Where is your first stop? It is on the Internet, of course. For most of us, this has become the first line of research for just about everything! And, of course, you probably already have an account with some ISP (Internet Service Provider) - how else would you be reading this article? A few of you even have your own server! (Just in case you do not, get one! An e-mail address, at the very least, is as basic as having a telephone!)

Start with your favorite search engine. I am partial to Ask Jeeves and Dogpile. I like these because both take queries in English sentence structure rather than as Boolean statements, and both return "hits" from a variety of sources. In other words, these search engines query other search engines.

By the way, I think my search engine preference is leaning more and more towards Dogpile for two reasons: first, Dogpile queries more than just the Internet; it also queries Usenet, FTP sites, and newsgroups. Second, Dogpile's responses are at the Web site itself, whereas, Ask Jeeves returns responses within frames of the Ask Jeeves Web site. With the latter, should you try to bookmark a discovery as a "favorite," the bookmark link will be relative to Ask Jeeves, instead of directly to the site itself.

To illustrate the effectiveness of search engines, I queried Dogpile with the following question: Please list information about Consultant Technical Communicators. The following table describes the highlights of the responses. You can click the Web address in the right column if you would like to check out the corresponding site for yourself.

Web Link	Description
	The Write Place - The Fun Resource for Technical Communicators provides a wide array for contacts to locate technical communicators. It also provides a good spot for you to place your ad, and to look for contract opportunities. This Web page links to several other relevant Web pages.
	About.com ran a feature in the December 1998 on Consultant Technical Writing. It provided for people to place independent ads with descriptions of skills and specialties that they offered as consultant technical communicators. Besides this article, About.com has run at least five other articles about technical communication in the past three years. In addition, the service provides listings of consultant technical communicators or all ilks by geographic region of North America.
	Thunderstone search engine seemed to have the most "hits" from the keywords "Consultant+ Technical+Communicator". This could prove a valuable resource for you for locating individuals who have moved their advertaising domain into the cybermarket (forward thinkers!), or for locating that right "other" technical communication consulting firm with whom you might want to partner for that really big job.
	Infoseek Go.com had a few hits on the same search words as Thunderstone, but not nearly the order of magnitude!
	Alta Vista was a gold mine in terms of "hits" on the same search string. It not only found technical communication consulting firms, but it found University employment opportunity lines, STC chapter job referral pages, Institution of Scientific and Technical Communicators job bank, and a variety of other, interesting, related links.
	Lycos was similar to Alta Vista in terms of number of "hits" and subset of common hits. However, it did have some "hits" that were unique, so you might want to check them both out!
	Communications Roundtable is an employment search page for 24 different public relations, marketing, graphics, advertising, training, information technology and other communication organizations with more than 12,000 professional members. Here, you may find, or advertise for, all of the related professions for your technical communication project!
	Career-Index.com provides listing and links for job and career-related links. It includes a listing of many trade and professional associations.

These links are to technology-related job placement bulletin boards.

Web Link	Description
	Webhire provides Internet Recruiting solutions that enable you to use the Web to post jobs on the Web and to search the Web for online resumes.
	Monsterboard.com provides the same features as Webhire; job opening placement and resume placement. It also allows you to customize the career tools to your personal preferences.
	Contract Employee Weekly is a subscription based service for both contract/consultant employees and for employers of consultants and contact employees. The $20 annual subscription gives you access to an online database of technical job openings, a constractor's resume database which includes online profiles, and gets you a copy of their directory of contract staffing frims (in which you can arrange to be listed.)
	Dice.com is perhaps the most versatile of these listed in this table. It provides job search by category and by area code. It provides for placement of resumes and of job openings. It also provides links to a wide array of career- and job-related web sites.