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How can I find the very best job sites?
Whether you’re looking to hire or you’re looking for a job, you’re probably starting at the same place…the internet. As your blinking cursor hovers over your internet browser, you’re wondering what to type to start your big search.
Job boards, in their analog form, have been around as long as jobs themselves. What was once the classified section in a paper newspaper is now spread far and wide across the internet.
With powerful software (often helped out by a little Artificial Intelligence), job sites can take a job listing from one employer and serve it to thousands of potential employees. Conversely, a candidate seeking work can upload their resume to be seen by dozens of potential employers.
But...how?
(If you're not interested in how job boards work, feel free to skip ahead to the main list!)
How Do Job Boards Actually Work?
If you’ve been wondering how job boards and the best job search engines actually work, you're not alone.
We went to the experts at
ZipRecruiter (the #1 hiring job site) to find out what happens from the employer end and the candidate end once they hit submit on a job post or an application, respectively.
How Job Boards Work for Employers
Hey there, employer. If you’ve ever wondered
what happens once you post a job to a site like
ZipRecruiter, we’re here to let you know.
- Once you’ve written your seriously impressive job post, your open job is aggregated to over 100 top job sites.
- From there, when you post on ZipRecruiter, powerful matching technology scans thousands of resumes to pre-vet candidates with the right skills and experience for your open job. It even invites them to apply.
- You can also browse these open candidates and invite them to apply yourself, using the “Invite to Apply” tool.
- ZipRecruiter also has a smart, easy-to-use dashboard that allows you to sort, review, and rate your candidates. Along with being a convenient tool to organize your candidates, rating your applicants also makes ZipRecruiter’s matching smarter for your future hires.
How Job Boards Work for Employees
Looking for your next big career opportunity? Awesome. Today's most powerful hiring sites are ready to connect you with the employer who has been desperately searching for you.
Job seekers can create free profiles, upload their resumes, and search for/apply to jobs in minutes. Job boards play no role in recruiting or hiring for the roles. However, their powerful tools are built to ensure you are matched with the right employer.
Job Seeker Pro Tip: Download ZipRecruiter’s #1 rated job app to get instant updates and be one of the first to apply! Standard SMS fees may apply.
100+ Best Job Sites for Every Type of Job
Now that we have the nitty-gritty out of the way, let’s dive into the job sites and job boards to find any employee—or any job, if you’re reading this as a job seeker.
The following are the best job search sites on the internet, including some of the smaller niche job boards needed when hiring for specific roles or talent.
We profiled a number of types of job boards, picking our “favorite” in each category.
How We Picked Our Favorite Job Sites
In each section, we chose a favorite job board. We know it’s frustrating to see anything listed as the “#1 best” without any background knowledge.
We used three criteria in picking our favorite job boards, and here they are.
- Usability: This means how easy and functional it is to use for both job seekers and employers.
- Industry Specificity: This describes how the job site appeals to the employer and job seeker in that specific industry.
- Knowledge Base: This third criterion is our favorite. It describes the articles, blogs, and resources available to job seekers and to employers looking to gain or fill employment, respectively.
The Best Big Job Boards
The following job boards are the biggest ones on the web, and you probably already know them by name from podcasts, Superbowl ads, or your own past job searches.
Many of these job search juggernauts have been around since the internet was a much smaller place. As a result, they have the experience and knowledge on both sides of the hiring front.
In the twenty or so years since the advent of the digital job search engine, they have made vast improvements. It's not uncommon for a job database to also have company reviews, advanced filters, salary data, company profiles, resume builders, career advice, and even a mobile app. Whew!
You already know
ZipRecruiter, but we want to let you know why we love it.
ZipRecruiter is always improving the hiring process—on both the employer's and candidate’s sides. Their software is the quickest and most seamless way to get your job noticed by the very best applicants.
- How It Works: ZipRecruiter allows employers to post to multiple free job boards with a single submission. Its powerful software helps to vet all applicants and set up online interviews.
- Why We Love It: ZipRecruiter is a powerful way to manage the entire hiring process—from writing the job post to scheduling an interview.
