What are the advantages of looking for a job on the internet?

The key advantage is that it can save a lot of leg-work. It’s fast, it’s always available and it can provide quick access to a huge amount of information not only on the jobs and organisations you’re interested in but also on the process of jobseeking itself. It allows you to search for, look at and apply for jobs and post your CV from the comfort of your own home, a friend’s place, the local library or internet café. Some job-search sites also make your life easier by sending alerts to your e-mail address when the kind of job that you’re looking for becomes available.

If an employer has gone to the trouble of making the application procedure available online, it implies that they’re keen on that sort of thing and it’s likely that they value online skills particularly highly. If you can then apply online efficiently and promptly, you’ll demonstrate that you are comfortably computer-literate and will do your chances no harm at all.

Job-hunting on the internet can theoretically save you the weeks of sending off written applications and CVs and doing aptitude tests in person. The time between hearing about a job and being either invited for interview or rejected can now, in theory, be reduced to a couple of days at most, and maybe even just a few hours. But in practice that’s only the case if a jobseeker is relying exclusively on the internet. And that’s a mistake. The internet is a useful tool for job-hunters, but the serious jobseeker uses every tool available – newspapers, jobcentres, word of mouth and direct approach to employers, and not just one.