5 Tactics to Outsmart the Job Boards
Less than 10% of jobs are found online. Yet, most job seekers spend hours every day checking online sites for listings. Job boards such as Indeed.com, Career Builder.com, and Monster.com serve a purpose, but odds are you won’t find your next job by responding to a posting on line.
Use job boards only for what you need. Then get out the door!
Tactic 1: Job boards provide you with thousands of valuable job descriptions. You may want to transition to a completely new career. You just left a position as a sales rep, for example, and you are considering project management? Go on to a few job boards and read through the required experience, competencies, certification, and education. Next, record your information on a table with three columns. Label column one: My Competencies. Column two: Needed Competences for project manager. Column three: The Gap. Using 1-5, rank yourself against job requirements. Determine what competencies you have that transfer to project management and where you need to grow.
Tactic 2: Use job boards to research which companies are hiring. If a company has a number of positions posted, note the company to further investigate. Record it on your spreadsheet of potential companies. Your goal is to build a list of 30-50 companies for more in depth research.
Tactic 3: Look on job boards for industry trends. Compare what you notice with further research about the industries in your area. The Chamber of Commerce, business journals, trade associations all provide you with current industry statistics.
Tactic 4: When you find a match a match on a job board, wait before you send in your resume for the position. Research the company, and if it looks good and the industry seems strong, still wait to send in your resume online to the posting. It will simply land in a queue of hundreds of other resumes. Your next step is to find people to hand deliver your resume hand to a decision maker inside the company.
Tactic 5: “Six degrees of separation,” they say. Who on your list of contacts knows someone in the industry, or someone in the company? Where do company employees go after work or to what networking events, seminars and conferences? Is there a former colleague who knows someone in this organization?
If fewer than 10% of job seekers land positions from job board postings, outsmart the job boards. Use online postings to your advantage. They are wonderful information portals. Job boards will tell you about industries, companies, and descriptions of positions. Once you are educated, spend 90% of your time networking into the companies in order to hand off your resume directly to a hiring manager.
