I remember Peter Weddle, Mr. Job Board himself, talk about an effective job board strategy at a conference. If I remember correctly, he suggested that you get on two major job boards, two niche job boards (for your industry or profession), and at least one geographic job board (based on where you are looking).
If you count company job boards, I was on dozens of job boards. How amazingly frustrating it was to have to have different logins, processes to create a profile, upload a resume, apply for a job, etc. I wished there were some uniformity, but I digress :p
I agree with Peter’s advice to limit your job board strategy to just a few key job boards, as opposed to a job board frenzy, like I was on. Here’s another strategy issue…
Consider only a percentage of jobs are found through job boards. There is a significant (boring) debate on the percentage of jobs… 3% if you ask the networking experts, 25% if you ask the job board owners. I don’t care what the real number is, and it will vary depending on your level, income, profession, industry, etc. But here’s the point: If only 3% (or 25%) of jobs are found from job boards, why do you spend more than 3% (or 25%) of your time on job boards?
I spent over 90% of my time, 60 hours a week, on job boards. I totally neglected other methods, and had a very unbalanced job search strategy. With job board agents, where you get e-mails when a job listing matches your criteria, it really makes it easy to spend a minimal amount of time.
With all the leftover time, you should be doing other things, not hanging out on CNN.com or wikipedia. Go out and NETWORK. Grow your network, nurture relationships, meet new people… get out of the house!
That’s my suggested job search strategy (first, get on a few job boards, as per Peter Weddle, next, spend a small amount of time there (set up job board search agents), next, MOVE ON to another job search strategy!).
Now, to make sense out of the 40,000-plus job boards, I turn to Eric Shannon. You’ve heard of Monster and CareerBuilder… which are two main job boards… but where do you find the niche boards, and how do you know if they are any good?
Eric has been in the job board business for many years, and recently came out with his list of 100 Top Job Board Niches for 2008. From his post (note, each niche has it’s own list of top job boards):
First, the top 30 job board niches. These rankings represent an average of 12 months search data at Google and are influenced by seasonal considerations as well as the recession — so take this top 30 ranking loosely.
1. work at home jobs
2. marketing jobs
3. medical jobs
4. sales jobs
5. accounting jobs
6. airport jobs
7. art jobs
8. bank jobs
9. warehouse jobs
10. college jobs
11. computer jobs
12. construction jobs
13. data entry jobs
14. driver jobs
15. security jobs16. engineering jobs
17. entry level jobs
18. environmental jobs
19. federal jobs
20. finance jobs
21. government jobs
22. healthcare jobs
23. education jobs
24. hotel jobs
25. insurance jobs
26. international jobs
27. hr jobs
28. legal jobs
29. nursing jobs
30. law enforcement jobs
Eric, great job on putting these niches together, and recognizing job boards for each niche. I know it wasn’t easy, as shown in the comments from a job board that was not listed :/
Jason, thank you for your kind comments. This is excellent advice, particularly “get out of the house” which can be metaphorical too. I once hired someone who started e-mailing me free consulting work in the form of PowerPoint presentations showing me how to improve our website. I would also call that getting out of the house.
And by the way, she worked for us for five years and played a very important role in the growth of the company…
Hmm… Sounds like a business opportunity… To help streamline all those logins and processes.
On the Recruiting side of the desk, I constantly run into people in my network who say to me, “Hey,I wish I thought of calling you three months ago. I finally found a new job, but I had been looking forever.”
Well, I wish they had thought of calling me, too!
There’s no “facebook status” on all the resumes in my database that alerts me when a person is “now looking” or “no longer looking”, or, more subtly, “not looking, but I am listening”.
Since I am an agency recruiter, the pace is fast an furious and changes faster than Utah weather. But keeping in touch with me takes barely a few minutes, but then I will have you in mind as I examine all the jobs coming across my desk.
Good post!
I think one of the main ones missing from the list is non-profit jobs. There’s more and more people wanting to make a difference in what they do as well as earn a living but there’s not many job boards cater just for that. I know a lot of friends who run various searches and feeds for non-profit organisations but there’s nothing specifically targeting that area.
@eric – for me, getting out of the house was “hard.” It took time, I had to shower, shave and get dressed (not required for a 100% job board strategy :p), and it took me away from my email… you know, if someone would have e-mailed me something important :p
@robert – thanks for the comment. JibberJobber helps a little with the login issue, where you can store the URL and login info for each board or company… but the processes is a huge beast that some other brave fool will have to attack. Regarding updating a recruiter, what do you suggest? How should us job seekers do that?
@Greig – excellent point. For non-profit, I’ve always suggested people to go Weddle’s website, click on association directory, and go look for associations in your industry. This isn’t comprehensive, and perhaps Eric could speak to this better, but it’s a starting place. Note that most jobs posted will not be non-profit, but the board should be an association board, and might have nonprofit opportunities. What do you tell job seekers, as far as finding non-profit opportunities?
I think part of the problem with non-profits is that it’s such a diverse field and it’s somewhere where people have an emotional attachment. If I’m looking for a finance role then I’m going to give at least some consideration to most finance jobs that come in front of me be that with an bank, manufacturing company, healthcare provider or whatever.
With non-profits its different. I might not have strong feelings about saving a variety of plant half way around the world but I might feeling strongly about childhood literacy programs.
What I advise is that if you’re interested in a specific cause then you’ll likely have some knowledge of the organizations which work in that area and to apply and job seek with those directly. Networking with people in the area is key.
But this hurts the smaller non-profits who don’t have the same profile and could probably benefit more from someone who is keen and looking to bring experience in from a corporate background and it leaves jobseekers fighting for places at the larger organisations when the smaller ones are struggling to find staff. It’s this diversity of causes that makes job searching within the non-profit arena difficult.
Hi Jason,
“Pound the Pavement” is the advice I was given when I was looking for a job in Puerto Rico. I had to go to San Juan and Ponce in order for the hiring agencies to see my face. I registered on a site for an appointment with a staffing agency. When I arrived at the offices as confirmed by the email notification, the secretary stated that I never called them or visited the office to make an appointment. Once I showed them my copy of the registered online appointment, the staffing manager excused herself and interviewed me right away. Some staffing agencies might have the technology, but might prefer the handshake in person or a phone call instead of the email.
As you stated above, a well balanced strategy is key to job seekers. It is easy to forget about the basics when you need to job hunt.
@jasonalba well, I know that Jibber Jobber has some good tools for people to keep their recruiter’s email/phone numbers. 🙂
I say, just email them your refreshed resume and some details about what you’re looking for. It is important to include a)What you’re looking for b) Your timeframe c) Salary expectations and d) Contact information (yes, people forget that all the time).
Here’s a script for leaving a voicemail. You can easilly edit this to become the body of the email you send out as well (replace the CAPITAL LETTERS with your own words):
Oops. I edited that script and messed it up. Take two:
Please forgive me if this post is not in the interest of this thread. I am not looking for a job, but am currently having a job board built for me. I am wanting to hear from people who use job boards, and see what services on job boards they like, don’t like, or are missing alltogether. Another item I’m interested in are people’s thoughts on is this: with unemployment currently being at the highest it’s been in four years, it’s safe to say that there are plenty of job-seekers crawling through the job boards, but how about employers/agencies posting jobs? I know the answer to this seems logical, but there is always a story that contradicts the logic. Good luck to everyone!!!
I agree with you Eric, In my case I manage to create a niche in the jobboards (scuba diving) more for need than for any other strategy.