If you’re having a tough time find the right job for you, search these three top-rated job sites for companies that meet your criteria.

If you’re job hunting, you’re probably looking for jobs online. Since online applications give you only a 10% to 15% chance of landing the job, I highly recommend that you spend only 10% to 15% of your time in this pursuit. That means it’s important to spend your time on the right job sites.

Fortunately, Reviews.com, put together a breakdown of the best job sites to use. Their team spent six weeks reviewing the most popular sites for job seekers to find which have fresh, frequent, and relevant postings, as well as effective scraping algorithms that pull in listings from other places on the web. Their research led them to the top contenders, as well as a comprehensive guide to help you determine which sites yield the results you want. Thanks to Reviews.com for providing their findings in this guest post.

The Top Three

Of all the job sites out there today, three stood above the rest.

Glassdoor ranked as the best overall job site. Glassdoor did well not just for its job listings, but also for all the other information it had on companies, particularly the employee reviews. This additional information helps you determine if you actually want to work for an employer and will enjoy the position.

Indeed has quite a few relevant job listings, making it a must for job seekers to check it out. However, the site’s layout is fairly basic and bare bones.

LinkedIn is average as far as job listings are concerned, but it provides a great opportunity to network with other people in your industry. Considering how many companies hire because of referrals, the ease of making connections on LinkedIn is a valuable asset.

Features of the best job sites

Reviews.com used several criteria to evaluate job sites. It cut any sites that didn’t meet a certain minimum in each area, and then ranked the rest in that category. So, what makes a good job site?

First up is the overall usability of the site itself. That means the layout of the site must be consistent from page to page, without buttons everywhere making it hard to figure out what to click and without any confusing messages. The best job sites allow you to plug in the type of job you’re seeking and your area, and then filter the results from there.
The search results themselves are also one of the most important factors in evaluating a job site. If a site doesn’t return the jobs you want, then it’s not going to be very useful for you. It’s about more than just providing accurate results, though. The results also need to be recent. The more new job postings a site has per day, the better, and that’s one reason Glassdoor ranked at the top. It’s also crucial that those postings are legitimate and don’t have dead links.
Effective email alerts are very helpful to job seekers, but there’s a wide range in email quality between different job sites. Some provide alerts that fit what you’re looking for and have new jobs every day. Others send out the same jobs over and over, or send jobs in fields and areas that don’t match what you want.
Then of course, there’s the overall quality of each site’s job postings. A job site can have hundreds of new postings per day, but it doesn’t mean a thing if every post is spam or a dead link. This is also where job sites have the most difficult time, as even the best job sites have their share of low-quality listings. This is one area where Glassdoor and Indeed ranked at the top of the pack.

The usefulness of job sites

It’s important to remember that job sites are only one tool to use when looking for work. The reality is that far more hires are made because of referrals than through online job applications. While you may apply for jobs online, you should be spending most of your search time using the information in job postings to find out which companies are looking for people and in what time frame.

If you see a job you like, don’t stop at applying for it online. Look for networking opportunities with people in that company. This is where LinkedIn can help you make those connections and get your foot in the door. When you know that a company is hiring, reach out so you’re not just one of the many applications that it’s receiving.

In summary

No single job site should form the entirety of your job search, but the top three sites can all help you in different ways:

Indeed is by far the most comprehensive, so you’ll find the most jobs there.
Glassdoor is also great for job postings, but even more so for finding out more about working at specific companies.
LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to make connections with people at companies that are hiring to give yourself a chance at a referral.

If you haven’t been able to find and land the job you really want, contact me right away. We’ll talk about how to remove the obstacles you face so that you can move ahead with your career.

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