JOBSHOP
A guide to finding and checking information online Useful for jobsearch, researching a career, researching a company and more! Introduction When using the internet to research a career or search for a job, you need to be careful that that the information you view online is up to date, correct and appropriate for your requirements. This leaflet will give you tips on finding information online and suggestions on what to look out for when viewing a webpage. Finding information You may find the following useful when entering search terms:
Use AND to find results that contain all of your keywords (e.g. vacancies AND teaching assistant). Use OR to find results that contain some or all of your keywords (e.g. Television OR Radio). Use 'wildcards' (such as * in Google) to find part of a keyword (e.g. publi* to find both publisher and publishing). Put your keywords in order of importance, as the search tool will address them in order. Find an exact phrase (e.g. the title of a book) by putting it in quotation marks (e.g. "What Color is your Parachute?").
Put a minus dash – before a word to exclude it from the search, such as Jaguar –animal. Use two full stops between numbers to search for a range of dates, prices, measurements such as 2005.. 2011 Use a site query to search within a specific website such as site:bishopg.ac.uk Use a link query to search for sites that link to that specific URL such as site link:bishopg.ac.uk Use related: query to find sites that are related to a specified site such as related:bishopg.ac.uk Note that many search tools (including Google) ignore common words (a, the, of, etc). Possible search engines:- www.ask.com
www.google.co.uk
www.yippy.com Directories:- www.yell.com
Rogue companies The majority of vacancies are legitimate, but you need to be aware of rogue companies. This activity is organized and difficult to spot, but there are things to look out for: selling financial products to UK nationals over the telephone is illegal exceptionally high salary: e.g. £60-100,000 per year website ‘under construction’ different foreign contact addresses – e.g. ‘offices’ in Belgium, Luxemburg and Spain an overseas mobile telephone number or 0845 number email addresses that do not end with a company name Reporting: The police would like to know about any job adverts that may be taking part in this type of activity. The company contact and vacancy details can be emailed to: operationarchway@cityoflondon.pnn.police.uk
Page |2 Checking information The URL may give an indication of the website’s authority. .ac.uk – for academic organisations .co.uk – for commercial use .com – commercial (could be UK) .gov.uk – government .ltd.uk – for limited companies under the Companies Act .mod.uk – military and related .net.uk – for networks and Internet Service Providers etc .nhs.uk – National Health Service .org.uk – for non-commercial use .plc.uk – for public companies under the Companies Act .police.uk – police forces .sch.uk – for schools Does the URL correspond to the content of the website i.e. www.bishopg.ac.uk/careers will take you to the BG Futures: Careers, Employability and Enterprise section of the Bishop Grosseteste University website. When looking at the content of a page consider:
What is the purpose of the site? inform, explain, commercial. Who wrote the site? What information is there about the webpage provider/author? When was the site last updated? Is the page up to date? Are there some contact details available? address, email, telephone. Is the quality of the information assured? – is it well documented? Do the links work? Is the site linked to from another site? Even if it is linked to from other sites, this is not a guarantee that it is okay.
If the site is linked to a company, you can view www.companieshouse.co.uk to check that a UK company legally exists and to check its registered address.
Does it feel right? If something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.
The BG Futures: Careers, Employability and Enterprise Team operate in accordance with the University Diversity and Equality Policies. If you require this document in an alternative format, for example in large print, please email us at bgfutures@bishopg.ac.uk www.bishopg.ac.uk/careers