Where To Apply

Not all online job boards were created equal

There are three types of online job boards and each has its advantages and disadvantages. They are:

Large Commercial Job Boards: These boards have extremely large resume databases and job postings. Employers go to them quite often. Competition is very high, however. They have a lot of information security, which the small commerical job boards may not have. These boards are multi-industry boards so their resume posing software is not necessarily geared to military job seekers, the primary disadvantage. Since they are such big players in the market, it is obligatory to post your resume there. Examples: Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com

Market Niche Boards: These boards are focused on a single industry. They are usually created by industry insiders or recruiters that have numerous contacts in the industry. The resume databases are smaller than the larege commercial boards but their data is better. Employers of the industry will go to these boards. You will have a better chance of being viewed using these boards. But you need to have real job skills. You will have to search for these boards via Google. Just use occupation + jobs as your keywords. Examples: Dice.com, Logjobs.com. (Military.com is really Monster.com so it is really a large commercial job board.)

Governmental Job Boards: These boards are supported by the government or agency that it serves. USAjobs.com is the job board of the US Federal government. All agencies of the Fed Gov that have job boards are tied into USAjobs.com. These boards are very well done and easy to use. They ask for a lot of information so be prepared to do more than just cut and paste your resume. But like most things related to the government, they are slow to respond. This is both a systemic problem as well as a cmeptitve one: lots of top notch people want to get jobs with the government because it pays well and gives a lot of job security. These boards have very large resume databases as well. Example: USAjobs.com, cpol.army.mil