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Your funding is winding down or your boss has just told you that the entire deparment will be rightsized in the next month to provide shareholder value. Yikes, you need a new job. What to do? Who to call? The first impulse of many folks in these situations is to head straight for their favorite mega jobboard sites like Monster.com or Career Builder.com. If you have ever visited these sites, you know that there are literally hundreds, maybe even thousands, of appealing jobs waiting for job seekers in any category. You begin to point, click, upload and send. You have literally sent out 50 resumes within the last three hours. Man, this is easy....I should have a job within a week. After all, who would not hire an individual with my talents and skills? Before you join the thousands of other scientists who have applied for the same jobs, you may want to consider a few things. First, a majority of jobs listed on these sites are placed by recruiters who are trolling for candidates for either real or imaginary jobs. Working with recruiters can either be a good thing or a bad thing. If you are just starting your career and are inexperienced, recruiters will not be able to help you....so don't waste your time. On the otherhand, if you are a member of the workforce and have several years of experience, working with a recruiter may be beneficial. This is because experience is the name of the game in our present economy. Employers retain recruiters to find "qualified candidates" who can step into that new job and bring value from day one. There is no time to train "new hires". Second, companies that post jobs on these job sites may or may not be hiring even though they say that they are! In many cases, companies routinely post jobs just to give the public the impression that everything is great at the company. Also, HR Departments like to pad their databases with as many candidates as possible so that when the company is actually hiring they can blast hiring managers with hundreds of resumes (HR people have to keep their jobs too!). Finally, online job applications are initially screened by candidate tracking software that use keywords to identify possible "right fit" candidates. If you failed to include the correct key words on your electronic resume you will likely not be considered for a position whether you are qualified or not. So it goes...... Are online job searches worth the time? I cannot answer that question..... They are certainly emotionally satisfying, if nothing else. However, what I do know is that if online job searching is the only job hunting method that you are using, you may want to consider driving a FedEx truck in the interim. --------