Using Job Boards - Best Practices For the Job Seeker Every single day, it seems like another job board is born. Whether or not you flock to a local employment web site a treadmill from the "biggies," like Monster or CareerBuilder, there's one thing every one has in keeping; they protect the identity of the hiring managers and decision makers you are signing up to.
Initially, this might seem like no problem. Why does it matter whom you submit your resume to, right? Today, I want to demonstrate why it matters exactly how you use a job board, and discuss the very best practices you can implement today, to make your whole job search process fine tuned.
Job Board Best Practices
1. A good source for employment leads.
webjobsEmployers spend a lot of money to post their jobs on these employment websites. Visit them regularly, and check for your forthcoming position, by keyword and location. Sift through the outcomes to determine whether you want to submit your resume and resume cover letter. Do your research about the company, prior to actually applying.
2. Get job postings emailed for you daily or weekly.
The goal here is to automate this as much as possible. Go to your favorite job board, and check for the target position. About this web page, there will be a choice to possess your research results delivered via email, or RSS feed. Based on your personal preferences, choose either the e-mail or the RSS feed option. Now you will have fresh job leads that suit your specified search criteria.
3. Think about using an aggregator.
What am I talking about? An aggregator compiles the entries from all of the major job boards, and places them on one website. The best example, and my personal favorite aggregator is definitely.com. Why bother using Monster, Career Builder, and all others, when you can visit Indeed, perform a search, and have ALL results either emailed or sent via the RSS feed we previously mentioned. Now that's automation!
4. Avoid posting your resume.
Employers are moving away from paying to gain access to the job board resume databases, because they can find quality candidates while using social networks, like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, etc. If you want to connect with the best hiring managers and recruiters who still access job boards, consider going with the board that specializes in your niche. Of course, if you are currently working, you can seriously jeopardize your employment status by posting your resume on any job board, since your boss might be the one to think it is. When in doubt - expect to target your employers; not the other way around.
5. The first choice should always be to apply directly through an employer's website.
Have you ever applied for employment on any of the major job boards, you realize there's usually no contact details provided. There may be some background information about the company, although not nearly enough to find out you want to build a career with this employer. After you have determined what organization is hiring, immediately go to the corporate website. Find out around you can about the position, and also the stability of the employer. Whenever you apply via a job board, this really is one additional layer your resume and phone information must go through, before reaching the desk of the decision maker. What if there is a technical failure? What if the job board's server is down for that short time when you are uploading your information? I suggest going straight to the source, and applying directly with the hiring organization's website.
No matter how you slice it, the social networks are slowly using the place of the task boards - similar to the job boards took the area of the traditional classified advertising. While will still be important to utilize employment and career websites as a supply of leads, they become less important in actually connecting using the decision makers.