Today’s career websites allow users to narrow down job searches using many different criteria. Shutterstock
The Internet has a come a long way from a decade ago, when careers websites offered simple job search engines with few options for targeted inquiries. Today’s sites not only allow you to tailor a search by criteria like experience level, company size and salary, but also provide an inside view into a company’s culture.
Based on my experiences as a workplace reporter, corporate recruiter and job hunter, I’ve compiled a list of 12 websites that can help jump-start your career in 2018. Almost all of them have job listings and are helpful for research, but they serve different purposes and audiences. This list isn’t a ranking—I’ve listed the sites in alphabetical order. I’ve also added small pieces of job-search advice throughout this article.
Founded in 2010 as a way for startups to find angel investors, AngelList has expanded to include job postings. It has profiles of more than 70,000 startups (up from 55,000 last year), about 24,000 of which currently have openings. AngelList also offers novel ways to filter a job search, such as companies that have received venture funding or that will sponsor for a work visa.
Comparably allows users to research companies and compensation, as well as search for jobs. Like PayScale, it publishes average pay for different job functions. In its company profiles, it shows how Comparably users rate employers on dimensions like company culture, diversity and gender equality.
On Glassdoor, an organization’s current and former employees post reviews about their experiences. It gives job applicants a glimpse of an organization’s morale and culture. If you’re writing a cover letter or preparing for an interview, and you want to cite specific reasons why you’re interested in a company, Glassdoor reviews are helpful. The site also includes crowd-sourced, company-specific salary information and job listings, and last year it launched a tool that estimates your market value.
On Hired.com, people looking for technical roles — like positions in engineering, design and product management — start their job search by creating a professional profile. Companies can then invite users to interview and ultimately bid on them for hire. The site says it receives 70,000 job applicants a month.
Idealist has listings for nonprofit jobs, internships, and volunteer opportunities. Its goal is to serve “people who want to do good.” Idealist has more than 1.4 monthly users and 120,000 participating employers. It also has a career-advice section, idealistcareers.org. If you’re thinking about transitioning into a new career at a nonprofit or in education, consider starting with volunteer opportunities to build experience and make connections.
For pure job listings, Indeed is one of the largest repositories in the world, if not the largest. More than 200 million people visit the site every month. It aggregates openings from thousands of different sites and allows users to filter on criteria like desired salary and experience level.
LinkedIn is a must-have career tool. In addition to its massive number of job listings, it’s invaluable for research. If you’re considering applying to a company, visiting its LinkedIn page and running searches among its employees can reveal how many people work there; the size, makeup and hierarchy of specific departments; and how diverse it is. If you pay for the premium version of LinkedIn, you can see how a company’s employee count has grown or shrunk over the past two years. Networking is perhaps the most powerful way to use LinkedIn. In job search results, LinkedIn shows whether you have any connections at the companies that are hiring. And if you have second-degree connections at your dream company, consider contacting the connection you have in common and asking for an introduction.
The Muse lets you do in-depth research on specific companies. Firms pay big bucks to create profiles that include photos and video interviews with employees. The videos are particularly useful. On TripAdvisor’s profile, for example, a senior manager discusses the travel site’s culture and explains that people who can’t maintain a fast pace of work probably won’t like working there. The company profiles also include job listings.
PayScale aims to tell you what you’re worth salary-wise and claims to have the largest salary database in the world. To sign up, you take a 5-minute survey and answer questions on topics like your years of experience, academic degrees, current company size and even gender. After you enter your salary, PayScale reveals your percentile rank compared with other people who have similar job titles and levels of experience, among other factors. Viewing the full salary report gives an interesting picture for how your salary might change under different scenarios. As a hypothetical example, if you had more experience or worked at a bigger company, your compensation might increase by $20,000.
Stack is first and foremost a community of millions of programmers who assist each other with technical questions. If you’re a novice or an expert coder, Stack is a great problem-solving resource. If you’re an engineer, Stack has job listings and profiles of more than 18,000 companies.
Upwork lists jobs and projects for freelance professionals. It features more highly skilled roles than a site like TaskRabbit but covers a wide range of jobs, from administrative support to data scientist. When I tested the site and browsed jobs under the “Writing” category, many of the roles required 30 or more hours a week, while others required fewer hours.
The federal government employs more than 2.8 million people, and USAJobs is its official jobs site. In 2016, more than 360,000 positions based in 147 different countries were announced on USAJobs. Unlike a typical jobs site, all listings show salary ranges.
This article is an updated version of a story that ran on October 10, 2016.