A Dream Job At Your Fingertips

There are dozens of Websites dedicated to getting people out of the job market and into work.

If you're not sure what you want to do, start your search at www.topjobs.co.uk where a range of psychometric tests (under Career Tips) could help you decide where your future really lies. Next comes the all-important job search. Almost every recruitment site has a search facility. At www.jobshark.co.uk and www.fish4jobs.co.uk, for example, just tap in the type of job you want, your salary expectations and where in the UK you want to be located, and matches are posted up within seconds. If you're looking further afield, at www.monster.co.uk and www.reed.co.uk you can search for jobs all over the world. On the Monster site, click on the Communicate link at the bottom of the page, then click on Monster Forums, which takes you to chatrooms where you can ask other users for information about the country or the prospective employer in which you're interested.

At www.bigbluedog.com, you can update your CV and post it to a potential employer within minutes. If you log a list of your most-wanted jobs on the site, you will be e-mailed matching vacancies as soon as they crop up. Other sites, including Job Shark, offer similar emailing services, while Reed has set up a service to alert job hunters to openings via a text message on their mobile phones.

One of the leading players in e-recruitment, www:peoplebank.co.uk, helps both employers and employees. It has a database of CVs which can be searched by recruiters and a database of job vacancies which can be searched by job seekers, available 24 hours a day. Managing director Bill Shipton says confidentiality is of great importance. `People Bank will never release the candidate's personal details without their permission. If a suitable position comes up, we get in touch with the candidate to let them know and let them decide what to do next. `People registering their CV on the Net need to be comfortable that the service they're using affords them this protection - if only to ensure that their CV will not land back on their present employer's desk.' If your new-look CV has done the job and you're called for an interview, visit Fish4Jobs and Monster. They feature dozens of company profiles, allowing you to prepare for it thoroughly.

At Monster, you can even pre-empt those killer questions by undergoing a virtual interview. And if you manage to land the job of your dreams, build up your work-related skills by studying Reed's ten-minute tutorials. This done, read the section on networking at Monster, and you'll soon be using your contacts to deliver the next great job.