The pick of the job sites

We've spent a lot of time recently on various different job sites. Here's our pick of the best - and worst!

1. Jobsite

Jobsite is a great aggregator of other job sites. You can create multiple different searches which are emailed to you on a daily basis, and there's a lot of search features to allow you to find exactly the sort of job you want.

2. Monster

In some ways the grand-daddy of the online job board. Monster is a key destination for recruitment agencies and employers advertising directly. Just be sure to switch off the public setting for your CV, unless you like getting spammed with totally inappropriate job openings!

The only criticism is that the search is a little dumbed-down - it's hard for example to narrow your search based on salary.

3. Gumtree

It's cheap, it's cheerful - employers are increasingly cutting out the middle-man and posting their vacancies up on Gumtree. There's a lot of short-term jobs on there, but also some interesting full-time ones.

Be warned: people get a lot of responses to these sorts of ads, and reading all these responses carefully doesn't tend to be their top priority. Try to write something short which gets the reader's attention.

4. Guardian Jobs

Alone amongst the various newspaper job boards, Guardian Jobs has achieved the critical mass to make it a worthwhile destination for job hunters and recruiters as well. True it's somewhat weighted towards the Guardian-friendly sectors of education, media and social work, but there are still lots of jobs in other industries.

5. Directgov

The search is frustratingly limited (for example, you can't search by salary), but it's worth checking out the Directgov site for the sheer range of possible jobs (and possible locations through the country) on offer.

And the ones to avoid...

Any site which charges for access

Be wary of any site which claims to have exclusive jobs hidden behind a pay-wall. Ask yourself: why would a company looking to get the best person for a job restrict themselves to candidates who are paid members of one site?

In most cases, they won't - instead they'll advertise the job as widely as they can afford, so it's bound to turn up on one or more of the free sites.

Happy hunting!

Which job sites have worked for you? See the 'Best job sites' forum.