[00:05.81]2004 Text1

[00:10.67]Hunting for a job late last year,

[00:13.25]lawyer Gant Redmon stumbled across CareerBuilder,

[00:16.99]a job database on the Internet.

[00:19.90]He searched it with no success

[00:22.43]but was attracted by the site's "personal search agent".

[00:26.37]It's an interactive feature

[00:28.69]that lets visitors key in job criteria such as location,

[00:32.93]title, and salary,

[00:35.05]then E-mails them when a matching position

[00:37.59]is posted in the database.

[00:40.11]Redmon chose the keywords legal,

[00:43.03]intellectual property, and Washington, D.C.

[00:47.26]Three weeks later,

[00:48.68]he got his first notification of an opening.

[00:52.00]"I struck gold, " says Redmon,

[00:54.63]who E-mailed his resume to the employer

[00:57.04]and won a position as in-house counsel for a company.

[01:01.38]With thousands of career-related sites on the Internet,

[01:04.91]finding promising openings can be time-consuming and inefficient.

[01:10.35]Search agents reduce the need for repeated

[01:13.18]visits to the databases.

[01:15.10]But although a search agent worked for Redmon,

[01:18.13]career experts see drawbacks.

[01:21.25]Narrowing your criteria, for example,

[01:23.68]may work against you:

[01:25.89]"Every time you answer a question

[01:27.99]you eliminate a possibility," says one expert.

[01:32.28]For any job search,

[01:33.99]you should start with a narrow concept

[01:36.72]--what you think you want to do--then broaden it.

[01:40.76]"None of these programs do that," says another expert.

[01:44.35]"There's no career counseling implicit in all of this."

[01:48.39]Instead, the best strategy is to use the agent

[01:51.72]as a kind of tip service

[01:53.84]to keep abreast of jobs in a particular database;

[01:57.68]when you get E-mail, consider it a reminder

[02:00.69]to check the database again.

[02:03.52]"I would not rely on agents for finding everything

[02:06.53]that is added to a database that might interest me,"

[02:10.25]says the author of a job-searching guide.

[02:13.56]Some sites design their agents

[02:15.74]to tempt job hunters to return.

[02:18.56]When CareerSite's agent sends out messages

[02:21.08]to those who have signed up for its service, for example,

[02:25.01]it includes only three potential jobs

[02:28.24]--those it considers the best matches.

[02:31.47]There may be more matches in the database;

[02:34.40]job hunters will have to visit the site again to find them

[02:38.13]--and they do.

[02:40.04]"On the day after we send our messages,

[02:42.46]we see a sharp increase in our traffic,"

[02:45.08]says Seth Peets, vice president of marketing for CareerSite.

[02:50.42]Even those who aren't hunting for jobs may

[02:52.83]find search agents worthwhile.

[02:55.55]Some use them to keep a close watch

[02:57.87]on the demand for their line of work

[03:00.02]or gather information on compensation

[03:02.64]to arm themselves when negotiating for a raise.

[03:06.57]Although happily employed,

[03:08.39]Redmon maintains his agent at CareerBuilder.

[03:11.81]"You always keep your eyes open," he says.

[03:14.43]Working with a personal search agent means

[03:17.03]having another set of eyes looking out for you.