You’ve got a great CV and can’t wait to get it out there so recruiters can start to find you and wonderful life-changing job offers can start rolling in. But where should you place your CV to make this happen?
In a fairytale scenario, you would be able to place your CV directly into the recruiter’s hand, making direct eye contact with a look that conveys your conviction and ambition, and get hired on the spot. Sadly, the recruitment market is not Disney-franchised and so I thought a few tips about where to place your CV might be of use. Over the next month or so, on the blog, I’ll be discussing some of the major areas you can explore so that you can find relevant opportunities, and relevant opportunities can find you.
To get the ball rolling, I’d like to discuss the power and potential of job search engines for your job search.
Job Search Engines
Job search engines, otherwise known as aggregators, are meta search engines for job listings. The Google equivalent of the recruitment world, these sites eliminate the legwork of the job search by analysing and collecting relevant job listings from sites across the internet in accordance with your specific outlined requirements. At no cost to jobseekers, the sites enable you to select and cross-select a wide range of job search preferences, and filter out unwanted or irrelevant results.
Job search engines list job vacancies collated from a broad range of sources including company career pages, job boards, newspapers and niche job websites. The downside is that they may duplicate listings, and some opportunities may have now expired.
Commencing your job search with an aggregator is relatively simple, usually requiring you to set up a personal account, upload your CV, select your preferred medium of communication, define job preferences and establish a number of common searches that will reveal relevant opportunities.
Well known examples of job search engines include:
Indeed
Indeed has in excess of 140 million unique visitors each month (as reported March 2014), a statement of its popularity and evidence of its usability. Covering 50 countries, with roles in 28 languages, the site is used by jobseekers across the globe.
Simply Hired
Simply Hired enables jobseekers to search jobs and find relevant listings on the website, mobile app, as well as on numerous partner sites. Simply Hired operates job search engines in 24 countries and 12 languages. Each month, the site serves more than 30 million people and thousands of employers from 24 countries.
Online Job Boards
Job boards are websites which advertise roles on behalf of employers seeking to recruit. Candidates can search and apply for relevant positions or upload their CV to a database which recruiters can then search and select. There are literally thousands upon thousands of job boards online. These fall into two categories: general job boards and speciality (or niche) job boards.
Generalist Job Boards
Generalist job boards advertise a wide range of jobs across a diverse array of industry sectors and locations. Generalist boards are great for jobseekers who have a number of job targets in mind, or those interested in pursuing a career change. The variety of jobs on offer gives jobseekers the chance to branch out and leverage existing skills and experience in a new context.
The potential downside of using a generalist job board is that there is likely to be a high volume of applicants for each vacancy. Online job site technology makes it easy for candidates to fire off applications in quick succession, making it tempting for jobseekers to use a scatter gun approach, hoping that at least one application from many will pay off. However, taking this to a natural conclusion, a high volume of candidates will be applying for each role, making it even harder to stand out. In this scenario, carefully targeting your CV and cover letter to meet the role requirements is a must.
Though by no means an exhaustive list, some well-known generalist job boards include:
Totaljobs.com
Totaljobs.com attracts an impressive six million jobseekers every month, who can tailor their search to find their perfect role amongst 110,000 live job ads. The site facilitates more than two million applications each month for roles of all shapes and sizes across a wide range of sectors.
Reed.co.uk
Reed.co.uk is another leading job site, used by 3.6 million jobseekers monthly, making 80,000 applications every day. Used by over 8000 recruiters, the site features private and public sector roles across 42 industries.
CareerBuilder
With over 24 million visitors each month, CareerBuilder is a leading source of new job opportunities and sound career advice. Founded in 1995, this large online job site is now used by over 300,000 employers worldwide and has earned a reputation for matching talented individuals with appropriate opportunities. It also powers the careers sites of over 10,000 sites including 140 newspapers, MSN and Yahoo!
Monster
One of the best known generalist job boards, Monster offers candidates more than just job search facilities. The site has invested in a plethora of advanced technical products to help jobseekers advance their careers. The site offers a wide range of free career management and advice tools, job search advice and recruitment resources ranging from interview and CV tips to salary benchmarking information.
