[Follow up to this August post]
A friend asked me today “What do you think of Monster?” Perhaps my response was a bit long.
The reputation is that a lot of the postings are phantoms, placed by recruiters to get resumes for potential future assignments, by HR departments to satisfy requirements when an internal candidate is certain to get the job (or #1), by Monster itself to look good to applicants and recruiters, and unfortunately rarely result in a meaningful opportunity. Sorry.
My experience is that personal connections, either direct or through channels like Sun alumni, are the best way to get the next job. Second is to track postings on Craigslist (which charges $75/category a job is posted too, which I know because I just posted two, meaning there are probably few phantoms) and to keep checking the websites and blogs of companies that interest you, then find some way to get in touch with a real person (not including HR) at the company (e.g., Sun alumni, LinkedIn, or post comments to the blog to establish a minimal connection).
However, keeping your resume on Monster, HotJobs, CareerBulder and Craigslist and refreshing one of the every day (overall in a cycle) is also a good tool but going in the other direction. Make sure to use significant keywords in your resume, and that the keywords appear in the description of your previous jobs as much as possible rather than ONLY in some separate skills list.
Yahoo! is doing a lot of hiring and you should check their listings for matches. I know what you (ed.: my friend) say about bigger companies but from what I’ve heard and read on blogs (and seen on occasional lunch visits) it’s a good place to work.
BillSaysThis 