by Benjamin Lomax

Created on: January 07, 2008   Last Updated: November 18, 2009

Yahoo! Hotjobs is soid job search site overall, but suffers from some obvious weaknesses in comparison to the other sites with wider client bases. It also has some comparative strengths and is best used as a complementary site along with other sites with more listings (like Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com).

A solid strength of Hotjobs is their increasing affinity among new companies and those companies with lesser recruiting budgets. This will provide you search results with some opportunities that don't get a thousand applications per job, and are therefore going to be opportunities that will look long and hard at each applicant, giving those whose resume are not dominating a chance to get in the door and show who they are.

Another strength is the relative ease in searching. Some larger sites provide results that are often unrelated to your search, but Hotjobs is very good at keeping the results pertinent, related to your keywords, but also very focused on job that are realistically placed in your area. The listings are solid, but unspectacular, though they do have a company listing which can be used to dig into the company prior to applying, which is not always consistent in the other job-search sites. Otherwise the listings are the equivalent of other sites.

An obvious weakness is the lack of listings. Monster has approximately ten times as many listings from my experience, but that is typical for most job-search sites in this competitive field. Another weakness is the lack of depth, as Hotjobs seems to target a few industries and otherwise is scatter-shot. Many large industries seem to receive short shrift. Maybe those jobs are not hot? In any case, those looking for jobs in industries not favored by Hotjobs would be best to look elsewhere.

The job development tools are average, though a bit cheaper than some of the larger search sites, and there is not a lot of duplication of results, which you do find on the larger sites. In fact most of these tools are cheaper clones of the "premier" tools on sites like Monster and Careerbuilder.

All in all, Yahoo! Hotjobs is an excellent asset used along with a complementary group of other search sites. If you are looking for specific industries or companies that have strong partnerships with Hotjobs, then it is a terrific resource. Otherwise it will serve well, but no applicant should put all their eggs in this one basket.

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