What is a Job Search Engine?

A Job Search Engine is an online search engine that helps you find career opportunities. It’s like Google, but only for jobs. Funny enough, Google has their own Job Search Engine, but more on your options later. You can use Job Search Engine as a job seeker or as an employer looking for the right candidate.

Job Seekers

Your search can include keyword such as location, education level, experience level, industry, company, salary, and much more.

Let’s say you’ve always dreamed of working in New York City. You love the fast-paced, dynamic nature of the city and you want to work with a view of the Hudson River. Simply use one of the many Job Search Engine options below and type New York City into the search bar. Suddenly, your screen will be filled with hundreds of career opportunities available in the Big Apple. Narrow down to your experience level and salary range and you may just find yourself packing your bags for your big move.

While it’s on you to ultimately land the job, Job Search Engines will give you all the tools necessary to fill your funnel with job leads.

Employers

Job Search Engines are not only for job seekers. In fact, most of their revenue is generated from employers. Employers pay for access to all of the available candidates because it’s worth it for them to find the right person for the job.

As an employer, you’re limited by time and reach. You don’t have enough time in the day to get all your work done, let alone find more employees to help your company. When the need for more help does arise, you have to be able to fill it in a timely manner or risk missing opportunities. Additionally, you have to fill it with the right person that benefits your company, or else the entire process was a waste of time.

Job Search Engines help employers save time by delivering a qualified list of potential candidates for their position with minimal assistance. All the employer has to provide is a job description. Instead of taking up valuable company time and resources on your hiring search, now you can simply outsource this task to your favorite Job Search Engine. You might even be surprised to find out that the Job Search Engine is better at this process than your previous methods.

Employers who use Job Search Engines to fill positions also benefit from vastly extended reach. Whereas before, you may have posted your job at the local café, networking event, or college campuses, now your pool of candidates can include the entire world. Who knows, you may just end up filling your position with a candidate from thousands of miles away who always wanted to work in your particular industry given the opportunity.

Pro tip: you can post on multiple Job Search Engines to even further expand your reach!

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How do they work?

Job Search Engines typically operate in two ways. The first, most common way, is through employer job postings on their particular site. Job Search Engines use their candidate pool and success metrics to market their services and bring more postings and candidates to their site. For employers, they have you create a profile, provide job descriptions, and specify your budget. For job seekers, they have you create a profile, upload a resume, and provide cover letters.

The second way in which Job Search Engines work is through content aggregation. Job Search Engines such as Google and Indeed will scan the entire internet to show job postings most relevant to you. With these, you can also fine tune your search with location, experience, salary, and more.

Regardless of your Job Search Engine choice, most have the ability to apply directly through their site. Once you’ve submitted your application to the listed position, each Job Search Engine uses an algorithm to determine if your skills and experiences match the job. It does this by matching keywords inside your profile, resume, and cover letter to the job description. If you’re determined to be a close match, it will forward your application on to the employer. If you’re not, it is possible the employer will never see your application. Don’t worry, we’ll equip you with some tools to navigate this process and move your application beyond the robot gatekeepers.

Do they work?

If you’re wondering if Job Search Engines will help you find your next job or employee, let’s discuss some success metrics.

Let’s take ZipRecruiter for example as it’s one of the most well-known Job Search Engines on the market. In fact, it recently went public at a valuation $2.8 billion.

As of 2021, ZipRecruiter boasts:

  • 25 million monthly active users
  • 9 million jobs
  • 120 million job seekers served
  • 40 million email subscribers
  • 1.8 million employer users
  • 430 million job applications

These metrics are downright astounding, especially considering ZipRecruiter only makes up about 8% of the recruitment market. Clearly, Job Search Engines provide tons of job opportunities and candidates for your position. We’ll recommend a few for you to try out below, but first let’s go over some tips.

Tips and Tricks for Job Seekers on Job Search Engines

Some things you should keep in mind when using a Job Search Engine for your job search include:

  • Let your personality shine.
    • One downside of Job Search Engines is that applications to open positions have soared. This means hiring managers are looking at hundreds of potential candidates for each role. If you can make yourself stand out and appear to fit their culture, you will have more success.
    • The cover letter is the easiest place to do this as you have more room to write and provide context for your career journey. Remember to keep it relevant to the position, company, and industry you are applying for.
  • Do you research
    • You need to read about the company you’re applying for and understand how their business works. Employers don’t need you to be an expert on their company, but they do want to see a demonstrated interest.
  • Tailor your Resume / Cover Letter to the Job Description
    • Sadly, most job seekers send the same resume to every job they apply for. Similarly, they may only change the company name and role in their cover letter. This is not enough in today’s competitive market.
    • As you now know, Job Search Engines and employers use algorithms to sort and filter applications for their job postings. As a result, it is incredibly important to tailor all aspects of your application to the job description. Use your creativity to highlight your skills and experiences that most closely match the job description.
      • A great tool to help you with this process is called ResyMatch.io. It will scan your resume and compare it to the provided job description to tell you how well you match. The better your score, the more likely your application will make it to the hiring manager.
    • You also need to tailor your cover letters to the job description for the same reasons. Take your time and tie your experiences back to the company’s needs.
  • Follow Up
    • In today’s world, it’s easy to find out who the hiring manager using tools such as LinkedIn. Use this information to reach out to them! This will demonstrate your interest and humanize your application.
    • Let the hiring manager know how interested and enthusiastic you are for the role. You can mention a mutual connection or info from their profile to establish rapport.
    • Remember to thank them for taking the time to review your application whether you get the job or not.

