A comprehensive, robust career site targeted to communications professionals in advertising, marketing, broadcasting, publishing and public relations, Talent Zoo nevertheless also features a wealth of industry content that can be leveraged by anyone in the recruitment industry.

It’s professional - but hip. That’s probably the first thing you’ll notice about Talent Zoo upon visiting its homepage. From the animated, bouncing star in the site’s logo to the cool pictures and relaxed writing style, this is clearly a site created for, well, creatives.

Talent Zoo features a job board for employers to post open positions, and the usual content valuable to‚ recruiters - which companies are hiring what kinds of employees - but there’s quite a bit more to be found here. Employment trends, salary information and guest articles are just three examples of communications industry-specific content that can be found on the site. There are also numerous links off-site to like-minded Internet destinations of value.

One example is the Hiring Revolution blog a Talent Zoo affiliate site which offers “¢‚¬¦advice, information, and insight into recruitment and retention¢‚¬¦” in the advertising and communications industries. It’s a very informal, sometimes raw, site, but it’s also a pretty rare and valuable find in the way that it speaks the recruitment language and tells stories from the trenches while still providing compelling industry information.

That’s just one example of unique content found at Talent Zoo. Job seekers can also find more blogs, Web comics, podcasts, tons of career advice and extensive resume and salary tools to assist in career development. And of course, there are plentiful and nationwide job listings to search through, including a “Rookie Directory” resource in which entry-level job seekers receive special consideration.

Ultimately, Talent Zoo might have a few offbeat quirks, but it also makes for a fairly natural environment for recruiters and job seekers alike.

There’s no doubt that Vault provides a vast amount of useful information for recruiters and job seekers alike. From simple job listings and the ability to post resumes to more complex functionality such as employee surveys, salary research, career forums and much more, Vault is a comprehensive and robust information warehouse.

Vault offers a general job board for employers to post open positions for a fee, a free HR newsletter and‚ employee surveys. Employers can post internships for free to the site. A community section of the site offers a forum where topics are listed and members of the site can interact with others‚ by reading and posting‚ messages. In addition Vault offers a “Buyers Guide”, which offers a comparison of‚ recruiting and HR related products and services.

Vault offers job seekers the full capability to search nationwide job listings and apply online, provided they have registered and have uploaded a resume. Similarly, researching salaries is only available to logged-in members, and many other levels of information can only be accessed with a paid membership.‚ Vault attracts heavy student traffic to it’s site‚ offering a‚ campus marketing program that delivers an online “career library”‚ with guidebooks,‚ company profiles and articles all aimed‚ at helping students launch their careers.

Vault memberships are both fee and free depending on what you want.‚ Vault membership provides “insider” access to employee and salary surveys that are searchable by location, company name, industry type and more. Paid members can also find out interviewing tips, company quality of life rankings, tools to review and evaluate resumes and cover letters and quite a bit more. Without the membership, job seekers can still get a snapshot of company profiles, and can also access a wealth of information, career tips, white papers, etc., but paid membership, however, is the only way to truly open up the Vault.

Whoever thought up the phrase “Information Highway” probably had something like Workforce Management in mind. It’s a thorough, exhaustive site with copious resources for recruitment professionals.

At first glance, it would appear that Workforce Management is primarily a resource for news and little else. And while there is an abundance of news on the site - latest news, top articles, recent blog posts, lead story, more stories, etc. - one doesn’t have to look very far to find more interactive online resources such as job listings, upcoming conferences and webinars, e-newsletters and downloadables and pretty much everything in between.

Take a look, for example, at this portion of the Workforce Management homepage, where “Topic Channels” break archived articles down into quickly-referenced topics on the top left. Or, on the bottom‚ right of this screenshot, notice the “Featured Jobs” box in which dozens of clickable, nationwide HR positions scroll endlessly by, complete with company name and locations. This area clicks through to WorkforceHRJobs - a site exclusively dedicated to HR related jobs. Employers can post HR jobs and request resumes there.

