Are Web Job Boards a Waste of Time?

The wonderful Web now offers hundreds of job boards, with the leaders being Monster, Hot Jobs (part of Yahoo!) and Careerbuilder. Another site that has not achieved the economic success of the top three is craigslist.org, since it charges low fees.

Such sites get millions of hits from those who are unemployed or those looking to make a job jump. Companies pay millions of dollars to advertise on these and the other job boards, many of which are specialized. Examples of the latter are journalism jobs.com and apartment jobs.com.

The problem with the huge job boards is that I've never heard of anyone who got a job through them. Have you? I myself have tried all three of them for several years, and I have not even obtained an interview. Obviously, one is going to be eliminated in the screening process more often than not. But should this always happen?

A large HMO in California constantly advertises on monster.com. I have often seen the same ads posted over the past few years. They run, then disappear, then come back again. Do they really have such rapid turnover, or are they merely gathering resumes? It's hard to say, but they have never responded to my resumes, even though I was highly qualified for the positions I applied for.

I remember a position advertised on monster.com at an educational institution in Southern Calif. I contacted the human resources department to make sure it was still open. I was told the position had been filled. I later e-mailed to monster.com, and asked if all job listings are current, that is, are they unfilled? I received a reply saying all jobs that are online are open.
Well, that was the first lie.

I wrote back, citing the particular position and informing the Monster employee that the job had indeed been filled even though it remained online. I asked why, and was told the listings remain online a full month unless the client requests that the listing be removed. The person wrote me that it was the employer's responsibility to get it removed, not Monster's. Monster brags about how many job listings it has online, but one wonders what percentage of the jobs actually exist anymore.