Programmers! Dice or Monster or where?

[Nifft]

My friends who type too much punctuation, where's the hip, reet place for people like us who are looking for job listings?

Looks like the NY Times is dominated by Citibank -- a nice place I'm sure, but it's just one place.

Dice & Monster seem to have a lot of recruiters... with vague and mysterious job descriptions.

So, where do you look for job listings? Either to dream or to gloat or to actually use.

Thanks, -- N

 

[Merkuri]

I got my current job by sending out cold-contact letters to all businesses in a certain area that matched my criteria for a good employer (which basically meant they made software). My college had given me access to an online database (I forget where) that contained listings for just about every business in America, and you could search for just about anything you wanted. I would automatically compile a list, investigate their website if they had one, and ship out a cold-contact letter with my resume. Most of them never got back to me, but if you send out 10 letters a day you're bound to get a response from someone.

I've been told by a lot of folks in the job-search agency that cold-calling is a better technique than going to websites like Monster, simply because there are so many people going to these online job sites and you would have to be absolutely perfect for the job before you could hope to stand a chance. If you send out cold-contact letters then you may find yourself being the first and only person to apply for a position that just opened up, or that the company didn't realize they needed.

Of course, I also posted up my resume on any and all online job sites I could find. Why limit yourself to one? Post your resume up and search them all.

 

[Umbran]

Personal contacts have been instrumental in finding me jobs. Use your personal network!

To that end, there are professional networking sites like LinkedIn. Unlike the broad-blast of Monster, this one allows you and potential employers to follow chains of people.

From there - recruiters can be very useful. Get in contact with some. A decent recruiter gets played by the employer, so they cost you nothing and may be able to find you a job.

It would also help to know what field you work in. One may look in different places for jobs in different industries.

 

[Nifft]

I'm actually good for personal network and recruiter. I'm just really interested in where people (who are programmers) are looking at job listings (which aren't all just from other recruiters). Basically, I want to see what is in demand, so I know what to feed into my network, and how to market myself... and to see what else is out there, beyond what I can see from here.

My field is financial services.

Thanks, -- N

 

[Hypersmurf]

A decent recruiter gets played by the employer...

You got played, man.

-Hyp.

 

[Arkham]

Craigslist is used quite a bit out here...

 

[der_kluge]

I work in IT. I've had good success with monster.com. I find it's searching features to be about the worst (I think they're trying to improve them, though), but it's still the biggest, most effective job search portal there is.

I've used computerjobs.com - which is obviously specific to the computer industry, but it's also pretty decent.


I don't like Dice.com. Whenever I post my resume on Dice, I always got the shadiest, pushiest "headhunters" (<- not a compliment) - usually lots of really pushy, barely understandable Indian recruiters calling me.

So, stay away from Dice.