Chapter 2 — Part

The online job search explosion

Online growing pains

The Internet can be mighty sluggish! As you use the Internet, you’ll come upon many sites that seem to take forever to download onto your computer screen. Far too many Internet sites are built by webmeisters who prefer style over substance. They fill their sites with excessive and complex graphics that make downloading a Web page mighty slow. As the Internet matures, site designers will do a better job of balancing snazzy graphics and content so their Web pages will download much more quickly. Until then, be prepared to often hurry up and wait, and wait, and wait some more for all too many Web pages to appear on your computer screen.

Factor in “Internet overload” and you understand the other cause of slow download times. Simply put, too many people are using the Internet during peak times resulting in busy signals when dialing up the Internet or your online service, slow download times, and frequent disconnections. It has been particularly bad with some online services that advertised aggressively for new users, but lacked the capacity to handle all the calls. Some industry insiders believe the Internet will collapse from its mounting traffic. For both sides of the story, see the October 1996 issue of the magazine PC World, pages 145 to 156.

Exciting as all these new Internet job sources are, they come with some pitfalls and growing pains. For example, not all occupations are treated equally on the net. According to Steve Osserman, co–author of The Guide to Internet Job Searching, in 1996 sixty percent of the job vacancies posted on the Internet were for technical jobs (computer, engineering, science, high technology). These 1996 figures reflect a massive shift from 1994 when 90 percent of the advertised jobs were for technical positions. As time goes by and the technophobia of many professions eases, the number and proportion of nontechnical positions available via the Internet will continue to grow.

Today, Richard Bolles, author of What Color is Your Parachute?, estimates that your chances of getting a job via the Internet are just one percent — unless you are in the computer industry where your chances soar to a phenomenal 20 percent. Over the next few years, everybody's chances of finding a job on the Internet will slowly increase as the medium matures.

Unlike jobs advertised in the print media or on job hotlines, many of the jobs posted on Web sites and with newsgroups are already filled by the time you see them. When an employer has to pay to advertise its vacancies, you can be pretty sure that it will pull its job ad when the position is filled. But when an employer can simply place a job ad online for free, or when an Internet job site operator lifts job ads from other media and other career sites, job ads often appear long after somebody has been hired. I’m not making this up. At least one operator of a major job database on the Web has told me that his staff rewrites job ads that appeared in newspapers — and he’s not alone. This practice will continue until the Internet matures and develops into the site for commerce that so many pundits anticipate will happen.

Many Internet job sources are not going to remain free to job seekers. As we near the next millennium, the great legend of the Internet is that it gives away information for free. If the Internet continues to turn into a commercial medium, that generosity will cease. Businesses are not flocking to the Internet out of the goodness of their hearts. They intend to make a profit from their sites. So far, the most lucrative use of Web sites has been to sell advertising on the sites. That’s why so many of the job locations you will visit include ads, often for products completely unrelated to the job hunt. A small, but growing number of job and resume databases on the Web already charge job seekers a fee. If they can make a profit, this practice will spread. Much as we may love the freeness (pun intended) of the Internet, that will not last forever once the lords of commerce put on the squeeze.

Continue with Section 4 from the list below.

This chapter of the Non–Profits & Education Job Finder is divided into five parts. Use the numbered buttons below to navigate within this chapter.

Introduction to the Chapter

The Players in the Online Job Search: Learn all a job seeker actually needs to know to get her online job search started. Get the scoop on the World Wide Web, email, search engines, gopher servers, usenet newsgroups, mailing lists, ftp file transfers, and bulletin board services.

You’re in Section 3 now. Your best option is to continue with Section 4 below. To return to the top of this page, click on the 3 to the left.

Go to the next section, Offline Resources for the Online Job Search: Some great books offer fabulous, very detailed advice on using the Internet and bulletin board services in your job quest. They'll give you specific sites for individual companies. And two of them help you write an effective online resume you can submit directly to employers via the Web.

Great Sites to Launch Your Online Job Search: These are the “gateway” sites, many of which are collections of links to an enormous number of online job databases, resume databases, directories of companies, lists of job hotlines for governments and companies, and sites that offer job hunting advice. You'll be linked directly to these sites and can visit any of them from Job Finders Online.