Using the internet is an incredibly time consuming experience. It’s all too easy to get side-tracked or even worse, bamboozled with irrelevant or advertising-driven results not relevant to what you’re looking for.

When searching for jobs this is especially true.

The key point to keep in your mind is that ideally you want to locate actual job vacancies rather than generic sites. Simply typing “IT jobs” will find you the mass job-boards, but it won’t really help you with your personal, specific job search.

Here are 5 techniques to boost your search skills:

- Add more words to your search
This makes a huge difference and leads you straight to specific, relevant adverts. For example, if you are looking for a marketing job within a media company in the Bristol area and you have 3 years prior experience, type: Media jobs Bristol marketing 3 years experience
 
-  Search for an exact phrase
Use the quotation marks to return the exact phrase or name you are looking for. Without quotation marks, the search engines will search for any sites that contain the words you write but not necessarily in order. Let’s assume you are looking for a product manager role in insurance in Chester, type: insurance “product manager” Chester

- Exclude rogue words or sites
If your search continually returns sites with your search terms but not the results you need, use the minus (-) sign to exclude words associated with your current results. This can also be used to exclude specific websites. For example, if looking for an HR role within a council but you want to avoid job boards from Hays and Trovit, type: hr jobs council –Trovit –Hays
 
- Working in the academic sector
A neat trick for the sector is to limit the search to “.ac.uk” websites, by typing site: .ac.uk. Thus, if you’re looking to work in the academic sector in Manchester, type: job vacancy Manchester site: .ac.uk
 
- Working for a government department
Limit the search to “.gov.uk” websites, by typing site: .gov.uk. Thus, if you’re looking for an Accounts Assistant role in the public sector, view direct jobs by typing: accounts assistant site: .gov.uk

Remember, you want to find actual job adverts and not just sites that promise to help you find job adverts. Effective search technique is the quickest way to uncover hidden job vacancies so it’s worth investing a little time up-front.

For a full education in using the internet, try www.internettutorials.net