Finding summer jobs or internships was once a difficult task, but it is now much easier thanks to the internet.

Students used to have to sift through local newspapers to find a part-time job, make tedious phone calls and nervously await call-backs for interviews. But now the Web offers job-finding tools students everywhere are using to access large employment databases at the tip of their fingers.

Monster.com is one of the most popular job-finding sites. The site provides a free search engine called Swoop, which sorts through more than 50,000 job listing in all fields – from technology to retail. It provides listing for jobs outside the United States, offering employment in Europe and Australia. The site also allows a link to for job seekers to post resum?s and employers to post job openings.

The employment opportunities offered at Moster.com differ from other sites because they include listings for jobs outside the run-of-the-mill office work, including television and media internships, chemical engineering work and construction, that allow students to venture into areas they may have never thought about.

Another popular job-hunting site for summer positions, headhunter.net, offers an advanced job search designed specifically for college students. It provides “industry” listings in categories such as legal careers and human resources, and allows users to specify the exact type of job they want.

The Riley Guide, located on the Web at www.dbm.com/jobguide, allows students to post their resum?s and cover letters and offers writing tips in addition to searching through its job listings. The Riley Guide also instructs students how to “network” in a company and how to work their way up the corporate ladder. The site provides a salary guide to help narrow their search.

GW, with other colleges, works with job-search sites such as Jobtrak.com, which is a service of the Monster site. These Web sites require a password that only students from these schools can use. GW students can log onto Jobstrak.com to access job and internship listings around the country.

Some sites highlight “virtual job fairs” in which a student can send resum?s to employees, which conduct interviews in private chat rooms online.

Students said finding promising openings can be difficult, time consuming and inefficient. The search itself can be tricky, especially for those unsure what industry to choose from.

“If you don’t know what servers to use, it is harder,” freshman Mark Aikman said.

“I use the Internet because it is the most accessible thing in the dorm to use to find jobs where you don’t have a connection with the employer directly,” freshman Dave Shapanka said.

Freshman Nathan Blumberg said he also searches the internet for potential jobs due to the wide variety of jobs available offered within a site. “The net helps you find a type of job and topic for a job rather than solely one job position,” he said. “You can click on a topic and instantly many jobs appear instead of going to a particular establishment like a newspaper and searching individually by employer.”