Searching the site? Some updates for you.
No need for a magnifying glass. (Photo: Mads Boedker, Flickr/Creative Commons)
Yesterday we released a new set of features to make it easier to find the people, organizations, and opportunities that matter most to you. Play around and let us know what you think!
Click on any of the listing types (Jobs, Volunteer Opportunities, etc.) in the header on Idealist.org, or start a search based on type, keyword, or location.
To better locate the opportunities relevant to where you are or want to be, we’ve refined our radius search to including listings from your choice of 5, 10, 25, 50, or 100 miles from any location. You can also search by region. Try a search for jobs in Eastern Europe or Western Africa, for example.
When searching for jobs:
- Select Job Function, and narrow your search results by degree and experience requirements and whether you’re looking for something full or part-time.
When searching for volunteer opportunities:
- Easily find opportunities based on how much time you want to give and when you’re free to give it.
- Filter down to opportunities for groups and families, and if you’re looking to go abroad, tune-in on which organizations provide support to international volunteers.
To locate people:
- Tap into our database of hundreds of thousands of individuals that are searching for friends, collaborators, clients, and volunteer opportunities.
We’ve also made our Info Centers more accessible. Now when you search for different topics, your results might include links to our Career Center or Grad School Resource Center. We figure if you’re searching for a job, you might also be interested in ways to score your next interview, for example.
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Questions for us? Leave ‘em below.
Ideas for more improvements to the site? Add your suggestions to our GetSatisfaction page.
Tags: Idealist.org, job search
I like the click-ability of search options, however some of the options are not available. I would like the option to have filters based on location. The old format was filter-able by continent/region.
Granted, I’ve only spent a few mintues exploring the new search format for jobs and other listings but I find it extremely limiting and, quite frankly, I think it awful! I’m not suggesting the previous format was perfection, but it was much more user-friendly in that it allowed for more customizeable searches. With this new format you may have simplified the process but, in my opinion, you’ve also eliminated some of the best features and funtionality and, therefore, its overall value to users.
I am not happy with the new format. The older version was a lot easier to navigate and much more user friendly.
One of the biggest concerns that I have is that when I click for the next page, I have to manually scroll up to begin viewing the postings, I am not automatically moved to the top of the fresh page.
I was not a fan of the last changes and I’m not happy with these either. I want to be able to search as quickly as possible and both the previous changes and these add time. Specifically,
-After hitting next page, the screen takes a long moment to refreash to the next page and it does not refreash to the top of the page.
-There are to few results per page meaning that you have to keep hitting “next page”
-Searching for jobs in Washington DC is very frustrating I think because people write it so differently. You used to be able to put in a global search for jobs and then click on DC in the geographic list and get all spellings. With these changes you can’t do that. I put in district of columbia and got 825 results. Then put in Washington, DC and got 768.
- How do you search multiple locations in one search?
-The way results are listed makes it harder to scan quickly. Put it back in a form where you can easily scan position, organization and location (ie: flush to the left, roughly same size etc)
Bottom line. Every time there have been major changes it ends up taking me longer to search and find relevant results. I actually wish you would go back to how it was over a year ago. Why fix what isn’t broke?
This is my first time using the new format and it is a little frustrating. Several times I put in a job search for New York City. After clicking on a position to read about it, I am brought back to page one of my search. In another instance, my New York City Search is lost all together and I see a listing of jobs from all around the country.
It may require a few more visits to the site to fully understand the new system, but I preferred the search system of several years ago.
I do not understand why when you “update” a format it is made less useful than before. There is no functionality now to search for a job by region/city/state if you’re living in the US. I looked at the search page for jobs and I have no idea what to do next. Where are all the job functions? areas of focus? Why is everything limited? Did someone make a mistake when updating your site? I’m sorry but this is totally bizarre – this was NOT a good update. Please switch back to the old search, there was no reason to change it.
Hi everyone,
Julia here, from Idealist. Thanks for your feedback. We continue to try to refine the site in a never-ending quest to help you find exactly what you’re looking for, every time you search. I’ll post a few comments here that I hope will address all of your concerns.
