Page 55 It's not just the big companies that have Web pages and career centers; many smaller companies do, too. Some of our readers have said that they are more likely to have their resume submissions at least acknowledged by employers when applying directly through the company's site than when they apply through the major job boards. For one-stop shopping at nearly 500 company career sites, visit The Quintessential Directory of Company Career Centers. In addition, sites such as JobCentral, which aggregate jobs from corporate sites, are a good bet. Corporate career sites, however, are not a magic-bullet solution to Internet job search woes. After all, as Victor Godinez noted in The Dallas Morning News, 80 percent of Americans work for companies that have fewer than 100 employees and may not have a Web presence or may be hard to find on the Web. Godinez notes that smaller companies often advertise in newspaper classified sections instead of posting openings on the Web. Still job-seekers can use the Web to access these ads since most classified sections also appear online. Check out our collection of newspaper classified sections, in print or online. Online company career sites are responsible for less than 5 percent of actual placements for the average company, according to Kennedy Information Research Group (KIRG). In its study, Benchmarking the Corporate Career Web Site: Key Data, Analysis and Trends, KIRG suggests that the best thing companies can do to improve the percentage of qualified candidates coming in through their Web sites is to develop a better careers page within their sites. Mark Mehler and Gerry Crispin, founders and authors of CAREERXROADS, certainly understand the need for better corporate careers sites. Annually, they study how candidates are treated at Fortune 500 companies. Through their research, Crispin and Mehler have determined that company career sites should be able to answer these candidate questions: "Are you looking for me?" "Why Should I Come here? Why Should I Stay?" "Is this believable?" In other words, does the site convey more than just the company line? Does it offer personal stories and hard data? "Will you keep me informed?" and further "Will you protect my privacy? Will you share your conclusions? Will I learn enough to compete for a future position if I’m not chosen for this one?" In their 2006 study of employment areas on Fortune 500 Web sites, they determined that among many other issues, "fully a third of Fortune’s Best Companies in America to Work For fail to acknowledge a candidate who expressed his or her interest in working for them," despite incremental recognition by employers that they must present candidates with an applicant-friendly Web experience Mehler's and Crispin's research has led them to annually compile a list of 25 corporate career sites that "get it" and answer the questions that candidates want answered. To determine if a company you’d like to work for is on that list, visit Fortune 500 Top 25 Corporate Staffing Sites. Previous Page Next Page Back to Internet Job-Hunting Index Page