There are literally thousands of sites on the Internet where you can look for jobs. In fact, when I was researching my latest book for Barron's (Resumes in Cyberspace), my staff discovered more than 3,000 active sites dedicated to job banks alone. That number doesn't take into consideration the thousands of companies with home pages that list job openings.

A job bank is much like your local help wanted ads in the newspaper. Companies pay a job bank to post their job openings and to search the resume database that many job banks have collected. You then have the opportunity to log onto the job bank and sort through hundreds of thousands of job openings from companies all over the country and sometimes the world. You can sort the jobs by title, industry, or geographic location in order to narrow your search. When you find a job that interests you, you can submit your resume directly on line or mail a hard copy of your resume to the address provided. It's that simple.

About 45 percent of the companies that post their job openings in these job banks are in the computer, scientific, or technical industries, which means that the job openings they are posting tend to be very technically oriented. As late as 1995, almost all job postings online fell into this category. Today, however, an increasing number of job openings are being posted for middle to upper management positions (45 percent at this writing), with the remaining 10 percent for all other types of positions. These percentages will change daily until all professions are represented. No matter where you fall in this continuum, you won't lose anything by posting your resume online or searching the lists of available jobs, so don't hesitate to try.

One very important fact to keep in mind, however, is that many large companies won't post their job openings in a multitude of job banks but will, instead, pay only for a hyperlink to their own home page where they will both accept resumes and list job openings. That means, if you are in E-Span or OCC or CareerPath or Monster Board, you must hyperlink to the company profile section and then click on the company name to get to their home page. (You can also find a company's home page by using AltaVista or any other major search engine.)

In interviewing Fortune 1000 companies for my newest book, I was fortunate to spend half a day with Don Desjardins, Recruiting Manager for MCI Telecommunications Corporation and the personal responsible for integrating MCI's Internet home page, e-mail, scannable resume database, and applicant tracking system into a single database of more than 200,000 resumes. He told me that MCI has chosen to simply update their home page daily with current job openings and pay for a hyperlink from the major sites rather than pay ten or twelve different services to post their job openings and be required to keep each one up to date. Don't neglect this important resource, especially if you are targeting specific companies.

Most of the firms that are searching the Internet for potential employees are the nation's largest companies with offices in multiple locations throughout the United States and the world. However, as the resume databases and job banks become bigger and represent more geographically diverse talent, small and medium companies will begin to use these resources first before paying thousands of dollars to advertise job openings in local and national newspapers.

In my research, I discovered what I call "The Big Ten". These sites have either been around for a while or are so large that they are worth checking out first. They tend to have more jobs listed, represent more companies, and have larger resume databases, which attract even more companies. Here they are in alphabetical order:

Adams JobBank Online (http://www.adamsonline.com): This site is brought to you by Adams Media Corporation, the publisher of the JobBank books. Posting your resume is as simple as creating an e-mail message. Their form allows you to type (or cut and paste) your cover letter into the message screen and then attach your ASCII text resume file. There is no need to fill in tedious boxes of information. Current job openings in the job bank are divided into industry categories and are accessed through hypertext links. Jobs can be sorted by employer. Also available at the Adams site are conferences, company profiles, a section for college students, women and minorities, a talent bank, and a resource for ordering the Adams career books.

America's Job Bank (http://www.ajb.dni.us/): A service of the United States Department of Labor and more than 1,800 state Employment Service offices, America's Job Bank has more job listings than any other site on the Internet--at this writing, about 250,000 jobs with 1,000 jobs being added every day. About 5% of the jobs listed are in government and the rest are in the private sector. There is no charge to either employers who list their job vacancies or to job seekers, since each state's Employment Service program is funded through unemployment insurance taxes paid by employers. Jobs can be searched by job title, job order number, or specific code from either the Occupational Employment Survey, Dictionary of Occupational Titles, or the military. Plans are in the works to add a resume database to this site called America's Talent Bank, so you might check to see if this service is available.

CareerPath (http://www.careerpath.com): CareerPath is a compilation of more than 100,000 classified job advertisements from some of the country's largest metropolitan newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, and other newspapers owned by Times Mirror. It posts more than 250,000 new jobs on the Internet every month and is updated daily by participating newspapers. You can search the database by newspaper, job category, and keyword. At this writing, CareerPath's users conducted nearly 3 million searches every month. There is no resume database, but this is a very useful site if you are looking for a job in a major metropolitan area of the country.

CareerMosaic J.O.B.S. (http://www.careermosaic.com): CareerMosaic was created by Bernard Hodes Advertising, Inc., and is one of the easiest resume databases and job bank sites to use. Resumes remain in the database for 90 days and must be reposted after that time period. This isn't a difficult chore, however, since CareerMosaic allows you to cut and paste your ASCII text file resume directly into their form without filling in little boxes. When you search the job database, results are presented in a single line format with hyperlinks to detailed job descriptions, allowing a "quick and dirty" perusal. Listings are sorted by date posted, which makes it easy to focus on the newest additions. The site tends to move quickly and its searches are very flexible.

Besides the J.O.B.S. database (which, by the way, stands for Job Opportunities By Search), there is a Usenet page called jobs.offered which allows you to perform full-text searches of jobs listed in regional and occupational newsgroups in the U.S. and abroad. This site is continuously indexed and saves you from having to subscribe to each newsgroup separately. As with most of the large job banks, CareerMosaic has an employer profile section where you can link directly to hundreds of potential employers. In addition to job resources, check out the online job fairs, career resource center, college connection, and the human resource professional plaza.

