A job search isn't fun when you're sitting at home looking through the local job ads in the newspaper or trying to find a company website which lists their latest vacancies. Rather than walking into shops and handing over a CV to somebody behind the till or asking for a meeting with somebody from HR, more and more prospective employees head immediately to the Internet to help them to find a job but even that isn't easy.

You might think it's relatively simple... just log on to a website, find the 'job vacancies' tab and click on it, scroll to something that takes your interest, click apply, wait for a phone call, book and nail the interview and start next week. If only!

You would think that any company in the modern age would put job vacancies somewhere easy to find on the site, but if anything more put them in impossible places to find or until titles you might not look for and this just makes it more difficult to find work. However it isn't always doom and gloom with online job searches, as there are now plenty of ways to find work online.

The first tip is to use clever search terms through search engines. Rather than just typing in 'jobs in city x', which will return thousands of results, make it more specific. You could try looking for 'IT sales jobs in city x' to narrow it down to a particular niche, or 'entry level jobs in career x in city x' to find the kind of jobs that are for a certain type of job hunter - there's no point looking at a management role if you're a graduate for example.

A second suggestion is to visit the website of a recruiter who specialises in certain types of jobs. While the generic, national job search sites are great, they often include a wide range of jobs which take forever to sift through and when you apply and hear nothing back in can be disheartening. By visiting a specialist you can narrow the search down to cities or particular careers. To give you an example, you can look for specific IT sales jobs recruiters if you know that you want a career in IT sales.

Finally, make the most of social media. Companies regularly advertise jobs on their Facebook and Twitter pages, some even utilise Google+ and you can browse through specific accounts or search using hashtags to find your dream job. You might do a search for #jobsinseo for instance or you can use a general search in the bar at the top of the Twitter home page to see what appears. You never know, the social networks you nag your kids about might actually be the key to your new career.