***Searching by location, including region.***
Rajiv, you can search for any city, state, country, or region by typing it into the Location search box at the top of every page. Once you start typing, we’ll give you suggestions of locations that are in our database. You can type a city like “Seattle, WA, US” or a region like “South-East Asia.” This is much faster than the previous way which required you to drill down several levels to get to a city (refreshing the page each time).
Coming soon: Metro Areas for some of the more popular city searches in the United States.
Regarding searching for several locations at once: While you can expand a geographic search using the radius tool (e.g. Within 25 miles), we don’t yet have the option to include multiple geographically disparate locations in a single search. We recommend saving each location search separately and setting up email alerts to automate the process.
***Searching by Job Function and Area of Focus***
This functionality is still there. From any search, you’ll see a list of the top Areas of Focus in the set of filters in the left-hand column. Want to see the full list? Click into the “Search the full list” box, and you’ll see a dropdown of all the areas of focus. The Job Function filter will appear in that same column for any search that’s narrowed to the Jobs type.
More in a moment…
All righty, part two.
***Moving from one page of results to the next***
Yvette, Hope, and Joel: Thanks for pointing out that when you clicked to go to the next page, it wasn’t taking you to the top of the page. This should be resolved now. (If it’s not, please let us know what browser and version you’re using.)
***Number of search results displayed***
We actually increased the number of results per page. Before this iteration, we only displayed 10 at a time, and now you should see 20.
Perhaps in the future, we can add an option so that each person can choose how many results they’d like to see on a page. If you’d like to cast a vote for that, please head over to getsatisfaction.com/idealist and let us know there.
***Back button***
A couple of you have reported that when you use your browser’s back button, you are taken back to the first page, or you are taken back to a search with the location cleared from it. We are trying to reproduce and resolve this problem. You can help us out by reporting it via http://www.idealist.org/contact-us or at getsatisfaction.org/idealist. Please include information about your browser and version, along with what platform you’re using (Mac or PC).
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Whew. Thank you all again for being so invested in the site that you give us concrete and specific feedback. Let us know if you have more questions or concerns.
***Moving from one page of results to the next***
Yvette, Hope, and Joel: Thanks for pointing out that when you clicked to go to the next page, it wasn’t taking you to the top of the page. This should be resolved now. (If it’s not, please let us know what browser and version you’re using.)
Problem is still not resolved…
I am using the most current version of IE.
Follow-Up—-
I was doing a search of the entire United States, everything seemed to be working quite well, until I tried to click onto the fourth page…
Once I clicked on “4″, I was taken back to page 1, and had over 400,000 results (all listings).
Please look into this.
“***Moving from one page of results to the next***
Yvette, Hope, and Joel: Thanks for pointing out that when you clicked to go to the next page, it wasn’t taking you to the top of the page. This should be resolved now. (If it’s not, please let us know what browser and version you’re using.)”
Julia,
I have tried on Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. All three browsers are up to date and I still cannot go to the next page of my search results.
The site has not been sorting properly for a couple of days. It isn’t sorting according to location (e.g. when I type in Africa it doesn’t eliminate other postings not in Africa). Also, it won’t allow me to scroll through pages so I am left on page one. Otherwise, the format is fine if it worked.
Hi Tammy, We can’t seem to replicate the problem you’re having with postings in/outside Africa. Can you please tell us what browser, version, and platform you are using? This will help us investigate. Thanks!
Please put back the ability to click on a location on the left side. Before you could:
-See where in a state jobs were listed
-effectively search Washington DC (as a state) and get listings for all the different ways people spell it out (or not)
-Get a snapshot of where in the nation jobs were listed
- It was just faster and easier
I’m a new user who tried the advanced search for jobs. Every time I chose an option (such as “job requirements” or “education level”) the screen froze and faded out for about five seconds. Are you working on the site right now? Because I think you need to put up an “under construction” notice.
Hi Kate, Sorry to hear about the trouble. Can you share a little more info about what browser, version, and platform you’re using so we can investigate? Thanks!
Too time consuming on too many levels. Each time we make a specific selection, the entire page readjusts with selections based on the new criteria. Which is fine if one is choosing one or two criteria. But if you are plugging in five or six (or more) criteria and want results for five or six geographic locations — it’s a pain. One should be able to set all criteria upfront and then click on search and receive the results.
Hi everyone. For those who had problems with the back button, that should be resolved now. Please let us know if you continue to have any issues with it. Thanks!