E-Span (http://www.espan.com): Founded in 1991, E-Span is a pioneer in online employment recruiting. To get your resume into their database, you must answer their questions and cut and paste your resume information into boxes while online. The majority of resumes in their database represent job seekers who are well-educated (76% have a BA/BS degree or higher), mostly male (60%), and in their prime career years (52% between 20 and 40). E-Span is accessible at no charge to job seekers and is searchable by category or geography. Employers pay to advertise their openings and can search the resume database 24-hours a day. Only those companies that advertise can search the resume database. E-Span includes position descriptions from thousands of U.S. and international companies representing virtually every industry, including AT&T, CompuServe, Quaker Oats, Lotus, Disney, American Express, IBM, Ciber National, Federated Systems Group, ITT Corporation, Keane, Medi-Span, and Signet Bank. Ads are updated twice a week and are organized by category (medicine, engineering, education, finance, government, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, computer programming, management, sales, business systems, and human resources). Job seekers can input their resumes directly at the Internet site or simply e-mail their resume. In addition to a resume database and job bank, you will also find in-depth career counseling sections, including NAS, the nation's largest HR communications company, and company profiles. There are even hyperlinks to articles by experts in job hunting and to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, salary guides, interviewing strategies, motivational support, and advice on creating resumes.

JOBTRAK (http://www.jobtrak.com): JOBTRAK has partnered with more than 400 college and university career centers to provide their students and alumni with job listings and a resume database. In order to access the job bank and enter your resume from a particular campus, you must contact the college career center for a password. Most career centers allow pathway access from on-campus computers, which doesn't require a password. JOBTRAK is provided free of charge to schools and employers pay a nominal fee. There is no charge to the job seeker. More than 2,100 new job openings are posted each day, and more than 200,000 employers use JOBTRAK to target college graduates or students. This is a particularly good site for finding an internship or part-time student opportunity, although it is not limited to these types of positions. You may enter your resume into JOBTRAK's resume database by entering it directly online or cutting and pasting the information into the online form. When you search the job bank, there is a box at the bottom of most listings where you can enter your resume number so it will be forwarded directly to the employer. Your resume remains in the resume database for 90 days, but this time can be extended by simply updating or reposting your resume at any time.

JobWeb (http://www.jobweb.org): JobWeb is a product of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), a nonprofit professional association of more than 1,700 colleges and universities and over 1,400 employer organizations. Although it doesn't contain a resume database, it is an excellent place to search for jobs aimed at college graduates and experienced professionals. It has direct links to internships and co-op opportunities and federal government jobs. There is a great deal of content at this site for researching cutting-edge employment topics, including legal issues in employment, job search techniques, hiring practices, and trends. The JobPlace discussion forum and newsgroup area are great ways to ask questions of the nation's top college career service and company human resources professionals. NACE took over the Catapult from Williams and Mary College, which is a general resource for career-related sites on the Internet.

MedSearch America (http:/www.medsearch.com): MedSearch America is your connection to health care employers with position openings around the corner or around the globe. This site also offers career direction, industry analysis, and much more. You can post your resume at no charge for thousands of employers and recruiters to see, and you can search thousands of job postings for positions that you find interesting. You can input your resume into their resume entry form for free or pay $30 and send it via e-mail. Do not send your resume as an e-mail attachment. The resume must be part of the e-mail message itself. Complete instructions for submitting your resume via either method are given at the site. Your resume is kept in the resume database for four months, but you can update or remove your online resume at any time. Many of the jobs in the database have direct response links where you can send inquiries directly to the recruiter who placed the ad.

Monster Board (http://www.monster.com): Owned by TMP Worldwide, the Monster Board is an interactive service listing more than 55,000 job opportunities. You can limit your job searches by industry, discipline, location, title, or company. You may enter your resume at their site by filling out a form or e-mail it to the address above; however, the only way to get your resume into Resume City is to fill out their form. Many sites on the Internet lack a help feature for when you experience problems, but not the Monster Board. You can either hyperlink to their help section or type in http://www.monster.com/help.html as the URL and you will find a page with complete instructions for common problems people experience when entering their resume online. The site has hyperlinks to employer profiles and places where you can conduct extensive research on employers worldwide. The Corporate Sphere is a place where recruiters, hiring managers, and human resource professionals can find Monster Board products, rates, and success stories. In fact, if you want to get psyched up for your online job search, the success stories can give you a lot of hope. The Monster Board also has special "communities" for entrepreneurs and franchisees, health care professionals, CEOs and executives, human resource professionals, and entry-level job seekers. When you hyperlink to Career Safari, you will find special shortcuts to databases that allow you to search for job opportunities in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Quebec, a direct link to MedSearch for health care employees, and special categories just for entry-level opportunities and human resource careers. The Cool Works hyperlink from this page has information about jobs in national parks, resorts, cruise ships, camps, ski resorts, and for RVers and volunteers.

Online Career Center (http://www.occ.com): Online Career Center (OCC) has a large presence in America Online's CAREERS and is accessible through all of the commercial online services in addition to direct access through the Internet, Usenet, Gopher, and Telnet. You can search for jobs by state, city, or industry. In addition to jobs, OCC provides company profiles, a recruiting center, and a resume database. You can e-mail your resume at no charge directly in ASCII text format, or there are special instructions for sending HTML resumes. You may also enter your resume online into the OCC Internet database. Regardless of how you send the resume, it is kept in the database for 90 days and must be re-entered when the time expires. To change or update your resume, you simply re-enter it and the previous one will be deleted. You can remove your resume by sending an e-mail message to occ100@occ.com.