Taking your job search online: don't limit your job hunt to the classifieds. You can increase your prospects by entering cyberspace

Black Enterprise, Jan, 1996 by Cassandra Hayes, Nadirah Z. Sabir

Be suspicious of any electronic service that doesn't provide an actual street address and customer service phone number--it might not be legitimate. Access point (212-475-1001), a community job matching service, caters but is not limited to jobs in health care, finance and law. The company also finds people to serve on boards of directors.

"Essentially, you've got to use your head when you're doing your job search," Lauber says. "Use a variety of tools. Someone who relies exclusively on print, or job hotlines or electronic job-search tools is going to be missing out on a huge proportion of available jobs." You have to decide what works for you.

Electronic hiring is most certainly going to be an important part of the job search process in the next decade, but do not make it your only means of getting a job, warns hauber. "You'll be cutting yourself off from many potential jobs," he says. "Combining the electronic job search with networking, job hotlines, and trade and specialty publications, will greatly enhance your chances of finding a job that appeals to you."

RELATED ARTICLE: HOW TO PLUG IN

THE INTERNET Accessing sites requires an address. Try Career-Path (http://www.careerpath.com/).

AMERICA ONLINE (800-827-6364) Choose "reference desk" from the main menu and then "career center" to access the various career services.

COMPUSERVE (800-848-8199) "corporate affiliations" offers profiles on most of the large U.S. public companies and their affiliates.

PRODIGY (800-776-3449) The command "jump classifieds" will access the "browse ads" and "help wanted" job listings.