Job search FAQs
Job Search Help
The job search will help you find jobs based on various criteria. This search feature uses state-of-the-art technology to assist you in intelligent information retrieval. The search form for our job database allows you to enter as much relevant information as possible to help reduce the number of jobs listed and retrieve more accurate results.
New jobs are being added daily so your search today may return different results than it did yesterday. We've taken special care to try and make your job search easy.
Use the information in this document to help you create a successful search. You will learn about the tools of the search and how to manipulate the results to your advantage. The following outline highlights some of the topics covered in this document:
- Search by keyword - how does the keyword affect my search?
- Excluding items from a search - how do I remove items from a search?
- Including mandatory words in a job search - how do I ensure that some words are included in my job search?
- Job Search by Title
- Sort Jobs by Date or Relevance - how do date and relevance affect the order of the search results?
- Search by Industry - how do I search for jobs in a particular category? And what does this field do?
- Search by Sub-category
- Search by Location - how do I search for a job based on location?
- Search by Source - how do I search for job listings from one particular employer, company or newspaper?
- Employers vs. Recruitment Companies - what's the difference?
- Date Posted - how do I search for job listings that were recently posted?
- Refine vs. Resetting a search
- Job type - how can I search just for permanent or contract positions?
Search by Keyword
E nter keywords to help minimise the number of jobs that are retrieved from the database. To help return the most the relevant results, try using words related to your skills, such as:
developer designer c++ java webmaster
Also try entering some of your unique skills, languages, education level or any other term that you feel would apply specifically to your talents to help retrieve more personal results.
Case Sensitivity: The 'keyword' field is case insensitive. Entering "Senior Compliance Consultant" will return the same results as "senior compliance consultant".
Searching for an exact phrase: To find job ads containing an exact match to a phrase with words appearing in exact sequence, use quotes (" ") around the words.
Typing "financial business analyst" will list all job ads that contain the exact phrase financial business analyst.
Searching for one or more words from the keyword list: If you want to search for one or more words from a list of keywords, include the list in square brackets.
For example: Sales [manager executive consultant] will search for Sales Manager, Sales Executive, Sales Consultant, Manager, Executive and Consultant.
Searching for words within close proximity to each other: If you want to search for words which exist within a total space of 15 words from each other, enclose the keywords within backquote marks ( " ).
For example: 'Online Product Manager' will return job ads that contain all the three words within a total space of 15 words to each other.
Searching for part of a word: If you want to search for a whole or part of word, place an asterisk (*) before and/or after the search term.
For example: admin* will return job ads that contain at least one word that starts with "admin" including "administrator" and "administration" etc. Searching for *ist will return job ads that contain at least one word that ends with "ist" including "receptionist", "psychologist", "therapist" etc.
Excluding Items from a Search
E xcluding keywords from a search is one of the easiest ways to reduce the number of jobs that are returned. This can be done by using the "-" function in the keyword field.
To use the "-" function, type in your keyword followed by a "-" and then the keywords you would like to exclude. Example:
marketing -research
sales -telemarketing
software -developer
Note: The "-" function cannot be used by itself as a keyword. An initial keyword must precede the "-" symbol. For instance, you cannot type into the keyword box:
-telemarketing
This will not work because the search will be too broad.
Including Mandatory words
You can also ensure that words are included in your search. For example: research +analyst will list job ads which will contain at least one occurrence of the word "Analyst". It may or may not contain the word "research".
Typing +Analyst +Research will return job ads that contain both "Analyst" and "Research" appearing in any sequence.
Search by Job Title
I f you want to search for a specific title, type the words in the "Job title" field in the Advanced Search box. The search will return job ads whose titles contain all the words entered. Only the titles matching exact sequence of search words will be returned.
Sort Jobs by Date or Relevance
There are two methods of sorting the search results, by date and by relevance. By relevance is the default setting.
By Relevance: The results will appear in descending order based on the accuracy of the search. The jobs at the top of the list are the closest matches or most relevant to the search criteria entered.
By Date: The results will appear in reverse chronological order (those that are the most recent will appear at the top). This is useful when searching for new jobs that have been posted since the last time you logged in.
Sorting by Date or Relevance can be done in the Search Results page
Searching by Industry
Searching by Industry narrows your job to a specific job category or field.
Tip: If you're looking for a marketing position in the telecommunications field, for instance, try selecting Telecommunications as your Industry, while entering 'marketing' as the keyword.
Alternatively, you can select an Industry from the list of industries on the homepage
Searching by Subcategory
Used in conjunction with the Industry category, searching by Subcategory enables you to further narrow your job search to an industry and its subcategory. If you use Advanced Search, you can multi-select any combination of Industry and Subcategory.
Tip: If you're looking for a marketing position in the telecommunications field, try selecting Marketing as your Industry and Telecommunications as your subcategory.
Alternatively, you can select an Industry from the list of industries on the homepage and drill down further on specific subcategories from there.
Employers vs. Recruiters
Jobs may have been posted directly by an employer (such as a company, government agency or university) or a recruitment agency (recruiter) may have posted jobs on the behalf of an employer.
Date Posted
The 'Date Posted' field allows you to limit your search to jobs that have been posted within a particular timeframe. You should choose the desired timeframe from the dropdown menu or leave it as the default "Anytime" if you don't want to limit your search by the date the job was posted.
Refining vs. Resetting a Search
After conducting a search, whether from the home page or through Advanced Search, there are two options presented on the Search Results page: refine your current search or conduct a new search.
Refining a search (refining your search within search results): After you have conducted a preliminary search, you can narrow down your search results by selecting any of the available categories that appear down the left hand side of the Search Results page, i.e.: Industry or Subcategory, State, Source, Job Type, Date Posted
You can also remove some of the search terms you have searched on to broaden your search.
Resetting a search: To conduct a new search, enter a keyword in the search box that appears at the top of the page. Alternatively, select the Advanced Search option if you wish to use more search criteria.
Using Job Type
T here are 3 different Job types to select from:
- Permanent - choose this option to find permanent positions including full time jobs.
- Part-time - chose this to find part time positions.
- Temporary/Contract - choose this one to find temporary or contract roles, including internships, summer jobs and casual positions.