- Cost: Subscription-based and needs-based pricing for employers, free for job seekers.
- Pro Tip: Their employer tool, Invite to Apply, allows employers to automatically send a pre-written, personal message to favorite eligible candidates so they’re more likely to apply to the open role listed.
Other Big Job Boards
The Best Free Job Boards
Free job sites sound great, right? Sure, but that’s not the entire story.
While most job boards and job sites are free for job seekers, there’s typically a cost for employers. So why wouldn’t an employer just post to a free job board every time?
Find an employer who hires often and you’ll see exactly why. That old adage, “You get what you pay for” rings especially true when hiring.
When you’re paying for a job posting on a job board, you’re not paying for a tiny bit of real estate on the internet. You’re paying to use powerful algorithmic tools that scan your job post and match it to thousands (yes, thousands) of open candidates.
Depending on the job board you use, the paid options typically take a ton of legwork out of the process. Job sites can even add screening questions to your job posts, allowing you to predetermine fit before inviting a candidate to apply.
However, if you want to try a free job board, do it! We have picked a few free job sites as well as job sites that offer free posting options.
Okay, it’s a little unfair, but Google’s search engine is pretty powerful. As a hiring manager, as long as you format your job correctly, Google should pick it up and serve it to applicants looking for a specific position.
As a job seeker, this is a great way to unlock jobs that are brand new. You can even set Job Alerts on Google so that you’re the first to hear about a new opening—so that you can get to writing that cover letter ASAP.
Other Free Job Boards
The Best Remote Job Boards
Remote work is here to stay. Finally!
If you’re a hiring manager looking to make your first remote hire, you’ll want to head to the experts in remote hiring. These job sites specialized in remote hiring long before it became “normal” to operate on a remote or a semi-remote basis.
Here at Career Contessa, we love good, helpful content. Besides being an amazing job board to find virtually any remote position, FlexJobs also offers the best insights on companies hiring for remote roles, skills needed to succeed in a remote job, and so much more.
Aside from the helpful content,
FlexJobs has been in the remote and flexibility game for a long time. They know how it works and they often have the inside scoop on who’s hiring for flexible roles, which flexible roles are most desired, and how to actually fill these roles with skilled candidates.
We actually didn’t realize that we have a bit of a crush on
FlexJobs until this moment.
Other Remote Job Boards
The Best Education Job Boards
Close your eyes and picture that one teacher who made a huge difference in your life. Great teachers and excellent professors stick with you for your entire life, whether they know it or not.
Educators are the future of everything, so hiring a teacher is extremely important.
SchoolSpring offers over 80,000 education-based roles, making it the largest education-based job search platform.
SchoolSpring allows employers to search from a national pool of active candidates and to distribute their job openings across a number of other job sites and social platforms, including Indeed, Monster, and Twitter.
Additionally,
SchoolSpring has direct integration with education applicant tracking systems like TalentEd.
Other Education Job Boards
The Best Technology Job Boards
These days, it seems like everybody wants a job in technology, but many positions are still very difficult for employers to fill—especially when looking for software developers and programmers.
Here are some of the best tech job boards for advertising your job.
Our Favorite Technology Job Board: Dice
If you need to hire technology talent,
Dice can help you cut down your search with the best technology candidates. Fill your open position with the top talent from the tech community.
Dice provides insights, data, and career opportunities for technology professionals. On the hiring end, they lend their powerful technology tools to the employers—like their AI-driven IntelliSearchTM.
Other Technology Job Boards
The Best Startup Job Boards
Startups have unique needs—needs that change every day. From Series A funding and beyond, startups often need to hire candidates that are flexible, willing to learn, and ready for a potential whirlwind. It's exciting, it's scary, and it requires a careful hiring process.
Founded in 2010,
AngelList served as the solution to democratize how young startups received funding and how they accessed and hired talent.
AngelList is used by over 100,000 startups, including many names you know (like Twitch, Roblox, and Instacart) but there’s something even cooler about
AngelList. It allows hiring managers to share (and job seekers to see) salary and stock options upfront, before the application process. You know we love salary transparency here.
