Using Job Boards

There are something in the region of 4000 job boards active in the UK that seem to cover every manner of specialist vacancy and obscure sector you can think of! Over the last 10 years the job boards have put newspaper adverts out of business. Yes, you still get a few roles advertised in some of the magazines and occasionally in a newspaper but candidates don’t look there any more to find a new role. The days of the Telegraph and Times having 30 or more pages of jobs pages are in the distant past, so with 4000 sites where do you start?

Which sites should you look at?

• CV Library
• Total Jobs
• Monster
• Executives on the Web
• Exec Appointments
• All Executive Jobs
• Experteer
• The Times Appointments
• Telegraph Jobs

Specialist Websites

A lot of the UK’s leading industry associations have a jobs page on their websites, as do the specialist sector magazines and publications, so the chances are you can find roles advertised in your own specialist area.

Spread your Search

Sadly, with so many job boards there is not one site that covers everything so you need to find five to ten that look likely to cover the roles you are seeking and trawl them on a weekly basis. You may find that searching for a role on some of the sites is quite time consuming as their search criteria is not always comprehensive; many don’t have for example ‘food manufacturing’ as a sector and since when has ‘sales’ been an industry sector? Once you get to know the vagaries of a site though this should get faster.

Posting your CV

You can register with a good number of sites and post your CV, which will be searched for and looked at by recruitment firms. You can also set up job alerts so that if a vacancy comes up with your chosen criteria, you get notified or your details get sent to the company.

Beware though that your CV may be sent out for a role and you may remain unaware of this, which doesn’t come across well if the recruitment firm contacts you and you know nothing about it!

Company Websites

Many companies now post their vacancies on their own website so it is worth looking at all those that are in your target sector. Even if they don’t have a vacancy of interest currently it is worth sending your CV to the contact named, just in case!

For a list of all UK job boards go to:  www.onrec.com

Links to other pages

CV Review

Interview Skills Training