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The official online job search resource hosted By Dick Bolles, author of "What Color is Your Parachute"
Dick's Calendar
The Internet
Research
Contacts
Counseling
Job Hunting
Jobs & Resumes
Job Hunting Online
 
Introduction: The Internet
1. Primer
2. Gateways
3. Supersites
4. Job Search Engines
 
Introduction: Research On The Internet
1. Directories
2. Search Engines
3. Best Search Engines
4. Meta-Search Tools
5. Clustering
6. Specialized Search Engines
7. General Research
8. Beyond Search Engines
9. The UnderWeb & Deep Searching
10. Beyond The Web: Usenet & Newsgroups
11. Evaluating The Data
12. Grants
 
Introduction: Contacts And Networking
1. Internet Networking
2. Finding People You Know
3. Finding People You Don't Know
4. Chat Rooms
5. Forums & Message Boards
6. Newsgroups
7. Mailing Lists
8. Networking Web Sites
9. A Category All Its Own
10. Miscellany
11. People At Their Business
12. E-mail
 
Introduction: Counseling, Testing & Advice
1. Online Job-Hunting Articles
2. Online Job-Hunting Guides
3. The Gateway Sites & More
4. Online Personality & Traits Tests
5. Online Careers Tests
6. Transferable Skills
7. Education
8. More Help: Career Counseling Offices
9. One-on-One Career Counseling
10. Offline Career Counseling
 
Introduction: Web Sites For Job Hunting Research
1. Geography/Moving/Where To Live
2. Identifying Careers
3. Salaries
4. Industry Research
5. Company Research
6. Company Research & Contact Info
7. Beyond Contact Information
8. More Specific Company Research
9. Self-Employed And Home Business
10. Part-Time, Contract, & Temporary Work
11. Non-Profits And Social Conscience
12. Work For Minorities
13. Work For Women
14. Work For The Disabled
 
Introduction: Job & Resume Sites
1. Resumes & Cover Letters
2. Portfolios
3. Job Boards: The Supersites
4. Job Boards: Job Search Engines
5. Job Boards: Regionals
6. Job Boards: The Networked Sites
7. Job Boards: College & Graduate Sites
8. Job Boards: Niche/Trade/Specialty
9. Job Boards: Diversity/Women/Disabled
10. Job Boards: Government
11. Job Boards: Contract & Temporary
12. Job Boards: Executive
13. Job Boards: International
14. Job Boards: Links To Job Boards
15. Job Boards: Articles About
16. Volunteering
 
Introduction: Job Hunting Online
1. Chapter One: Learn The Net
2. Chapter Two: Resumes
3. Chapter Three: The Job Boards
4. Chapter Four: Contacts And Networking
5. Chapter Five: Counseling And Testing
6. Chapter Six: Online Research
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Home
Research on the Internet | Beyond the Web: Usenet & Newsgroups
Research on the Internet
 
Introduction to Research on the Internet
1 - Directories
2 - Search Engines
3 - Best Search Engines
4 - Meta-Search Tools
5 - Clustering
6 - Specialized Search Engines
7 - General Research
8 - Beyond Search Engines
9 - The UnderWeb & Deep Searching
10 - Beyond the Web: Usenet & Newsgroups
11 - Evaluating the Data
12 - Grants


 
Beyond the Web: Usenet & Newsgroups
Although not as useful for direct research as it is for developing contacts, you can still get some value from Newsgroups - which have nothing to do with news. Rather, these are discussion groups, kind of like chat rooms. Each is on a different subject; everyone is allowed to post whatever they want on that subject, and everyone in the world can read what has been posted.

Although this part of the Internet is not as easy to use as the Web, Google has made a significant contribution by archiving and indexing Newsgroup postings going all the way back to 1981, and making it available like any Web page. That means that you can read all of this more-than-20-years of data with your regular Web browser, and search it, using Google, for what you are interested in. There are about 40,000 different newsgroups. Google has indexed, and gives you access to, a large number of these. Frankly, I'm not sure how many they cover. They claim 845 million postings, using up about 600 gigabytes of storage space, which is way more than one person can read in a lifetime. (You can access Usenet without going through Google by using a program called Newsreader… but frankly, unless you are in the hi-tech or higher education fields, Usenet is unlikely to be a fruitful use of your time.)

Google NewsGroups Page
I will warn you now: most of what is on Usenet is absolute tripe. People's opinions about this or that, flames (where someone is harshly ridiculed for having posted something others disagree with), bad data, old data, false data, worthless data tripe. But there is so much stuff there, that even if only 1/10th of one per cent of it is valuable information - probably just about right, proportion-wise, I think - then that still means there is a huge amount of useful information to be had. In fact, if we take Google's figures, and apply my worthwhile to worthless ratio, that still leaves about a quarter million pages of good stuff.

Google's Groups FAQ
Answers basic questions about Google's groups and how to access them.

Slyck's Guide to the Newsgroups
A multi-page tutorial about newsgroups; some parts are little advanced for most people. Use the "next" and "previous" buttons at the bottom of each page to navigate.

Ibiblio's Usenet Help
More than anybody ever wanted to know about Usenet.

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