Skimming: Using quality websites that are targeted towards librarians and info pros.
Scraping: Using job scrapers that search out jobs on the web and deliver them to you in a daily email.
As I look towards moving the INALJ Daily Jobs Digest into state/country pages, I have been mulling over which job scrapers I want the new Head State Editors to use. As anyone on the job hunt know there are a tons of websites out there that claim to be able to find tons of jobs for you in your geographic area. Indeed, JobFox, Monster and LinkUp are ones I use currently. But often they bring up outdated or unrelated jobs and other times they miss great opportunities. Out of all of them LinkUp is by far my favorite and the most consistent in results and timeliness.
This has me thinking about whether it is worth the time and effort sifting through the scraps that are found while scraping for jobs, or if our time is better spent skimming sites that we have verified for quality.
What I have decided is that while I emphasize skimming quality sites I can’t totally give up on job scrapers. What I need to learn to do is use them better by using their advanced features and more targeted searches. A search on Indeed.com of all of the US for librarians will result in tons of jobs to look through. Instead I will be dividing this work up among 50 state volunteers, 12 Canadian province volunteers and a few international volunteers. By dividing we will have more targeted geographic searches, fewer search results each to wade through and hopefully this means we will be using the job scrapers better or more to our advantage.
It is my goal that in 2013 INALJ broadens its results while deepening them as well. Happy job hunting one and all!
-Naomi
reposted from 1/23/13
these are how I self-describe the terms skimming and scraping 🙂