List of Top Job Search Engines

Now let’s go over several Job Search Engines you can use to find your next career move. As a job seeker, these sites are all free to use. As an employer, you will likely be charged some type of fee to post your jobs and gain access to each Job Search Engine’s recruitment tools.

#1 ZipRecruiter

  • Free for Job Seekers
  • Free Trial, Subscription, and Pay-for-Performance plans for Employers
  • Over 9 million jobs to choose from
  • Over 10 million candidate impressions per week
  • Best Job Search Engine for U.S. job seekers

As we mentioned earlier, ZipRecruiter is one of the best Job Search Engines on the market today. For employers, they provide artificial intelligence to analyze applications, access to over 10 million candidates per week, data-driven hiring strategies to maximize reach for your desired spend, and the option to use a subscription or pay-for performance plan. For job seekers, they provide free access to over 9 million jobs, the ability to apply with 1-tap, and a mobile app for access to their job postings on-the-go. Not sure of what you want to do or where you want to do it? ZipRecruiter will show you trending job titles, job types, categories, cities, and companies to choose from.

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#2 Indeed

  • Free for Job Seekers
  • Free posts and sponsored posts starting at $5/day for Employers
  • 10 jobs added per second
  • 250 million monthly visitors
  • Best Job Search Engine for all job seekers

Indeed is another great choice when it comes to Job Search Engines, though they operate a bit differently than ZipRecruiter. Indeed aggregates job postings from thousands of websites and generates revenue by offering sponsored job postings and premium features. Indeed’s job seeker offerings include a well-written career guide, resume help, and access to job postings from all across the web, including employer’s sites. Indeed’s Employer offerings include sponsored job postings, IndeedIQ for ad budget optimization, ability to accept applications from any device, and premium company pages for improved branding and analytics.

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#3 LinkedIn

  • Free for Job Seekers and Employers, with premium features available
  • Message Recruiters and Talent directly
  • Connect with coworkers and network
  • Best Job Search Engine for social job seekers

Linked is a social media platform that also acts as a powerful Job Search Engine. As job seekers and employers, you can create profiles and connect with others for the purpose of learning or extending your network. Speaking of learning, LinkedIn also offers a comprehensive eLearning platform to beef up your skills and make your profile more attractive to prospective employers. With LinkedIn, you can also search jobs based on location, experience level, salary, and more to narrow your search. On top of that, if you have a detailed profile, LinkedIn makes applying incredibly easy through their EasyApply feature. Simply make a few clicks and you’ve applied to your next job.

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#4 Glassdoor

  • Free with content contribution (salary, review, etc.)
  • Insightful reviews of companies and specific roles
  • Helpful salary information by position
  • Free, Standard, and Select plans for Employers
  • Best Job Search Engine for job seekers who have landed an interview

Glassdoor is another useful Job Search Engine you can leverage in your job or hiring search. The beauty of Glassdoor is that, due to anonymity, you can see what former employees actually think about the company you’re looking at. You can see what they considered pros and cons of working there, often providing crucial information to take with you once you’ve landed an interview. Another super useful feature of Glassdoor is the detailed salary information the source from former and current employees. Now, when an employer asks you what your expected salary is, you can answer with confidence. For employers, Glassdoor offers you the ability to analyze your reviews for keywords and brand sentiment, compare your company profile against competitors, receive candidate targeting insights, and much more.

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#5 Monster

  • Free for Job Seekers
  • Premium Resume, LinkedIn, and Cover Letter help available
  • Free trial for Employers
  • Best Job Search Engine for part-time job seekers

Monster is yet another great option for job seekers and employers. It has been around for more than 25 years and has the userbase to prove it. Approximately 8,000 job searches are performed on Monster every single minute. Monster operates similarly to Indeed in that it aggregates job postings; and while it has less search filters and postings, it is free to use.

Monster lets you search with all the standard filters we’ve described except for experience level and salary, so you’ll have to do your own research for those. However, you can use Monster for a wide variety of work styles, such as freSummer Jobs For Highschool Students (High Paying)elance, temporary contract, part-time, and full time positions. Once you’ve created your profile, applying to jobs takes less than a minute. Make sure to sign up for email alerts so you can be notified of new job postings relevant to your profile!

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#6 The Ladders

  • Subscriptions starting at $13/month
  • Guaranteed $100K minimum salaries
  • Highly desirable employer partners
  • Best job search engine for experienced job seekers

The Ladders is a uniquely fantastic job search engine. It sorts through all job postings and only shows those that pay at least $100,000. The website acts as a job search engine and a blog, offering advice on topics from Interview Tips, Personal Finance, and Health. The Ladders also provides experts to review your resume and advise you on interview questions.

The Ladders has job postings from companies such as Wells Fargo, Airbnb, and NBC, with locations from NYC to Lubbock. Due to The Ladder’s quality offerings and guaranteed $100K minimum salary options, the site is subscription-based. It offers a range of subscriptions, from month-to-month to annual, with prices ranging from $30 to $13 per month. Subscriptions unlock all job postings, jobs selected for you, elevated status on recruiter lists, and more.

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Conclusion

Job Search Engines are incredibly helpful tools for both job seekers and employers. As a job seeker, Job Search Engines provide you near endless job opportunities, with the ability to target the jobs with the key characteristics you desire. As an employer, Job Search Engines save you valuable company time and resources by qualifying candidates before you ever see their application. While Job Search Engines have made the job search process much easier, they have also increased competition making it more important than ever to stand out from the crowd.