Beyond.com Provides Tools, Web Directory For Career-minded

Does the prospect of starting a new career seem daunting? Are you unwilling to wade through the Monster.com inundation? If so, perhaps there is another career utility offering the services you desire.

Not content on being a job post board, Beyond.com offers users a number of tools (many of them free) to assist people with career transitions (Fear not search engine news seekers, there are also search engine implications with Beyond’s service). Beyond.com was recently called 4Jobs.com (which still exists and is powered by Beyond), and decided to change their name and reinvent their web presence in order to gain broader appeal.

Now that the changeover is complete, Beyond’s management team, led by CEO Richard Milgram, concentrated on developing an important tool for the career minded in all of us. To accomplish this goal, Beyond has to offer services that helps members (free membership) improve their exposure to the job market. Some of these services include:

as well as:

This list is certainly not comprehensive considering the amount of services provided by Beyond. All are offered to improve the career changing/building process. In order to access these and other features, visitors must sign up for a free membership. Beyond also offers a “premiere” membership for those willing to pay a monthly charge. This extended membership gives users access to a number of other tools like an actual resume writing service.

However, as mentioned earlier, Beyond also offers search services. Their first search presence is actually a holdover from the 4Jobs.com days. The current manifestation of 4Jobs is a job listing post board containing thousands of listings. The 4Jobs database supports queries and is not a pay service.

Beyond’s other search/directory site is called SearchSimpleton and is currently in a web directory-only format, providing users a number of different categories from which to look through. According to Richard, Beyond has plans of making SearchSimpleton a full-fledged career-targeted search engine, as well as keeping its directory standing. SearchSimpleton is expected to have its search function fully integrated by the fourth quarter of 2005. The engine’s index will be focused on providing niche-based sites, which targets the career-based industry.

Richard also shares his vision for the future of Beyond.com by saying:

“Beyond.com is focused on meeting the needs of business professionals, which do not start nor end with a traditional online job board or general search engine. Many business professionals consider job boards as a means to a new career and once they have found that new opportunity the usefulness of the job board dissipates. Beyond.com offers valuable services to allow business professionals to reach beyond their career and inspire individual growth throughout each stage of their entire life cycle. Our niche search network found at SearchSimpleton.com and our niche career network found at Beyond.com continues to go above and beyond what other more general sites can offer to business professionals. ”

Look for a follow-up on Beyond.com around the time of the SearchSimpleton search integration launch.

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.