Other Startup Job Boards
The Best Creative Job Boards
We love the creative job boards because they’re all so...well-designed. Makes sense, huh?
Creative job sites are unlike most other job sites because candidates have the unique ability to share their portfolio of work to edge out the competition.
As a result, many creative job boards allow candidates to showcase their proudest work.
Our Favorite Creative Job Board: Dribbble
We loved admiring this creative job site. Employers looking for designers can browse creative professionals, their work, their specialties, and their desired rates. This talent showcase makes the “job” of hiring easy for both parties.
Other Creative Job Boards
Art Jobs: For the employer looking to fill a role at their museum, arts center, or arts education institution, then Art Jobs is where you’ll want to head. All jobs in arts, culture, and education are featured on this (affordable!) jobs site.
The Best Freelance Job Boards
Freelancers make the world go around, especially for small businesses looking to hire for a project or a new role. Managers look for freelancers for a variety of needs.
Sometimes it's a one-time project. Other times, it's recurring work that doesn't constitute a full-time role—and sometimes it's freelance work that could turn into a full-time role in the future. Here are the best sites to find freelance talent.
Our Favorite Freelance Job Board: Upwork
Upwork has been on the freelance scene since 1998, when they were founded—and known as Elance. Upwork hosts high-quality jobs in dozens of industries including design, customer service, engineering, marketing, translation, and much more.
Other Freelance Job Boards
Lights, Camera, Action! We couldn’t help ourselves.
Media jobs often involve a specific skill set, whether you’re going to be in front of the camera, writing broadcasting copy, covering a sensitive news topic, or lighting a complicated set at night.
Here are the best job boards to post your media, entertainment, and broadcasting positions. Tap into the very best undiscovered talent in journalism, entertainment, and media.
MediaBistro is the #1 hiring site for media jobs—and they have tons of unique resources that make it easy to believe why. For example, they have a section that shows
Mastheads and Editorial Calendars from the biggest publications, so that media professionals could pitch timely and tailored content.
Other Media Job Boards
The Best Nonprofit Job Boards
Nonprofits, by definition, are legal entities organized and operated for a collective, public, or social benefit.
Nonprofits need employees with values-first goals. These employees excel at their job, love what they do, and are dedicated to the mission. The "right employee" is seeking an organization where they "belong," have a rewarding long-term career path, and feel enthusiastic and fulfilled in their work.
Our Favorite Nonprofit Job Board: Idealist
Founded in 1995, Idealist’s mission is to "help build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives by inviting people everywhere to imagine, connect, and act."
To that end,
Idealist has connected more than 130,000 nonprofit organizations with superb talent—both in employment and volunteer opportunities.
Other Nonprofit Job Boards
The Best Hospitality Job Boards
Hospitality workers are the backbone to many of our out-of-home experiences, like dining out, staying in a nice hotel, or attending important networking events.
Hospitality jobs can be difficult to fill, especially during busy seasons like the holidays or the summer months in more touristy locales. Luckily there are a number of job sites specifically created to match hospitality establishments with workers.
Our Favorite Hospitality Job Site: HCareers
HCareers is an incredibly popular site for job seekers and employers in the hospitality industry, with over 5.5 million users in the United States. HCareers boasts AI-powered candidate matching, applicant tracking features, and more.
Other Hospitality Job Boards
The Best Leadership or C-Suite Job Boards
If you think of matching an employer to a new hire like internet dating, then these are the Raya of leadership job boards.
Our Favorite Leadership + C-Suite Job Site: The Ladders
The Ladders specializes in jobs that offer salaries of $100,000+ and is the go-to job board for over 25,000 recruiters looking to hire for hard-to-fill executive roles. Aside from the standard features that most job boards offer, The Ladders also gives in-depth knowledge into companies hiring.
TheLadders also boasts a rich library of content for both employees and employers.
Other Leadership Job Boards
The Best Internship Job Boards
For the employee looking to make a big transition or a recent college graduate, these internship job sites feature green talent ready to roll up their sleeves, learn, and grow.
