If your job hunting time is mostly spent searching online job boards and replying to online job postings, you may be wasting your time, for two reasons related to: (1) what web sites you're using, and (2) the fact that only about a quarter of jobs come from applying to online postings.
Choose the Right Sites
Corporate and Organizational Career Sites: Nearly twice as many hires happen via the “Careers” page on companies’ own Web sites, compared to the well known job boards. Many of the jobs on these company sites are never posted elsewhere. Time Saver: To access these jobs, use Linkup.com, which monitors over 20,000 of these company sites nationwide. You may also want to individually visit the sites of the companies you’re most interested in working for, just in case they aren’t on Linkup’s list. Or email Linkup and ask them whether they cover those companies.
Content Aggregators: Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com are sites that search thousands of job boards and related sites for you, bringing the results together in one place. Time Saver: Save your searches and have the results emailed to you automatically. These “search aggregators” search most of the major job boards, with a few notable exceptions such as Craigslist.com, which doesn’t allow them access.
Niche Boards: A growing trend among employers is to list jobs on specialty or niche boards focusing on a certain occupation or industry, or serving job seekers with specific characteristics or challenges. The Department of Labor has published a list of the more highly recommended niche boards on its CareerOneStop site. You should also ask around among others in your line of work. If a site is crucial for your type of job, keeping tabs on it could get you employed sooner than a more general approach.
Major Job Boards: These sites can be useful even if you use all of the above; they offer tools, information and opportunities to put your resume online. But you may not need to search their job listings.
Put Your Time Where the Results Are
Be aware of how people get jobs: about three quarters of jobs are filled by a "known candidate," someone who was known to the hiring manager already - perhaps as a result of an informational interview or networking contact - or who was referred, and therefore "known" by name and/or reputation.
Job search experts recommend that you spend only about a quarter of your job-hunting time finding and applying to online postings, so use the tips above to be efficient in this part of your search, saving time for more effective strategies such as networking.
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