There’s a lot to find and a lot to do on Workforce Management, and recruiters can discover a great deal of information specifically geared toward their interests, often via links labeled “for recruiters” and the like. Site visitors can also subscribe to the printed version of Workforce Management and register for “full access” to the site. It’s a crowded, busy site where a great many links demand attention - but as packed as it is, Workforce Management still doesn’t feel confusing or overwhelming. It’s organized intuitively and leads you to make certain navigational decisions as you delve deeper into the site.

Just make sure you’ve blocked out enough time to do it.

TheLadders is a job site that focuses only on candidates and jobs that are over $100k.‚ Employers that have job openings that pay over $100k are able to take a free fourteen day trial of the site.‚ TheLadders focuses on senior and executive candidates since many of these candidates may not want to post their resume on the more popular mainstream job boards, and those same job boards may not have the level of positions that they are interested in.

As an employer member of the site, you are able to post jobs and search their extensive database.‚ Candidates have to pay to view job postings, which narrows down the chances of your company receiving resumes from under-qualified or unqualified candidates.‚ ‚ A great feature of the site is the ability to see a quick preview of each candidate’s profile on the results page without having to click through multiple pages.‚ You can hover your mouse over the candidate’s name and a small window pops up, giving you the basic information including industry, job title, salary range, summary and more.‚ One catch is that the job posting function will not allow you to post jobs if the salary that you enter is below $100k.‚ 

Using this site to recruit senior and executive level candidates will give you access to the “cream of the crop” candidates who are serious about their careers and their job search.‚ 

Experience is a site that links to colleges around the country and enables recruiters and employers to search resume databases and post jobs.‚ In order to use this site, you have to be linked to a school or schools, meaning that they have given you access to their databases of student and alumni resumes.‚ 

You can search what are called “resume books” for each of the schools you are linked to.‚ Resume books are basically groups of resumes, organized in different ways such as by major or by industry.‚ Whenever you choose a folder, it pulls up a list which includes the name of the student, their GPA, graduation date, and their major.‚ You then have to click on each name to pull up their profile, and on their profile page, you can click to view their resume.‚ You can also email the student directly from their profile page if you are interested in their qualifications.

Another feature of this site is the ability to post jobs for the individual schools you are linked to.‚ These jobs can be accessed through the school’s Career Center, where students can apply and have their resumes sent directly to you.‚ Registering your company with Experience and linking to colleges in your area is a great way to find entry-level candidates.‚ This is also a helpful tool if your company has internships available, since many of the resumes posted are ones of students who have not yet graduated but want to get their foot in the door early.

Jobster is a site designed to connect employers with job seekers. Per their website - they are a “leading innovator in online recruitment technology”. Jobster gives employers many options when using their site - such as posting jobs, searching for candidates, building a talent network, managing email campaigns‚ and promoting their brand.

As with most career websites, their are free and pay plans to choose from. Jobster has a variety of different packages designed to meet most recruiting needs. Jobster has partnerships in place with companies such as‚ Facebook and ZoomInfo to provide a wealth of contacts and additional sourcing data found outside of the Jobster network. Posting jobs gives you the option to pay $25 up front and receive unlimited applicants, or pay nothing upfront, and pay $5 only when a job seeker‚ applies to your posting. There are other ad options and upgrades, such as sending a feed of all your company jobs to be included in their search engine.

The free option lets you create a user profile and search across their network by key words and locations. Each profile can be filled with work history, resumes, personal information, videos‚ and tags.

Here is an example search. I want to find people with sales experience located in Miami, Florida. Please note the arrows in the screenshot. Each profile has what Jobster calls “superstar tags” which are key words a user picks out to best describe themselves. There are ways to refine your search on the right hand side, such as filtering profiles to find only those who are “job hunting”.

An example of a profile I clicked on is here. Alot of profiles have resumes attached to them, and there are ways to reach out to each user by “leaving a note”.‚ Users can get set-up in their system for notifications on notes, candidates, profiles, you name it.

