When most people start looking for a job they go directly to one of the big sites, such as Monster or CareerBuilder.  There’s good reason to.  These sites offer a large multitude of job postings from companies big and small, and can provide you with a great place to start your job hunt.

There are other free online tools that you, the job seeker, can use to find a job.  Many of them are targeted at a particular kind of profession.  Here are some of the job tools I’ve come across recently.  Hopefully one of these can help you take your job search to the next level.

• Monster/CareerBuilder: Both of these large, popular sites offer job seekers hundreds of job listings and a plethora of job search tools, including a résumé writing service (for a fee), information about companies, and articles about a variety of job-related issues.  A downside of these sites is that because so many people use them, there is a high probability that a recruiter will never see your résumé.  Recruiters on these sites can receive upwards of 100 résumés per day per listing, so yours can easily get lost in the shuffle (for advice on writing a successful résumé please visit this article).  On the site, you can find out how many times your résumé has been viewed, but not who has viewed it.
• Craigslist: This online community website offers job postings from local companies.  Companies that tend to use this site are often small to medium-sized local businesses that choose not to pay the substantially higher fee to post at one of the bigger sites.  The job listings on this site tend to be hit and miss.  The average recruiter will probably receive about ten résumés per day per listing from this site, so the probability of getting noticed is higher.  Due to the fact that most of the companies posting here are small, it may be a bit harder to find information about them, so be sure to review their website and Google them to find out as much as you can about the company to determine whether it's a good fit for you.
• IvyExec: This site connects people who have a Master’s degree or equivalent experience with pre-screened job listings tailored to match their qualifications.  So, unlike the sites above, it's only useful to those that have these credentials.  Their claim to fame is that they specialize in job opportunities that offer full-time, re-entry, and flex-time jobs that enable top-tier candidates to apply for jobs that suit their work preferences.  This could be a great help to people who meet the criteria!  Those of us that don't will need to look elsewhere.
• Doostang: Attempting to marry the successes of social networking sites like LinkedIn with large job posting sites like Monster, Doostang is an invitation-only network of professionals offering job postings from companies who are also in the network.  The interesting thing about this site is that it successfully integrates networking with job postings.  The difficulty with this site, however, is that it is invitation-only, so unless you’ve been invited you cannot use the services they offer.
• JobFox: Founded by the former CEO of CareerBuilder, this site uses an innovative job-fit engine to match job-seekers with appropriate jobs based on the 10 Dimensions of a Good Job Fit.  JobFox also offers employed job-seekers anonymity, text messages when new jobs are posted on the site that match seekers’ interests, and the opportunity to track how often your résumé is viewed and by who.

It’s likely that you will have the opportunity to make use of several of these free tools.  The more diversified your job search is, the higher the likelihood that you will end up searching out and finding that perfect opportunity that makes you tingle from your toes to your ears.

If you’re starting a job search, a Qvisory membership provides you with an online product, EUREKA, that helps you assess your skills and find the types of jobs that are the best fit for you, as well as information about those jobs and what they pay around the country.

Have you ever used any of these job tools?  What did you think?  Is there a job search tool out there that you’ve used that isn’t on this list?