The Office of Personnel Management has launched an upgraded version of its USAJobs.gov site that makes it easier for job seekers to search for jobs, apply online and track the status of their application as it moves through the hiring process, officials say.

Improvements also make it easier for people with disabilities, veterans, students and senior executives to find employment opportunities, they said.

"It's hard to overstate the site's importance," OPM Deputy Director Christine Griffin said at a news conference Monday. "It's the front gate for Americans who want to join our civilian service … and we got feedback that the new site is just as easy to use as Google."

The revamped site allows job seekers to search by area and key words on a Google-like home page, and it features more options to filter results by salary, grade, occupation category, agency, work schedule and posting date. The site previously forced users to conduct new searches if the users wanted to filter results differently.

Kim Bauhs, OPM's assistant director for recruitment and diversity, said USAJobs.gov allows job seekers to save postings they're considering but have not yet applied for, and will remind them when the posting is about to expire.

Site users can save electronic versions of documents such as college transcripts and DD-214 military discharge records, and then submit them online to some agencies. Bauhs said about 73 percent of agencies can receive electronic documents through USAJobs.gov, and said she hopes all agencies will be able to by next January.

Site users can also share job postings through social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Griffin said the site gets about 120 million hits per year, and has between 30,000 and 40,000 jobs listed at any given time.