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A Look At GIS & Location-Based Industry Job SitesBy SpatialNewsThe author has assigned a subjective rating to each website listed. Rating is based the website's ease of use, appearance, organization, content, and perceived $value. Sites have been rated using the ¤ symbol. Five ¤'s being the highest rating possible. American Assoc. of Geographers - n/a The AAG job posting and viewing is only available to members so we were not able to view the job listings. The website does offer some excellent material on careers in the field of geography which can be accesses. If anything, use this site as a starting point and get some good pointers and links. Canadian Assoc. of Geographers - ¤¤¤ This is an excellent resource provided by the CAG. Mostly jobs at Universities rather than explicitly GIS jobs, however, some GIS and RS teaching positions are posted. Likes - free - geographically focussed on Canada - interesting and unique postings - nice, simple design Geo Job source (GJS) - ¤¤¤ This popular site has a very simple design and is easy to navigate. The site offers job posting only and generates revenues from advertizing and job postings. View postings by date or region Approx 25 postings since July 15. Jobs postings are $99 for 30 days. This site ranks failly well in the major search engines. Likes - simple to use - educational resources listed as well... nice touch! - view by date/region - good list of associations Dislikes - not many jobs listed (about 25) at time of writing - cost... $99 for 30 days - no resume posting available Geomatics Canada - ¤¤¤ This popular website focusses on Canadian geomatics industry job postings. The site is in the process of relocating and is now affiliated with web-mapper.com The site used to have lots of excellent and unique postings with a very appealing, easy to use layout. Look for some great stuff to come in the near future. Note, my critique is based on what was available at the original site. There is little content there at the moment while some maintenance is performed. Likes - site design - free - Focussed on Canada Dislikes - Not many postings (but I'm sure they will come) - Nothing else not to like about it GeoPlace - ¤ Surprisingly, the GeoPlace online career postings are virtually nil. At the time of writing this piece there was 1 job ad and 1 job wanted ad. Likes Dislikes - no content GeoSearch - ¤¤ This site has been around for 12 years. There are usually a fair number of positions listed and they can be searched or displayed in a number of different ways (search for string, sort by geography, etc...) Only job descriptions are posted and you must apply on-line. In order to apply you must first submit a resume online. They sell a 1999 wage and salary survey for $99. It wasn't readily apparent how one submits a job to be posted... shouldn't this be obvious? The cost is relatively high to post a job although they boast a large number of hits. The problem I find with promoting traffic is how is this substantiated? Likes - lots of postings Dislikes - cost... $498 to post a job... OUCH! - site navigation - difficult to apply. If it costs employers $$ to post I feel it should be very easy for candidates to contact employer and submit a resume. - Very few tools and resources listed - costs for job posters and job seekers Comments From GeoSearch GeoWeb - ¤¤ GeoWeb maintains tons of categories - software, IT, GIS, et. the name implies geography ("Geo") but they maintain jobs for many industries. I personally don't care for sites that try to diversify into everything. All recent postings are listed, however, they are not sorted so finding only GIS jobs is a bit tricky. To subscribe online you must register and be a member. Other resources include employer profiles which are merely links directly to corporate webistes. To post a job ad there is a very lengthy form necessary to fill out. Cost is $195 For Single Posting for 60 days. Likes - cost for unlimited posting may appeal to some - nice layout when viewing position Dislikes - navigation - poor searching capabilities - cost $195 per ad GIS Connection - ¤¤¤ Job posting is free. Users must set up an account with a username and password There were roughly 20 listings for jobs still open - Numerous old posting still viewable. Resume posting not implemented at this time. Likes - sorting function - simple design, easy to use - free posting Dislikes - lots of old postings listed - no link to employer's website - no related resources (except links) GISJobs.com - ¤¤ GISjobs.com classified ads will remain on the GISjobs.com site for 30 days. The cost is $50 US per ad and may be paid with corporate check or credit card. Ads may be edited or deleted at any time for no additional cost. At the time of writing this, 46 positions advertized. There is no apparent way to tell when the job was posted (although closing dates are often provide). A page counter is provided on each job posting page, although I'm not sure why as this conveys to me that postings are not seen by many eyes (I saw counts ranging from 39-150 page views for current jobs. The site offers resources such as a mailing list, salary survey, and guestbook. Likes - show only North American or European positions option is nice - most ads have links to employers website - volunteer ads are free - salary survey Dislikes - no date of posting listed. Often tough to tell if the posting is closed. - $50 seems kinda steep for the amount of traffic GIS Jobs Clearinghouse (Started in 1992) - ¤¤¤¤ A pioneer of the GIS job sites, this simple, yet effective site does a great job of bringing employers and employees together. They recently commenced small fee based operations. It is recommended that you send a fee for job postings (although I'm not sure how many people actually send $$). The recommended fee is $25.00 per job for a 2 months/60 day posting. Resume posting is free and remain on the site for 2 months. To post, users will need to set up an account with a username and password. Likes - well established - lots of postings - easy to use/navigate - cheap to post - casual environment Dislikes - some job posters forget to leave contact info and thus, no way to apply. GITA Career Center - n/a Job seekers can post resumes and review job ads free of charge. Companies looking for qualified candidates can post job ads, conduct key-word resume searches, and display banner ads. Dislikes - positions not accessible at time of writing (maintenance??) Monster.com - ¤¤¤¤ The monster board is a good resource for job seekers. Excellent navigation and ease of use. Searching using the srting “gis” yielded 475 hits! Of these I found many to be irrelevant, including positions for java developers, programmers, administrative assistants etc… I found about 20% of the hits to be valid GIS jobs. Browsing is free, some jobs can only be applied for online. Posting a job is roughly $300 and I personally find it hard to justify this cost (unless you need a hot employee pronto!). Cool site but too big for my liking. Bigger is not always better! Numerous resources are available and the resume posting is apparently very useful. Post resumes for free and perspective employers pay for qualified leads. Lots on this site, but is it any wonder, they have their own blimp… it should be good! Likes - lots of jobs - excellent job related resources - community feeling - nice navigation Dislikes - too big! - costly URISA - n/a For URISA Members only. Each month URISA members receive the URISA Marketplace listing vacancies that exist in state and local government. I believe there is a cost associated with this, however, details were not given on their website. Appears to be an excellent way to reach a targetted audience. Do you know of a job site that we missed? Let us know and we'll check it out. Send your suggestion to editor@spatialnews.com Note, we did not award any perfect scores as we feel there is room for improvement in all of these sites. Hopefully the new and improved GeoCommunity Career Center will be a 5 star rated site! |
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