Your Job Search

Bloomington Public Library has many resources to help you in your search for a new career or job

Books

Find help ranging from applying to accepting in these areas of our nonfiction section:

• Resumes, Cover Letters and Acing the Interview (650.14)
• Dressing for the workplace (646)
• Business etiquette (395.52)
  • improve your business writing (808.066)
  • improve your public speaking (808.51)
  • learn Microsoft Office 2007 (005.5)

Test Preparation Area

Bloomington Public Library actively selects materials to help you prepare for standardized tests. The Test Preparation Area includes both reference and circulating materials. The collection includes materials to assist in preparing for TOEFL, US Citizenship, and the GED. To help students prepare for college, the Test Preparation Area includes study guides for the ACT, SAT, AP (Advanced Placement) exams on a variety of subjects, GRE, LSAT and MCAT. The library also maintains a collection of study guides for civil service, military, postal, police, certification, and professional examinations.

Online Resources

• LearningExpress Library
  LearningExpress Library is a comprehensive, interactive online learning platform of practice tests and tutorial course series designed to help patrons—students and adult learners—succeed on the academic or licensing tests they must pass. You'll get immediate scoring, complete answer explanations, and an individualized analysis of your results. Free registration is required.

Career Center

The Career Center offers job seekers current reference information on resume writing, professional opportunities, college and university assistance, and state and national job statistics.

Major Local Employers according the
Economic Development Council of the Bloomington-Normal Area

1. State Farm Insurance
2. Mitsubishi Motors
3. Illinois State University
4. Country Companies Insurance

Web sites to jumpstart your search

Regional

• CareerLink
  offers users connections to area opportunities by offering training, education, internships and other services. Certain qualifications must be met in order to participate.
• Local Classifieds – Bloomington
  from the Pantagraph
  
• Local Classifieds – Peoria
  from the Journal Star

 

State

• Illinois Department of Employment Security
  IDES is your direct link to Illinois workforce services: job placement and referrals, unemployment insurance, employment and training programs, career and labor market information, payroll tax filing, and more.
• Chicago Job Source
  Visitors can find jobs at private companies, government agencies, internships and profiles of top employers.
• IllinoisJobs.net
  IllinoisJobs is a local employment Web site for job seekers and employers. IllinoisJobs allows users to post a resume, find solutions for creating resumes and includes information about job fairs, career events, and advice on making the most of these opportunities.
• CareerJet.com
  Careerjet is a job search engine designed to make the process of finding a job on the Internet easier for the user. Using a fast and straightforward interface, users can query Careerjet, saving them the trouble of going to each job site individually. The job offerings themselves are not hosted by Careerjet and users are always redirected to the original job listing.

National

• Monster.com
  A leading online global careers network, Monster helps you explore the possibilities and find the opportunities that are right for you, whether you're thinking about a new job, new career, a new city or a new direction.
• Careerbuilder.com
  A supersite like Monster offering over 900,000 current job listings, Careerbuilder also offers a number of job search tools and career resources for online recruitment advertising.
• AllJobSearch.com
  Provides a unique job search that enables job seekers to search a large number of job sites at once. This search also allows job seekers to narrow there search using advanced search criteria. In addition to traditional job sites like Monster, AllJobSearch also pulls in results from hundreds of newspapers and Internet newsgroups.
• Yahoo! HotJobs
  Yahoo! HotJobs' tools and advice put job seekers in control of their careers and make it easier and more cost-effective for employers and staffing firms to find qualified candidates. In addition to its popular consumer job board, Yahoo! HotJobs provides employers, recruiters, and staffing agencies with progressive recruiting solutions.
  

Make the Most of Your Job Search (Doing It Right!)

• CareerJournal
  Sponsored by the Wall Street Journal and contains a large selection of useful job search articles, a job search engine and job tools.
• RileyGuide.com
  The Riley Guide is a directory of employment and career information sources and services on the Internet. It is primarily intended to provide instruction for job seekers on how to use the Internet to their best advantage.
• CareerOverview.com
  A non-commercial Web site dedicated to providing aspiring career professionals and students with relevant, reliable and up-to-date career and job information thereby helping them to make better, more informed career choices.
• Job-Hunt.Org: Jobs, Job Search, Employment, and Career Resources for States in the U.S.A.
  The purpose of the Job-Hunt Web site is to provide the most comprehensive listing of useful Internet-accessible job-search resources and services on the Web, in a format which is most useful to job seekers.
• Eresumes
  Provides information about writing and distributing resumes and cover letters. Provides aid in job searches and job interviews, tools and resources for resume-writing, and advice for selecting someone to help you write a great resume.