How to Find Jobs Using Job Aggregators

Job aggregators collect job postings from thousands of sites for you to search. They are the true “job search engines” of the Internet, and one of them is quite large — the largest collections of job postings on the Internet.

As a result, on an aggregator site, you can search through jobs you would have never found on your own because you would have never found the source without spending quite a bit of time researching online and off.

What Is a “Job Aggregator”?

Aggregators collect job postings from other sites and store them in one very large database to be searched by job seekers. Think of them as narrowly-focused search engines — Google (or Bing) for jobs, only for jobs.

They show you jobs which were posted on employer websites, association websites, and newspaper classifieds. They also often include sites that may surprise you , from well-known job boards to many other job sites, large and small.

Postings from Craigslist have been excluded (Craigslist’s choice), but many other sites are included — many more than you could find and search on your own, even if you had the time to look for them.

[MORE: Using Craigslist to Find a Job.]

Why Use Job Aggregators?

Many people consider job aggregators to be more useful than one of the big job boards. Here are three reasons:

1. More comprehensive!

   Because they draw jobs from many, many other sources in addition to Monster (and you don’t have to plow through all of the Monster advertising to get to the search results or the job descriptions).

2. Time saving!

   Aggregators usually offer job seekers the ability to search through the jobs posted on websites you might not find.

3. Hidden treasures!

   You will probably discover employers that are new to you and, certainly, you will find other job sources you didn’t know about – associations, in particular, plus “niche” job boards.

If they are just search engines, why and how are they better than, for example, Google?

Because of their focus on jobs – only jobs – they have additional functionality that makes them much easier to use for a job search. Want search results sorted by employer? By posting date? By full-time vs. part-time vs. contract? Posted by employers or recruiters?

Because they have access to information, because they accept automated “feeds,” that may not ever be available on a search engine or may become available at some later point in time.

Because all they have is job postings, the good ones will only return search results that are jobs.

They also have the typical job site functions, like saving and e-mailing search results to the job seekers.

[MORE: Using Indeed to Find a Job.]

How Do Job Aggregators Help Job Seekers?

Hidden Job Postings

This may well be another “hidden job market,” but this secret job market is full of job postings. Aggregators pull job postings from small job sites, like associations you would never know about (unless you used Job-Hunt’s Association Directory).

And aggregators pull jobs directly FROM EMPLOYERS‘ websites – employers that may be unknown to you or that you would not have the time (or take the time) to track down and check out the website, if you did know about them.

Snap Shot of Local Job Market Activity

Job aggregators provide a one-stop-shopping snapshot of the job market at any given point in time. When someone has a question about whether jobs in a particular field are available in a specific location, the first place I check is an aggregator site. The gross number of jobs listed is an indicator of the popularity and availability of that kind of job in that place.

Who Are the Biggest Aggregators?

Several types of aggregators are available now.

1. Indeed.com

Indeed usually has the greatest number of results, and Indeed allows search results to be sorted by employer, job title, and location (left column of the search results). Indeed provides job aggregation in many countries, not just the USA.

Post your resume at Indeed Resume to be found by employers and recruiters, but protect your privacy (and your job if you have one). You can store a resume to use when for applying for jobs. That resume is also available to be searched by employers. And, of course, employers can post jobs directly on Indeed.

2. LinkUp.com

LinkUp is much smaller than Indeed, but it may be the bests option. LinkUp has focused in one source of job postings — it only aggregates jobs which from employer websites. It has millions of jobs, but should have fewer scam jobs available.

Keep your guard up, as usual, but see only job postings directly from employer websites on LinkUp. Understand that sometimes scammers do set up websites that appear legitimate..

Next: Tapping the Hidden Job Market – more ways to find jobs.

About the author…

Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. A veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a recent Visiting Scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Susan is a two-time layoff “graduate” who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. Since 1998, Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt.org. Follow Susan on Twitter at @jobhuntorg and on Facebook, LinkedIn.
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