USA Jobs

Author: Kaitlyn Short

USAJobs.gov is the central location to find job openings within hundreds of federal agencies and organizations, including opportunities located in over 145 countries. Job seekers can search for listings by agency, occupation, or location. Account holders can also get updates automatically through RSS feed when site content changes and can also check the status of their job applications, save jobs, and set up automatic searches.  

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The Good

• Price range
• Special features
• Experience

Price Range

No fees are required to access-or apply to-job postings. Only official government agencies can recruit through USA Jobs. Therefore, there is not an option for other individuals or businesses to post job listings through the organization.

Special Features

Since USA Jobs is a government-run website, they provide government-specific hiring information that isn't found on other job search websites. Along with providing job listings from 500 different agencies or organizations, they prepare job seekers for the federal hiring process with information about the required documentation, government pay and leave, eligibility, and qualifications to work for the U.S. government. Additionally, USA Jobs gives specialized attention to veterans, students, recent graduates, citizens with disabilities and senior executives. For example, individuals with disabilities can qualify for eligibility for "Schedule A," a special hiring authority that gives federal agencies a potentially quicker way to hire individuals with disabilities. Tips for applying for this and other hiring authorities can be found on the USA Jobs home page.

Experience

USA Jobs has been in operation since 1996, making it one of the older companies in the job search industry. Most companies have less than 20 years of experience.

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The Bad

• Reach
• Resources and learning material
• Customer support

Reach

There are currently over 11 million USA Jobs account holders and in 2015, there were 360,422 listings the entire year. Compared to the top companies, which have listings in the millions at any given point, the reach of USA Jobs is not impressive.

Resources and Learning Material

USA Jobs has two resume-building information pages:

• What should I include in my resume?
• What should I leave out of my resume?

The articles are helpful, clear, and detailed, making them great resources. However, this is a small sampling of learning materials compared to the top companies in the job search industry. USA Jobs users would benefit from a more comprehensive educational resource, such as an up-to-date blog with relevant employment search news articles or webcam interview preparation.

Customer Support

There is not a chat function or a customer support telephone number to call on the site's help section. These are services that set the top job search companies apart in regards to customer service. However, USA Jobs users can submit a ticket to the support desk and wait to be contacted regarding their questions, either by email or phone. Help desk technicians are available from 7am-8pm EST Monday-Friday and 8am-4pm EST Saturday and Sunday.

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The Bottom Line

This is a great resource for those seeking work within government agencies. As an official U.S. government website, job seekers on USAJobs.gov can be confident that they are avoiding the employment scams that can be found in other job search engines. However, the number of listings found within USA Jobs simply cannot compare with the extensive reach of other job searches. USA Jobs is a good starting point, but is not likely to yield the quantity of employment options that can be found elsewhere.