RJ and Makay

To maximize your chances of getting a job, it's more effective to apply directly through company websites than social media or job boards. That's what job candidate tracker Jobs2web found when it analyzed 1.3 million applications and 26,000 hires in 2010.

According to the analysis, companies end up perusing 219 applications per job from candidates responding to posts on major board such as Monster.com or CareerBuilder before finding someone to hire. However, they only have to read 33 applications per hire from job seekers who apply on the company's own career site and 32 per hire when candidates type the job they're looking for into a search engine.

Although it lost jobs, New York City's broad financial activities sector has posted its best hiring numbers in nearly a decade, reports the New York State Department of Labor (DOL).

Indeed, revised figures show employment in the sector fell by just 1,600 in January 2011, the best performance for that month since 2002. That's important because Wall Street galvanizes the New York City economy and spurs hiring in unrelated fields. The revised data did not include hiring numbers for the city's financial activities sector in January.