The secret to a good online job search is to narrow the selection down to the best ones, particularly for non-executive positions. As a hiring manager, this is the order in which I'll post jobs online - it's therefore the order in which you should spend your online job search time:
• The Company Web Site
• Newspaper Online Help Wanted Ads
• Online Job Posting Sites
As a hiring manager, I've asked my Human Resources Department to use many of the large, well known online job sites and I know they can deliver a large number of qualified applicants quickly. So naturally, as a job seeker you should be certain to include these in your online job search, as well as post your resume at a select few.
One thing to bear in mind is that you're going to find a certain amount of redundancy in the jobs you'll find online. Many of the job sites use the same job search engines and thus you'll come across the same job on more than one site. This is simply part of conducting an online job search and one reason why it's so necessary to be organized and keep good records on the jobs for which you've applied.
Remember: as a hiring manager, I will usually disregard applicants that apply twice. If you can't keep track of jobs you apply for, how will you keep track of your work if I hire you? Yep, we hiring managers are tough!
A Word About Web Site Traffic Rankings for Online Job Sites
There are approximately 56 Million active sites on the Web. In order to make your online job search as efficient as possible, you should use the job search sites with the most traffic, as measured by the Alexa-certified Traffic Ranking (if you download the Alexa toolbar from their site, it will show the ranking of every site you visit). This number represents where each site ranks in traffic, out of all those 56 million sites.
The lower the Alexa rating number, the more popular the site. For example, an Alexa rating of 10 means that site is the tenth most visited site on the web. So, a site that ranks at 560,000 (or lower) is in the Top 1% of all sites.
Many of the online job sites will have an Alexa ranking in the millions, which means they are not getting any appreciable traffic. You want to focus your online job search on job sites that rank at least in the top 1% or better. The lower the Alexa rating number, the more popular the site. The ones with the most traffic, of course, will likely have the most job postings. An Alexa rating of 10,000 or lower is particularly outstanding and means that site is getting serious traffic.
Good luck with you job search, whether online or offline!