Next time you're looking for a job where will you look first? Maybe the help-wanted section of your local newspaper? By the time you focus in on the tiny type and negotiate the hard-to-read headings, you'll find telemarketers next to tire installers next to truck drivers.
Finding a job in a newspaper may well become the new metaphor to replace the needle in the haystack. And the present and future may well be job searching online where the websites being set up to fill this need are becoming increasingly specialized.
The success of such websites as Monster.ca and Workopolis.com isn't brand new, but they illustrate the way that thousands of employers and job seekers are making connections every day.
"I'd say it's a different generation now," says Marc Belaiche, president of TorontoJobs.ca. "I'm 40 and a lot of friends I talk to are surprised at the idea of looking online for jobs; they look in the newspaper.
 |
| Marc Belaiche |
"Ask a 20-year-old, well, really 20 to 35-year-olds, and as that group moves into senior positions, having found their positions on the Internet, it will be the only thing they will know."
The trend has also led to more and more job-search websites with a narrower and narrower focus.
Most specialized professions have their own portals where candidate and employers can find each other. Many of those are through their own industry associations.
For example, physiotherapists in Ontario can visit the Ontario Physiotherapy Association home page and its career centre, which has links to jobs.
Looking for a high-tech job in Vancouver?
A nursing job in Halifax?
Try www.nursejobshop.com and click on Nova Scotia.
Medical doctors have www.locumtenens.ca; certified general accountants in Ontario can get career info at www.cga-ontario.org.
Even so, online job searching likely won't replace good old-fashioned headhunting anytime soon, according to Gerlinde Herrmann, chair of the board of the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario (HRPAO).
"It's another method," she says. "I don't think it will replace more targeted work. It's just another piece, but it's like everything - wherever there is more information, there is more work attached to it."
The obvious benefit of online job searching to anyone who has tried it is the keywords and search criteria by which job seekers can sort the thousands of listings.
Try wading through the thousands of jobs at Workopolis.com without search criteria and you'll quickly get nowhere.
But even when specific criteria are entered, some of the larger websites can be tough to wade through for job seekers, and, more importantly from the employer side of things, they are drowning out the little guys.
Many of the listings for any given job search are from recruitment agencies. A small garage owner looking for one mechanic may find the listing swimming in a sea of listings from recruitment agencies.
Herrmann suggests this is a result of a new technology that is still finding its way.
Searching through large databases for potential employees using keywords that may or may not be accurately assigned can be a crapshoot. Nevertheless, the technology will likely only improve as will the usefulness of online jobsites.
"I think it is something that will grow ... the functionality will improve," Herrmann says. "We are still at that stage where people are running with it, but aren't necessarily prepared for it yet."
And while the Internet is a means to globally connect people, there is also an increasing localization of the web making narrow job searching more and more relevant.
"The founders of TorontoJobs.ca thought the Internet would become more localized as time went on," says Belaiche, who joined the company in 2002, soon after the website launched, after 10 years in recruiting for employment agencies.
"That has sort of happened: with (local search engine) redToronto.com, and then there is the '.com' versus '.ca'. You see more websites popping up; more companies trying to be focused towards specific markets."
As a recruiter, Belaiche says he found that he was losing jobs he was working on to websites, and that made him realize that the web was the future.
He compares the recruitment business to banking in that a teller is still needed for more complicated transactions, but simple transfers and bill payments can be done online.
Job seekers and employers can do simple job or resumé searches online, or, TorontoJobs.ca can address more complicated needs as well.
"We like to think of ourselves as a one-stop shop for any company's recruiting needs," he says.
Focusing in on the Toronto job market means that small and medium-sized companies don't get lost in the shuffle.
If a large national firm is looking for a few hundred employees and a small Toronto company is looking for one or two, it's easy to get buried in the national sites.
The local flavour of TorontoJobs.ca levels the playing field so to speak, Belaiche says.
The site has 15,000 resumes in its database that can be searched by employers. There are another 17,000 registered job seekers on top of that who do not make their resumés available online.
The site also has 5,600 registered employers and around 10,000 contacts of employers looking for people.
In addition, the company circulates 10,000 copies of a newspaper to places around the city such as employment centres, colleges and career fairs. The paper serves mostly to direct readers to the website services.
The success of job-search websites online has led to other specialized services as well.
Recently, a new website was launched that focuses on connecting employers with newly arrived immigrants in Ontario who may have professional training from other countries.
SkillsInternational.ca is an Ontario-specific project created by COSTI Immigrant Services in Toronto, WIL Employment Connections in London and the Waterloo Region District School Board, with funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
Prescreened candidates have their resumés posted on the site and employers can search based on skills, experience and education.
"It's clear that without Canadian work experience, newcomer professionals are finding it difficult to find a job in their field here in Ontario," says Mario J. Calla, executive director of COSTI. "We are giving large and small companies an efficient way to tap into Ontario's global talent."
Another example is Eluta.ca, which earlier this month launched what it is calling "the first search engine in the world that lets job seekers bypass traditional job boards and search employers' websites directly."
The search engine monitors new-job announcements at more than 73,000 employers in Canada, according to a news release from the Toronto-based company.
Positions are added to its database, which is searchable by keyword and location.
With the increasing popularity of the Internet it isn't surprising that smaller companies are filling niches left open by the large websites.
But is the Internet's popularity alone driving job seekers to look there or does the web work particularly well for job searching?
"It's a different generation now using the Internet to find jobs," Belaiche says. "That and the growth of the Internet and the fact that you can search or sort jobs by keywords, whereas with the newspaper you need a magnifying glass."
Herrmann says the increase in popularity may also be a simple result of the fact that there are some significant shortages in various sectors.
"I think people use them more and more," she says. "There are also more jobs available."
(Paul Henderson can be reached at henderson@businessedge.ca)
