Job Boards 101: The Top Advantages and Disadvantages of Using this LEAST Effective Job Search Tool
Let me say it upfront: Job boards are the least effective way to get a job. They are the lazy route and the easiest way to waste hours of your day feeling “busy” but not being productive. Applying to anything online on a job board, job aggregator site, or company website has about a 1% success rate. Your resume typically becomes just one in a sea of hundreds or even thousands. Unless you have the guts to do something different to stand out from the crowd, you’re pretty much wasting your time.
Now that we’ve got that part out of the way, there are some important advantages and disadvantages to consider if you plan to incorporate job boards as a minimal part of your job search strategy.
ADVANTAGES:
1) Job boards are great for keyword harvesting.
Browse job postings for positions you’d be interested in, but also for positions you hope to be in 5 years from now. Pay attention to common keywords across a handful of postings. If they are relevant to your experience and skill set, make sure they are sprinkled throughout your resume as much as possible. Harvesting important keywords from job postings is also a great way to see what requirements you’re missing to get where you want to go and where you might make extra effort to gain new skills.
2) Postings sometimes include the name of the hiring manager.
Not all online postings include the poster’s name or the name of the hiring manager. But some do. If they do, reach out to them and introduce yourself. Show your passion for the company and highlight your skills sets. Use it as an opportunity to stand out from the crowd! You can’t be shy in a job search.
3) Job aggregator sites can be useful in finding new companies in your industry you may not have previously been aware of.
Another benefit to online postings, especially on job aggregator sites, is using them to cultivate a list of companies you didn’t previously know existed. Again, don’t worry about the posting itself or even applying for the opening. Focus on developing a target company list of at least 10-15 companies to start with. Research them, find out who might be your boss if you were to work there, and REACH OUT directly to them! Use LinkedIn and Hunter to your advantage here.
DISADVANTAGES:
1) Job Boards are typically black holes where resumes go to die.
If you’re going to apply to an opening on a job board/aggregator/company website if you don’t customize your resume for each posting and run it through something like Jobscan every time, you may as well not bother applying at all.
2) Postings are often fake.
In fact, 30% of all online or publicly advertised job postings are fake, and there’s absolutely no way you can tell if it’s a genuine opening or not. These fake postings are there for many reasons. Some companies post them because they are required to, even though they’ve already identified the person they want to hire. So they post it as a formality. Others post to look like they are growing or look good to their competition when they aren’t hiring. Some use postings as a resume pool to keep a pulse on what talent is out there.
3) Applying online is tedious, time-consuming, and yields few results.
As mentioned before, the likelihood that you apply to a publicly posted job opening and hear back from a human being (not an automated computer response) is about 1%. So you probably only want to invest about 1%, or if you really think you’ll beat the odds, maybe 10% of your time and effort on job boards and online or otherwise publicly posted jobs.
So what should you spend the bulk of your job search effort and energy on? Networking, cultivating new relationships, nurturing old relationships, improving your online presence, and marketing your expertise!
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