Webware

If you're looking for a new career, don't waste your time with the newspaper. There are a slew of outstanding job search sites across the Web that make it easier to find the career of your dreams.

Here are five prominent job search sites worth looking at, and why. See also our reviews of five lesser-known job search services.

CareerBuilder
CareerBuilder is one of the largest job search sites on the Web, but it's also one of the best. Combining millions of listings with extras like resume help and free career tests, the site is an ideal job search service.

CareerBuilder may feature a slightly cluttered home page, but with all the features it offers, it needs to. The site goes beyond simple job searching and allows you to browse by industry or work with partner sites to get personalized help in finding the perfect career. It even remembers your location after you leave the site, so you'll automatically be updated with new job listings every time you return.

Overall, I was impressed by CareerBuilder's bank of jobs. Searching for every job listing within 10 miles of New York City yielded more than 12,000 available positions. When I searched for accounting jobs within 10 miles of the city, it returned more than 2,500 listings. To some, that may be overwhelming and scrolling through them may be difficult. I understand that, but I'm a firm believer that the more jobs there are, the better the chances of finding the right fit. That said, I found that approximately 15 of the listings I examined were old and almost 20 others weren't available after I clicked on them. Maybe the site needs to do a better job of removing stale listings.

CareerBuilder also features a "Narrow Search" function under the search field, which allows you to pick specific companies, locations, and categories. It's a useful function that cuts down on search time and significantly improves your ability to focus on a handful of positions you're interested in. But if you're unsure which company you'd like to work for or exactly where you'd want to work, this feature probably won't come in handy.

Indeed

Although Indeed isn't nearly as popular as competing services like CareerBuilder and Monster, the site is simple and easy to use, making it an ideal choice for online job searchers who don't want all the extras you'll find elsewhere.

With the help of a simple layout--two search fields and nothing else--Indeed makes it easy to search for a job in any given area. Indeed allows you to search online job listings, newspapers, and other job boards, but it also provides salary information, forums to connect people of similar interests, and a job trends search field that offers solid insight into the state of any industry.

I used Indeed to search for jobs in fields ranging from accounting to law and it worked well. It even did a fine job of finding obscure positions like volleyball instructors and piano lesson tutors. In fact, I found that Indeed had more job listings than its major competitors in most of the searches I performed.

But if you're looking for extra features like resume guidance, Indeed isn't the ideal destination. It does have some extras, but most of them fail to compare on any level to those offered by competing services.

Monster
Monster is a well-known site that has solidified its position as a major force in the job search market. But the site's suspect design and relatively few search results leave much to be desired.

If Indeed offers the simplest design, Monster's is the most cluttered. The site sports a basic job search field next to a location search, but below that, the page is inundated with ads, extra job search features that the average user may not care about, and a worrisome warning from the company saying its database was illegally accessed and sensitive data was stolen. Needless to say, it doesn't instill confidence.

When I started searching for job listings in New York, I was surprised that Monster only returned 5,000. Thinking it was a small issue, I then looked for accounting jobs in the city and the service only returned 544 active listings. That's less than half of what CareerBuilder and Indeed returned, but it should be noted that unlike CareerBuilder's results, every Monster listing I read was active. Unfortunately, Monster doesn't offer a "narrow search" function like CareerBuilder, so finding a specific company's listings was made more difficult than it could have been. That said, I was happy with how quickly the site returned search results. It was the fastest in this roundup.

Where Monster really shines is in its extras. The site features tons of career advice, resume help, interview guides, and application history so you can see which jobs you've applied for. One of the best features on the site is Monster's Career Benchmarking tool, which asks for information about you and determines where you stand in your field as compared to your colleagues. It's a great way to find out if you're achieving your career goals.

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Using the best resources across the Web to find and interview for a new job is a big key to success. There are some sites that claim to offer the best service, but in reality, they offer generic help to unique people--not much help at all. There are some services that do a much better job of scouring the Web to help you find the perfect job.

Indeed

Although it competes with much larger sites like CareerBuilder and Monster.com, Indeed is one of the best job search sites on the Web.

With the help of a simple layout--two search fields and nothing else--Indeed makes it easy to search for a job in any given area. Indeed sets itself apart by allowing users to search online job listings, newspapers, and other job boards, but it also provides salary information, forums to connect people of similar interests, and a job trends search field that provides solid insight into the state of any industry.

I used Indeed to search for jobs in fields ranging from accounting to law and it worked well. It even did a fine job of finding obscure positions like volleyball instructors and piano lesson tutors. In fact, I found that Indeed had more job listings than its major competitors in most of the searches I performed. Combine all that with a great design, and it quickly becomes clear that Indeed is a great place to start when searching for a job.

JobSerf

If you don't want to do the heavy lifting of finding a job and you don't mind dropping $49 to $78 per month to have someone else do it for you, JobSerf might be a perfect solution.

JobSerf provides personalized job searching by taking your resume and cover letter and submitting them to employers on your behalf. The company claims that its sole purpose is to save you time in your job hunting and free you up for "networking, interviewing, or working." It even masks its IP address to fool HR and recruiters into believing the resume and cover letter were sent from your computer.

Though I'm not convinced it's always best to let someone else engage prospective employers in a discussion about your qualifications, it's an ideal solution for the busiest among us who don't have the time, energy, or know-how to find jobs online.

LinkUp

Did you know that 70 percent of all available jobs are only listed on the respective employer's Web site? That's what LinkUp claims and it's also the secret behind its business model.

Unlike Indeed and JobSerf, which take a look at published job listings, LinkUp continually monitors company Web sites to catalog all their job openings. Once a person searches for jobs by keyword, LinkUp delivers the pages that contain the open job listings on the respective company's site. But because it doesn't crawl online job boards, it should be noted that the number of search results it returns tends to be low. In fact, after searching for accounting jobs in New York City, the service returned about 2,600 results--almost 2,000 fewer than Indeed. That said, LinkUp claims the difference is due to its elimination of duplicate, old, and fake job listings that are commonplace on competing sites. Based on my searches, I tend to agree.

Realmatch

Instead of allowing visitors to simply search for jobs without providing any other service, Realmatch connects employers to prospective employees in a fashion that's similar to online dating sites.

From the site's home page, users are given the option of searching for a certain job in a variety of major areas across the U.S. Once complete, Realmatch requires the user to sign up and gives them the option of uploading a resume. Meanwhile, employers are able to upload job listings for free.

Once prospective employees and employers are finished uploading their information, Realmatch delivers employers a listing of possible candidates that match their requirements and gives employees a listing of jobs that match their skill-set. Users can then decide to apply for that position, modify their preferences, or leave their profiles active until a suitable position is identified.

The major issue facing Realmatch is the relatively small number of employers that have signed up for the service. At this time, it's only populated by a handful of notable companies, since few employers are willing to pay the service just to contact prospective employees.