fish4jobs.co.uk > Reviews > here little fishy.

Author's product rating:   

Database & Search Facilities	Good - narrowed down to fit my requirements fairly well
Navigation	Satisfactory navigation - fairly clear and unsophisticated
Validity of job postings	I trust the majority of the job postings
Frequency of content update	Satisfactory updating of content and postings
Ease of registration process	Good

Advantages:	Alot of jobs
Disadvantages:	Slow server

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Fish4jobs is one of the most popular online recruitment sites around at the moment.

With over 44,500 jobs currently available through this website it certainly does not lack content. I have used fish4jobs for over 5 months now in the hope to find a good graduate IT job in the Yorkshire region, here are my opinions on what I have found.

GENERAL

Fish4Jobs is part of the Fish4 family, which includes fish4cars and fish4homes.

The site is a single frame site with menu options down the left hand side. The design looks really slick, recently it has been redesigned and this is a great improvement. The colour scheme is the same across the sight (light blue right through to dark blue with white background).

The site has difficulties with Linux default browser but it works find with IE5 and Navigator. The amount of advertising is worrying though. Apart from the standard banner at the top of each page, they have adverts under the left menu system and also a pop-up on a lot of the pages. I am sorry but to me pop-up adverts on websites are very annoying and off-putting.

One major gripe, the site the server is hosted on. For some reason it's very slow. Sometimes when your searching for jobs it just freezes up. So in peak hours the amount of traffic it generates would seem too much for their system to handle. I have used a T1. ASDL and standard modem connections to this site and its still rather cumbersome and slow.

LOOKING FOR A JOB

Find a job - This feature takes you to a standard search form that the user fills out to all suitable jobs on the site. The keyword search string seems to work rather well and there are a over 20 industry sectors to select from (multiple sector selection is allowed i.e. IT and building). Another great thing about the search form is the location search. Here you can enter a town / postcode and the maximum number of miles away from this place you want to search for jobs. Unlike most other job sites, where you can only specify the town or city. Other features of the search include working options (contract, perm, temp, flex, shared) and salary band. Finally you can set the date for your search, how far back to you wish to search the fish4jobs database? (Today, 1 week, 2 weeks). I really do wish they had a 2 / 3 / 4 day option, as I tend to find the 1-day option is too short but the one-week search brings up too many jobs to search through.

Personal Folder- Here you can register to the site and tailor your job search in a faster manner. Also registration allows you to be sent emails with the latest jobs they receive that match your search criteria. This saves you from visiting their site and having to search through the jobs yourself. I very handy feature. The registration process is fast and simple to do. You can also de-register and stop receiving the sites emails at anytime you wish.

Career Centre - This section offers us a great deal of advice and help in all things concerning getting back into work. The CV and applications service really does provide you with top advice on how to put together a class CV and how to fill out different application forms correctly. This service is maintained by Hobsons a CV company, which also offers sample CV?s, CV tips, a chance to submit and have your CV evaluated and finally a discussion on CV weaknesses. Application advice also includes covering letters.

Here there is also a psychometric test section, but it does cost £15 pounds so I am not sure what you get for this?

Courses - This small sub-section is basically a database of web course on offer around the country. It identifies core skills needed for certain jobs and offers the courses that will help you get these skills.

Career Doctor - A real doctor? Well an accredited life coach with the Academy of Life coaching. Here she offers help on handling stress, how to succeed and a whole lot more. She can deal with specific worries via emails. Hey someone must use this service.

Interview Techniques - A brief section outlining the does and don'ts of interviews. Here is covers preparation, practice and performance advice. This bit is only 2 pages long but it might just make the difference.

Graduate Centre - Here it lists graduate events and fairs around the country along with a specific guide for IT graduates. Not bad advice but rather brief.

General - Again a small section that covers the other bits and bobs that a job seeker might need to be aware of in finding a job. First impressions, career change, research and first day howler stories.

Recruiter Profiles - List of over 100 top recruiters around the country. Gives details of the company and any vacancies they may currently have. A great service if you want to work for a specific company.

Job News - This reviews what's hot and what's not in the world of careers. A light-hearted look at many things from pension worries to geeks and computers. Not really useful but it may make you laugh.

CAREER CHANNELS

These are sections on individual job sectors, which go into much more detail. It gives guides on job roles in that sector, salary guides, getting started help, training & qualifications options and finally trade info. This is very useful. If you wanted to find out how much the average salary for a IT support role in Yorkshire was, then you can. If you wanted to look at other roles that match your skills then again this is the place.

The different careers channels include, Secretarial, sales, marketing, IT, engineering, construction and accounting.

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

Here there are links / searches for travelling, courses and shopping. This has nothing to do with job recruitment but I guess they must make money from this section.

HELP

The help section is a pop up menu that goes through the most obvious problems that may occur on the site. Very poor really. It does give you a email address if you have any further queries, but no phone line.

My experiences

I find the site contains a lot of decent jobs. But it is not helped by the slow speed in which the jobs are often displayed. Also if you wish to apply for any of these jobs (When you search for a job, press on the 'description' and then press 'apply for' it goes into a popup screen than allows you to attach a CV and a short email to send to the agency or employer directly) this feature came up with a lot of errors. They seem to have some DB errors in the software. So in effect you cannot apply for any job through their website. I did inform them of this problem but no reply as of yet.

The site has many other features, but really the only thing I use is the search feature. They update the website throughout the day and it carries a wide range of jobs, not just IT related ones like many of the online recruitment sites.

It does annoy me that fish4jobs seems to want to sell you a lot of unrelated things. Can't websites stick to what they know best?