The Software Contractors’ Guild website is a place for “career contractors”, as we call them in this business, to come to post their resumes and credentials for prospective employers.‚ It’s also a great way for recruiters to find highly experienced consultants.‚ 

This site gives recruiters the ability to post open contract software positions and search for contractors numerous ways - by keyword, location, preferred working location, name, et cetera.‚ Another way to search is by using the “Search by Skill Set” function, which breaks down almost every technical skill set that you could ever think of.‚ This website is especially helpful when you are searching for hard-to-find skill sets that aren’t as prevalent on major job boards.‚ 

The screen shot below shows an example of the results that come up while doing a skill set search on SAP FI/CO contractors.‚ Next to each contractor name, the site shows you whether or not the contractor is currently available (if they regularly update their profile), and where they are willing to work.‚ This site is free for employers and recruiters, and the contractors post their contact information in their profile so they can be contacted directly.‚ 

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By now the vast majority of the recruiting industry has taken notice of Craigslist. Craigslist originally was a small website set-up for the San Francisco area as a way for the local community to sell items (before eBay became a household name), find local services‚ and advertise available apartments and houses for rent. Job seekers and Recruiters were not frequenting the site. Now, Craigslist dominates what we call the “classifieds” space with a few other online companies nipping at it’s heals. I will talk about others in future posts.

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Craigslist is a very good alternative to the major job boards such as Monster and Careerbuilder in that there are options for posting positions here, and searching across resumes posted‚ to the site‚ as well. Posting is free in most of the‚ cities, with small fees in some of the major cities including NY, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. More than 1.5 million jobs are posted to the site every month. In terms of traffic, the site gets 8 billion page views per month - so you are guaranteed to have alot of people see your postings. I did a quick search in their resumes section and found 75 “Software Developers” in the San Francisco area. Here is a screen shot of the resume searcing capabilities:

Craigslist has expanded well beyond it’s northern California roots to encompass every major city in the U.S. as well as Canada and many other countries overseas. The site covers 450 cities worldwide.‚ I have heard many success stories from using Craigslist as a strong alternative to other career sites that have forced employers’ hands with huge fees.‚ 

Jobfox is a career site geared towards passive job seekers.‚ Jobfox is a company started by the original founders of Careerbuilder, and is set-up to work specifically with passive candidates by matching open job opportunities to their skill sets and predefined criteria. Job seekers come to the site and set-up a profile with very specific details, put up their resume and get presented with matched career opportunities. Job matches in the Jobfox system are ranked on a 1-10 scale, so users can see what matches up best with their criteria. Job seekers can determine who gets to see their resume with‚ confidentiality features, and determine how to move forward with job opportunities from employers.

The site is beneficial for recruiters in that the majority of users who are on Jobfox are not actively seeking employment, but are willing to look at the “right” opportunity if it matches their criteria. A large percentage of Jobfox users are not on any of the other major job boards such as Monster or Careerbuilder. In addition, if you get a candidate from Jobfox who is a 9/10 match for instance for your open position, you can be sure that the candidate is well qualified especially by skills sets, as Jobfox uses a fairly robust system.

Their is a video online at Jobfox that goes over their service titled “New Approaches to Sourcing Passive Job Seekers“.

Indeed is a search engine exclusively dedicated to jobs. Per their website, Indeed‚ ”gives job seekers free access to millions of employment opportunities from thousands of websites, including all the job listings from major job boards, newspapers, associations and company career pages”.

Indeed represents another option for recruiters‚ to‚ advertise their open positions instead of ponying-up for a package of job slots with say Monster. In fact, if done right, it could be pretty cost-effective too. Indeed offers a performance-based model like “Google” where you only pay when targeted job-seekers click on the ads that are relevant to what they’ve searched for.‚ They claim to get over 4 million unique visitors to the site each month.

So for an example, you could place an ad for a Systems Administrator position based in San Francisco, California with Linux, SNMP and other key skills. You would place the‚ ad on Indeed with a link back to‚ your companies career site or perhaps another location on the web where it is placed, and each time a user finds your job, you are charged per click. See the example screen shot:

There are great benefits to both recruiters and job seekers. Recruiters get a targeted audience for their open‚ positions (based on defined key words, locations and more).‚ Job Seekers find jobs that match their exact search criteria (including key words, locations and more). In addition, Job Seekers can save‚ their searches on the site and have jobs delivered to‚ them by email alerts,‚ RSS feed readers and other means. The RSS feed directly to candidates is great because they simply set-up their search criteria and when a job matches it is sent directly to them without having to revisit the Indeed website.