One of the first things Brooke Christiansen did as college graduation neared last spring was post her r?sum? on three of the largest Internet job boards: Monster, CareerBuilder and HotJobs.

For the most part, she said, it was an exercise in frustration. “You get piles and piles of jobs that no matter what you type in, come up with every single search,” she said. “It’s very hard and very time-consuming to find something you’re actually interested in.”

To that frustration, add the risk that identity thieves may steal information from r?sum?s posted on job sites ? and to estimates that only three per cent to five per cent of job seekers find employment through the sites ? and it is reasonable to ask, Why bother?

Recruiters and career counsellors typically turn the question around and ask, Why not? Applicants, they say, need to recognise that job boards are but one tool among many that can be used to find work.

A proliferation of new sites ? many capitalising on search engine technology to provide job offerings from across the Internet ? are giving job seekers some new alternatives to explore.

Among them are JobCentral.com, a site developed for major corporations that carries their listings as well as direct links to the companies’ web sites to apply for jobs. Initially, 18 companies put in $ 60,000 each to finance the board. Now companies pay $12,500 a year to post all their jobs, or $ 25 a job. The site also acts as a search engine, scavenging job listings from about 1,400 non-member companies.

Taking a slightly different tack are sites like Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com, which rely on search engines to aggregate a vast array of listings from newspaper classified ads, job boards, corporate sites and trade associations.

“The benefit to the job applicant is that they can go to one place and basically see all the jobs on the Internet,” Warren said.

Mark Mehler, a co-founder of CareerXroads, a New Jersey company that advises companies on using technology in recruiting, said it has become expensive for companies to post employment ads on the major boards, and the number of r?sum?s posted can be overwhelming.

Despite such problems, studies indicate that an increasing number of people are being hired through web postings and employee referrals, rather than through traditional methods like printed want ads.

In 2004, a study by CareerXroads found that 61 per cent of hires by the companies surveyed came from referrals or the Internet, up from 50 per cent two years earlier.

But for the job seeker, there are increasing questions about the wisdom of posting r?sum?s on the Internet. “Putting a r?sum? on an online job site is not the smartest way to go about getting a job,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a non-profit group that educates consumers about technology and privacy. The forum put hundreds of r?sum?s on job sites and tracked them for a year. Dixon said many were stolen by either criminals or unethical recruiters.

Job seekers who posted online said they had also had problems with employment consultants seeking to solicit business. After arranging an interview, the consultants begin making a pitch for their services, which can cost as much as $ 10,000.

Ultimately, Christiansen found exactly what she was looking for ? a human resources job near Chicago ? using JobCentral. She said the site helped her narrow her search, and after that she found a job quickly. “It can work,” she said, “if you know exactly what you’re looking for and you can find a place that will have it.”