Founded in 2010,
Internships.com is now owned by textbook rental and online tutoring company Chegg. It offers 100,000 listings from 60,000 employers. Internships.com does not charge employers to list positions.
In the vein of “lifting” features from dating apps, Internships.com features a “who” button that lets you see which of your Facebook friends have a connection to a company.
Other Internship Job Boards
The Best Sales Job Boards
Hey there, do you have a second to talk about the best job sites for sales professionals?
If you’re looking to hire a sales professional to increase sales productivity and gain a competitive edge, check out these job boards that specialize in sales.
Sales Gravy calls itself the “Sales Acceleration Company” and boasts that they can help employers to build better sales teams, fast! To that end, they offer coaching, e-learning, a blog, a podcast, and other resources to help employers find the sales professional suited to their business—to help them grow their sales.
Other Sales Job Boards
The Best Construction + Engineering Job Boards
Construction job posting sites are used by construction companies and other employers to reach out to potential applicants in this very in-demand field.
These construction job sites help hiring managers to source experienced contractors faster—without any frills.
If you’re seeking a construction superintendent, project manager, or general laborer, these job sites are your best bet.
Our Favorite Construction Jobs Site: RoadTechs
Sometimes a no-frills job site is the best bet.
That’s why we love
RoadTech’s construction job board, which prominently features this line: “Run by workers for workers.”
They also offer helpful jump links to the function of the job at hand—including alternative energy, overseas, aerospace, and manufacturing. Pretty awesome.
Other Construction Job Boards
The Best Retail Job Boards
Have you ever wondered how retail workers fold the perfect shirt? Same here. With online shopping and same-day delivery becoming more and more prevalent, brick-and-mortar retailers need to think outside the box when hiring and maintaining retail workers.
We found this to be an extremely user-friendly job board.
Along with their prominent displays featuring logos of well-known retailers,
All Retail Jobs also prioritizes seasonal hiring during the busy holiday season, which is great for employers and job seekers alike.
Other Retail Job Boards
The Best Inclusive + Diverse Job Boards
Any employer that wants to foster a diverse and inclusive environment needs to start by ensuring that their organization will embrace and empower all folks. To start building an inclusive environment, employers need to hire with diversity and inclusion in mind.
These job boards recognize Black professionals, women, Indigenous professionals, seniors or semi-retired individuals, and other BIPOC minority professionals.
Does it hurt that inclusive and diverse workplaces continuously outperform their homogeneously-populated business peers? Probably not.
Our Favorite Job Board for Underrepresented Ethnic Groups: Diversity.com
Founded in 2000,
Diversity.com has been around for over 20 years, so they know it all. They use their expertise to ensure that their employers are committed to diversity and inclusion—from end to end.
Other Inclusive + Diverse Job Boards
Can you blame us for choosing ourselves? While Career Contessa was built with women’s POV in the workplace, we are built inclusively for anybody to use.
To back it up, our job board only features organizations with a track record of being great workplaces for all folks to work—with paid leave, flexible options, and admirable leadership.
Other Job Boards for Women
Our Favorite Job Board for the LGBTQIA+ Community: LGBT Funders
We chose this job board because it exists in tandem with a huge breadth of resources for LGBTQIA+ community and their hopeful future employers—including resources on
nondiscrimination policies and much more.
Other Job Boards for the LGBTQIA+ Community
Our Favorite Job Board for Candidates With Disabilities: AbilityLinks
Research from McKinsey has shown that the national GDP would increase by $25 billion if only one percent more persons with disabilities were hired.
Like so many of our picks,
AbilityLinks edged out the competition due to their resources for employers and candidates on hiring and getting hired, respectively.
Other Job Boards for Candidates WIth Disabilities
Landing a new job or a new career when you’re over 60 isn’t easy, but it’s increasingly crucial to keep seniors employed. Did we pick
Retired Brains partly because we love the name? Maybe. However, this job board is way more than just a catchy name.
Founded in 2003, this website has focused on providing retirement resources and advice. It offers listings of work-from-home jobs, full-time positions, part-time opportunities, seasonal jobs, and information for those interested in starting their own business.
Other Job Boards for Retired Talent