Image via Wikipedia

There are thousands of job boards on the internet these days - some say as high as 40-50 thousand. Each has it's own source for their listings. In some cases, employers pay to post a job on the website. Others pull jobs from an established job board (Hint: look for "powered by..." statements to identify these). Many of the job seekers I work with find that they must wade through a growing number of incompatible ads on the various job boards to actually get to a "real" listing which fits their basic criteria. These irrelevant listings may include:

• A position listed in your defined area, but actually must be performed in a distant location, perhaps even overseas
• Listed as an employment opportunity, yet is really something else: independent contractor, military recruitment, etc
• Positions are no longer open, even though still showing as available
• Out right scams - work-at-home, mystery shopper, Offshore Financial Manager, Virtual Assistant, the list goes on.

The more my clients have to wade through this clutter, the more they are saying - there has got to be a better way. For a long time I had no better option to suggest. Now I do!

I am now recommending LinkUp.com to all my clients as one of the most effective ways to locate online job postings and here is why:

Image via LinkUp

LinkUp.com has ONLY jobs that are both are real and available. They do this by going directly to the company's own website. When the company updates their job postings, it is automatically updated at LinkUp.com as well.

LinkUp.com is free Again, because LinkUp.com pulls the listings directly from the employer's own website, job seekers can trust there are not going to be any hidden fees to apply. I hate the ads for the US Postal Service positions, only to find out you are not actually applying, you are buying a guide that tells you how to apply. Also because you are never required to sign up or login, your privacy is completely protected.

Almost any employment counselor will tell you "looking for work is work." LinkUp.com makes that work just a bit easier. Instead of having to locate and explore the website for every employer you might be interested in, LinkUp.com pulls that altogether into one place. They explain on their website:

The Holy Grail of the industry has always been the idea of finding and sharing the jobs that are posted on company websites. Until LinkUp, it was too hard for the job seeker to find these jobs. Some company urls are not easy to find or remember. Once you find the site, it is even difficult to find the career page because some companies seem to hide their job openings on the 19th buried page. Years ago, companies posted Job Openings in the break room or near the copier so employees or their friends and family could apply first. Then, they started paying Monster et al to advertise the jobs, because they needed more applicants. Some jobs were not advertised or companies could not afford the $300 posting fee/month/job. So not all the jobs were even advertised. At LinkUp, we share all the jobs and we believe that about 60% of them are never advertised to the public.

Don't just take my word for it...I encourage you to go check this out yourself. As an example, here is a list of Social Media jobs within 10 miles of Portland, OR: