11 Helpful Sites for Job Seekers

Use the tools.

Many people think of career sites as websites with job listings, but the job seeker has many more web tools at hand. There are experts dishing out great advice for free, as well as data resources for subjects like unemployment benefits or career trends. Here are 11 such sites you should be using:

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National Employment Law Project

This site can help the long-term unemployed keep track of relevant legislation, particularly concerning unemployment benefits and COBRA subsidies.

Go to NELP

Fistful of Talent

Reading the posts on this blog is like listening to a lunchroom full of HR professionals, hiring managers, and recruiters talk about their likes, dislikes, and strategies. You’ll learn things like how recruiters find candidates online, or the kinds of questions they like, or their own worries about the recruiting process.

Go to Fistful of Talent.

JobBound

The folks behind this career consulting firm were kind enough to share some free advice. Get rock-solid, up-to-date advice on how to write and style your resume and cover letter, and how to handle yourself in an interview.

Go to JobBound.

Brazen Careerist

A necessity not just for the Gen-Y audience it focuses on, this site offers boatloads of insight into how young up-and-comers view and critique the workplace. That’s crucial if you’re going to be interviewed by a twenty something, which will likely happen at some point.

Go to Brazen Careerist.

LinkedIn

It's simple: You should be on here and your profile should look sharp and fresh. Your goal is to make it easy for people to find the very best side of you.

Go to LinkedIn.

Seeking Alpha

This website graciously transcribes public companies’ earnings conference calls. That allows you to brush up on all the crucial, timely details about the public company you really want to work for (or its competitor), giving you the kind of insight that can elevate a cover letter or interview.

Go to Seeking Alpha.

Careers at Alltop

This aggregator of topical RSS feeds puts an army of well-known careers bloggers right in front of you. Career expert Anita Bruzzese might give you a lesson in how to network without hating it. The folks at Careerbuilder’s Work Buzz blog will keep you updated on companies that are hiring.

Go to Alltop.

CareerDiva

Eve Tahmincioglu describes her site as “the thinking man or woman’s career blog.” But even if you’re not much of a thinker, her advice will make you smarter because she has her nose in the news and her eye on solid career wisdom.

Go to CareerDiva.

Facebook

Presumably, you have (or could have) hundreds of Facebook friends all over the country and most of them have listed their various employers in their profiles, or “Info” tabs. If you use an application like those offered by SimplyHired or Indeed, you’ll be able to search for jobs where your friends work and ping them for extra information on the company, or ask for the name of the person who’s hiring so you can contact them directly.

Go to Facebook.

Bureau of Labor Statistics

This site is a bit of a beast, but it’s incredibly useful. To start, hover your mouse over the "Employment" tab on the left and click on “Employment Projections” in the drop-down menu. The most straightforward data is in the tables that start at the middle of the page. Back on the homepage, you’ll see a tab indicating resources for job seekers on the left. Click it.

Go to the BLS.

Indeed's Job Trends

Wondering what kind of positions are growing in demand? You can search any term to see the growth in percentage of posts that include the term. Bonus trend charts: job postings per capita, job market competition, and industry employment trends.

Go to the Job Trends.

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