS produced 135 jobs—many of which I had seen or had applied for. There is
also an especially useful review element on this site.
762: Rank Glassdoor.com was surprisingly popular. It is in my email alerts from Beyond. It trolls websites to list about 100,000 jobs
of which 3500 of which are in the Bay Area and about 80 are in SF. Most of the jobs are located on the site,
which has a lot to offer such as membership and browsing in addition to
worthwhile advice on interviews and statistics.
I found that it is comparable to Careerbuilder
1922: Rank Simplyhired.com is a weaker version of Indeed but is still
worth tracking as it is ranked well. It
has a way to post a resume and/or a job as well as a list of trending jobs and
a set of categories. The site says it
has 1.5 million jobs and searching for SF GIS returns 342. Each listing identifies the primary poster.
4003: Rank Dice.com is an older tech oriented site and has maintained a
better position than Beyond or Bright.
The number of jobs is not huge but the number is actually big when one
considers that the site only lists tech jobs.
Paring the number of jobs down to GIS and SF worked well.
5657: Rank. Beyond.com started showing up in my email somehow. There are about 12 sites associated with this
one via the Career network and the profiles are all the same. While this primary site is the only one worth
anything, I did have to shut off the alert.
This site has a lot of jobs on it many of which are familiar.
5930: Rank. Bright.com is comparable to Beyond and I am considering joining
it. It may not necessarily have many
results for GIS in SF but it does have a lot of jobs.
6148: Rank Governmentjobs.com has a pretty straight forward name with
around 8000 job listings but SF GIS returns only one. There are categories on the bottom of the
page and Alexa shows the site changes rank from 6000 to 12000. There is the possibility for a log in.
10801: Rank. Bullhornreach.com uses the leading social networks to provide its
offerings and seems to be for recruiters and employers. There is a way to search for jobs but you
can’t search by location and there aren’t a lot of GIS jobs. Its rank and position makes it worth watching
though it did dip when Glassdoor jumped.
11582: Rank. Action Without Borders or idealist.org is a non-profit/volunteer
oriented site with only a few job listings that is more oriented towards
networking. I have found that it is
really good for promoting my own content and I don’t have to be a member to
search for jobs or organizations.
25459: Rank JobsRadar.com says that there are 20,000 listings on the site for
the Bay Area. I found that searching for SF GIS returned around 50 jobs. However, all of the listings are from the other
sites documented in this list. It’s Alexa
ranking seems pretty high because it is low quality. The comparison shows that it is on par with
Dice and Beyond. It did have a drop that
coincided with Beyond’s.
35974: Rank. Americasjobexchange.com is not a good site in my own
estimation. There were only about 20
jobs listed for GIS and many were from Indeed or Beyond.
47464: Rank. ARCA24.com doesn’t seem to have a lot of listings and seems to be
an international service. You can post a
resume and search for a job but it is hard to say how many jobs are
available. There were only a few jobs
available for me to review. Its recent
activity is weak.
57454: Rank Postjobfree.com seems to be for both recruiters and candidates
and offers a free job alert and apparently has 25000 jobs. The search button is broken but Placing SF
GIS returns 6 leads. Alexa has ranks
this site as not changing much over the past two years.
62295: Rank Tweetmyjobs.com, from CareerArc, has a lot of jobs but its
subscriptions are all made via Twitter.
The problem that I have with this site is that it doesn’t allow a person
to pick and choose what the streams contain because they depend upon specific
categorizations. The site’s position
tracks the rise of Beyond and Bright but at a much lower level.
118761: Rank iHire.com hives searches off to a group of niche sites. Typing GIS in the field returns a selection
of these sites. This seems inefficient
since it requires that I visit several sites for one categories of job. These sites also misleadingly request
personal data. There are location based
links. For the past two years the site
has barely shown a blip on the radar.
120000: Rank NetTemps.com has a member form as a splash page with a “no thanks”
link. There may be about 20,000 items on
this site but it there isn’t any way to know.
Searching for SF GIS produces 15,000 and both produces 40 and all the
leads are in-house items. Alexa ranked
this site around 120,000 but I think it recently fell out of Alexa’s rankings.
128091: Rank Planetizen.com is an online magazine for planners with blogs,
literature and directories. There is a
membership. There are no more than 75
jobs listed on this site at any one time.
At times the site tops 80,000 at times.
137308: Rank Localhires.com came from a subscription with my college and was
related to nationalcareerfairs.com, which has a login and a search tool. There is no indication that these sites are
related to Localhires.com which has a search tool with 10,000 listings, around
80 of which are SF GIS jobs. These
opportunities returned listings at known sites.
268641: Rank Justjobs.com never produced any leads that I hadn’t found through
other sites. It is related to Internet
Inc, LatPro (a site for Latinos) and Jobs in Geography. None seem to offer a membership.
395044: Rank Jooble-us.com provides SEO for jobs from sites like Indeed or
Monster with advertisements and is generally unpopular. The advanced search returns 1.2 million jobs,
2500 for GIS and 65 for SF GIS. It has
few of its own listings and a lot of repetition.
1142942: Rank Jobserious.com is a spammer site that came unbidden to my
email. There is no immediate way to
search for jobs but it does have a place to give your information. In this and other examples clicking on the
email link shows that I am logged in.
1577377: Rank Jobsvianet.com is a poorly blocked, advertising heavy
site with around 48,000 leads listed in house.
SF GIS produced around 300 results.
This site is slow but the listings are real and worthwhile with a lot of
repetition.
1759153: Rank GetGISJobs.com is a spammer that I had to unsubscribe
from and the way that it was optimized implies that it used a resume from years
ago. The search field for this site
provides poor estimates and leads and returns intermediary sites. The newsletter page doesn’t provide an
opt-out.
