Semantic difference between "Find" and "Search"?

I would say that "find" is focused on getting a single, exact match. As in the example above, you "find" the perfect PHP job.

OTOH, you "search" for jobs that meet your criteria. Searching is what you do when you want to graze through several results. "Search" returns pages of results. "Find" is closer to "I'm feeling lucky."

Of course, the terms get used interchangeably sometimes. But, I think that's the essence of the difference.

In many applications, find means "find on the current page/screen", while search means "search the entire database/Internet." Web browsers, online help, and other applications seem to make this distinction.

Finding is the completion of searching.

If you might not succeed in finding something, call the feature "Search". For example text search in an editor can fail due to no matches - then calling it "Find" would be lying.

On the other hand: in an established job searching site, you can say "Find a PHP job" because you know that for (almost) anything your users want, there will be offerings. This also makes it sound confident, positive and energetic.

According to Steve Krug in Don't Make Me Think, when talking about usability for a publicly-facing web site, use the word Search for a search box and nothing else. (He specifically prohibits "Find", "Quick Find", "Quick Search", and all variations.)

The rationale is that "Search" is the most commonly understood term, so it's what people will look for when they aren't thinking, and you don't want your users to have to think (at all).