Another Job Search Aggregator? PageBites.com

Posted on March 9, 2006 One Comment

[co-workers have been giving me funny looks lately about these sorts of articles...]

First I looked at SimplyHired. That generated a comment suggesting I check out Indeed. That one generated an email from “Jenny” encouraging me to have a look at PageBites.com. Aren’t I eager to please? Seriously though, I think this is an incredibly useful type of application. I recall when I was actually actively looking for work a few years back and trawling a kabillion job boards was intensely frustrating and tedious.

The initial approach for PageBites is just like the other two: Keywords field and Location field. Hit enter and you’re off and searching. Unlike the other two, there’s not an “Advanced Search” type thing. That’s a bit of a bummer. The FAQ does offer some useful (and typical) search tips. Search range appears to be hard-wired to 50 miles around the location you enter.

The search list introduces an interesting but ultimately gimmicky little feature. Below each job listing there’s a series of links related to the company, the posted date, location and expiration (I suspect there are others, I just can’t recall them. Skills?). Click on the value there and it gets added as part of your search query. Useful for the company name and such I suppose, but how interesting is it to search for jobs by expiration date? Would love to see more listings with skillset, industry or job category type tags under them. That would help this feature be a bit more useful.

You can, of course, get an RSS feed for your current search. You can also save interesting jobs. You can post jobs or resumes here. In fact, you can also turn the tables and search resumes. I haven’t a clue if the resumes are harvested or if the source is those who have registered and provided their own. In fact, I didn’t see anything indicating where the jobs come from either. However, I’d say PageBites is pretty comparable with the other guys — seems to be quite a list of sources. Not just the big job boards, but corporate sites as well.

I have to say that while this is one is interesting, I really think they need to consider adding some advanced search options. Industry list and common job categories, for instance, would be immensely helpful. Personally, I struggle to narrow in with just search terms.

Tags: Indeed.com, job-searching, jobs, PageBites.com, simplyhired