Monster.com a Good Monster of a Job Search Tool
Written: Jul 27 '01 (Updated Jul 27 '01)
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The Bottom Line
Tame the job search Monster here! Easy to use, fun, visually appealing, easy to check quickly and very reputable.
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| Full Review |
MONSTER.COM
What is it and why am I there?
Monster.com is a Job Search website, despite the catchy and unique name. It is, though, a very catchy and unique site. It is visually appealing and easy to navigate. It is also, I believe, the most popular and well known job posting site by not only job seekers, but job posters, themselves, including reputable company HR departments. I am only currently a passive job seeker. (I have a job but am looking for better opportunity.) Being a passive job seeker, I have been afforded the opportunity to utilize, test out, and navigate Monster.com in a leisurely and complete way without the urgency of rushing to find a job.
The first big step, The Resume Post…
Monster.com offers a cost free opportunity to post your resume in a very organized and thorough way on this very reputable site. You go to the First Time Users section and click on post resume. Assuming you already have a soft copy of your resume on the computer to copy and paste certain sections from, this process should take only about 10-15 minutes to do it fairly well. The Monster.com resume builder takes you step by step through a very structured process covering personal information, intentions on relocation and your ideal company to work for, education, organizational affiliations, prior job experience, and skills and qualifications. The skills and qualifications were probably my most challenging and enjoyable part to fill out in this process. You can go a few different ways with this, very specific, like “Mail Merge feature for label-making”, or very broad like “MS Office”. In this skills section (which I believe the resume hunters and HR professionals use keywords to pull up a batch of resumes), you can list many of your skill sets, as well as whether you are a beginner, intermediate or expert in each, currently, or previously used this skill, and for how long.
This specific resume builder feature gives a clear cut picture to those viewing your resume what your basic capabilities are and it’s layout is easier on the eye than a paragraph running text in a resume. Once you have completed entering and saving all information on your resume you may exit and activate your resume.
Your personal job tracking…
You can sign onto Monster.com at any time of the day and click on “My Monster” for an at-a-glance peak at how your resume is catching the resume hunter’s eye. The front page of your My Monster page shows that my resume was “Viewed by Employers X number of times”. (A tip here, I have noticed is that if you occasionally or weekly go to my resume and go to edit, and edit something, I think your resume will be viewed more, I have seen from experience, because resume hunters may have the option to search fairly new to older resumes on the site. Resumes can stay posted for one year and be renewed.)
In “My Monster” you can also set up a Job Search Agent so you don’t have to deal with all the pull down menus each time you go for a quick check on the job search. You just go to My Monster, check your “stats” and click on your job search agent. Do this a few times a day and you won’t miss a thing!
You can also set up up to 5 letters to pick and choose to send to employers along with your resume(s). This can be helpful in writing letters specifically stating your skills targeted to that particular field in which are you applying for.
One more really neat thing I must mention about My Monster… Click on applications. It lists for you all the jobs you have applied to, or sent your resume into through Monster.com. The hyper-linked jobs are still available, or at least are to Monster’s knowledge. The bolded ones you cannot click on have been filled. Here you can tell if you should still ‘have hope’ for any particular position you have applied to.
Browsing the site while waiting for responses…
Very briefly, as I have rambled….There are many features, and great contents, and helpful articles and job search tools to browse through while you are anxiously awaiting all your resume responses. The career center has some great content and there are also featured employers or career fields. All can be navigated to easily through the home page.
I go to Monster.com daily and will continue to do so to brush up on my interviewing and resume skills, check out the jobs, read any interesting articles, find ways to get more response to my resume as I improve and make changes, and eventually will find the right job once I have the completed education to do so. My boyfriend and I have both had a good response and good resume view stats from Monster considering each of our different areas and qualifications. At times (different times of the year are stronger or weaker in recruitment) we have had overwhelming response. I highly recommend this tool for your job searching needs! Good luck.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
LUCCI1012
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Location: Hightstown, NJ, USA
Reviews written: 28
Trusted by: 12 members
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