Jobsite
Awarded Best Generalist Job Board at the National Online Recruitment Awards 2013, Jobsite pride themselves on connecting the best in talent with the best in recruitment. The site allows candidates to search and apply for roles on a mobile-friendly site, selecting preferred sector, location and job title. Individuals can also upload their CVs to Jobsite’s database and the site alerts those registered with them when a new job, that meets requirements, is published. Free career advice and a regular blog also positions this job board as one of jobseekers’ favourites.
JobServe
Formed in 1993, JobServe was the world’s first ‘jobs-by-email’ service and, soon after, offered the world’s first recruitment website. Today, JobServe attracts 1.5 million visits and processes more than one million applications each month, with 200,000 jobs published monthly. The site has a global user base and offers a daily email targeted to the job search requirements of 1.2 million subscribers.
CV-Library
This independent job board, established in 2000, welcomes candidates to apply direct to more than 100,000 live vacancies from UK employers across 70 industry sectors. It also offers a wide range of career tools and advice, supporting candidates to secure the perfect job.
Specialist (Niche) Job Boards
Specialist or niche job boards advertise a particular set of jobs, usually from a specific sector, industry or geographical area. Users of niche job boards usually have a clear and specific target in terms of their career goals, job requirements and location.
As a jobseeker, finding the right niche job board will provide ready access to a whole host of relevant job opportunities in your specific industry or location. It certainly cuts down the legwork in the job search. Some companies or recruiters will use specialist job boards rather than generalist boards to advertise available roles, so it’s worth including such sites in your job search.
Added features and benefits of these boards can include industry specific insight and advice, and a social media presence which encourages user engagement. Recruiters can be attracted to these specialist job boards, as adverts placed on them will generally attract a targeted and high quality response from candidates seeking a role in that specific niche.
Here are a few examples of niche job boards:
Industry specific job board: Bubble Jobs
Bubble Jobs is the leading niche jobs board for the digital industry, featuring vacancies in digital marketing, eCommerce, online gaming, social media and web design. Recently crowned Best Specialist Job Board award at the Global Recruiter Industry Awards 2014 and Best Job Board at the Recruiter Awards for Excellence 2014, the team at Bubble have a lively social media presence and publish an engaging careers blog. The site also features a Digital Career Portal, providing information and resources on careers in the digital sector.
Industry specific job board: Jobs in Food Manufacturing
Jobs in Food Manufacturing is a niche market job site, specialising in roles within the UK food and drink manufacturing industry. The site covers engineering; new product development and development; operations; quality assurance; supply chain and technical vacancies within the food industry. The job site has an active and engaging presence on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, and publishes a regular blog with helpful tips and advice for jobseekers.
Industry specific niche job board: GPRS
GPRS has positioned itself as the UK’s leading specialist in the recruitment of permanent staff for work-based learning & training organisations. The IiP accredited online job board specialises in the permanent recruitment of a wide range of staff for the learning & training industry. The GPRS team are active on Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.
Location specific job board: JobsinKent.com
JobsInKent.com is Kent’s largest job site and the longest established recruitment site focusing specifically on Kent. The site advertises more than 4000 jobs each week with over 6000 local businesses using the site to advertise roles. Targeting a focused local audience of Kent-based jobseekers, the site reports that they deliver a higher volume of candidates than the top generalist national sites. JobsinKent.com engage with jobseekers and recruiters through an active social media presence on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
Industry specific job board: NHS Jobs
As the dedicated online recruitment service for the NHS and other health-related organisations, NHS Jobs features around 20,000 adverts every month. The site’s advanced search functionality allows jobseekers to select and browse jobs by job title, job type, keyword, skills and experience, location or salary.
Industry specific job board: TES Connect
Used by 3.4 million teaching and education professionals, TES features over 4,033 academic, education, teaching and support vacancies, internationally and in the UK. As well as career advice and a salary checker, TES boasts ‘780,000 individually crafted teaching resources developed by teachers for teachers’. So once candidates have secured a role, they are likely to revisit this amazing resources for lesson plans and ideas.
Have you ever used one of these, or another online job board or search engine? I’d love to hear your experiences of using online sites to search for a job, please feel free to comment or join in the conversation over on Facebook.
The post How to choose and peruse the right online job board for your job search appeared first on Giraffe CVs.