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Do you know how many job boards there are online? What are you thinking? 20… 40...? 100...? There is an organization called “International Association of Employment Web Sites,” and according to them there are more than 40,000 employment sites that serve job seekers, employers, and recruiters worldwide.
That being said, how likely is it for you to search everyone? Pretty unlikely? Well, don’t be so sure. Even though there are 40,000+ job boards out there, Yahoo has done a pretty good job of indexing their content. As such, if you search Yahoo a certain way, you will be able to search most (if not all) of those employment sites.
[NOTE: Some job boards are bogus, so before you "register" or post your resume at a job board you've never heard of, verify that the job board is genuine. See Job-Hunt's Choosing a Job Site and Guide to Avoiding Job Scams articles.]
In doing so, you not only find jobs that your jobseeker competitors might not know about, but you will also discover niche job boards that focus on your particular skillset, plus employers with jobs posted on their own websites..
For example, let’s say that you are an accountant looking for an accounting position. This is how I would look for that job with Yahoo.
- intitle:accountant (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)
At this writing, there are 223,000 results! Not bad and since... what? (My spider sense is telling me that you have no idea what I just did.) Hmm... Let me explain to you what I just did with that search.
- intitle:accountant - Yahoo look for web documents that have accountant in their title
- (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) - Hey, Yahoo, while you're at it, look for the words job or jobs or careers in the title of web documents as well.
- (apply OR submit OR eoe) - Just before you show me anything, check those webpages for the words apply or submit or eoe. Why? Job descriptions typically say "apply for this job" or "submit your resume" or have eoe on it somewhere. (Equal Opportunity Employer)
Just in case the lightbulb is flickering in your mind (but not quite fully lit), here are a few more examples to spark your online curiosity.
I would find an accounting job in Atlanta by adding the area codes for Atlanta:
- (404 OR 678 OR 770 OR 912) intitle:accounting (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)
This is how I would find an accounting job with great benefits:
- "excellent benefits" intitle:accounting (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)
This is how I would find an accounting job where I could work from home:
- (intitle:"work from home" OR intitle:virtual) intitle:accounting (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)
Although I am using Yahoo as the search engine of choice, since their results are being powered by Bing, you can run the same searches there as well. In doing so, you may stumble across additional results. Why? Although the same search technology is powering both websites, they still have different indexes. Sure there will be some overlap, but there will always be some results unique to each engine.
Hmm... for that matter, let's take it a bit deeper and try this search on the meta search engine - Dogpile. (What? What's a "meta search engine"? Oh, that's a search engine that searches other search engines. Can you dig it?)
Hmm... Check out what I found when I used this search string:
- intitle:accounting (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)
Dogpile not only searches Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask at the same time, but it also shows you where the results came from and which results are exclusive to that search engine. Case in point:
- Dogpile points out a job vacancy from Robert Half that was indexed on Bing and Yahoo, but was not listed in Google or Ask and also
- Job posting from Jobs.com that was indexed by Google, but not Yahoo, Bing or Ask.
Very interesting!
By searching on Dogpile, I can not only save time by searching four searchengines at once, but I can also save some time by looking at exclusive results. Cool! At least, I think its cool. 
Look me up and let me know what you think.
Happy Hunting,
Jim Stroud
© Copyright Jim Stroud, 2011. Used with permission.
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About This Author:
Jim Stroud produces The Jim Stroud Show (audio and video), an informative and comedic video series for jobseekers. He also produces The Hidden Job Report, a weekly newsletter revealing unadvertised jobs around the world, and The Recruiters Lounge, an award-winning HR blog. When Jim Stroud is not online, he suffers severe withdrawal pains that can only be soothed with chocolate chip cookies and family time. Follow @jimstroud on Twitter to connect with him in real time.
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