Job Board Strategies and The Top 100 Job Boards from Eric Shannon

Job Board Strategies and The Top 100 Job Boards from Eric Shannon I remember Peter Weddle, Mr. Job Board himself, talk about an effective job board strategy at a conference.   If I remember correctly, he suggested that you get on two major job boards, two niche job boards (for your industry or profession), and at least one geographic job board (based on where you are looking). If you count company job boards, I was on dozens of job boards.   How amazingly frustrating it was to have to have different logins, processes to create a profile, upload a resume, apply for a job, etc.   I wished there were some uniformity, but I digress :p I agree with Peters advice to limit your job board strategy to just a few key job boards, as opposed to a job board frenzy, like I was on.   Heres another strategy issue Consider only a percentage of jobs are found through job boards.   There is a significant (boring) debate on the percentage of jobs 3% if you ask the networking experts, 25% if you ask the job board owners.   I dont care what the real number is, and it will vary depending on your level, income, profession, industry, etc.   But heres the point:   If only 3% (or 25%) of jobs are found from job boards, why do you spend more than 3% (or 25%) of your time on job boards? I spent over 90% of my time, 60 hours a week, on job boards.   I totally neglected other methods, and had a very unbalanced job search strategy.   With job board agents, where you get e-mails when a job listing matches your criteria, it really makes it easy to spend a minimal amount of time. With all the leftover time, you should be doing other things, not hanging out on CNN.com or wikipedia.   Go out and NETWORK.   Grow your network, nurture relationships, meet new people get out of the house! Thats my suggested job search strategy (first, get on a few job boards, as per Peter Weddle, next, spend a small amount of time there (set up job board search agents), next, MOVE ON to another job search strategy!). Now, to make sense out of the 40,000-plus job boards, I turn to Eric Shannon.   Youve heard of Monster and CareerBuilder which are two main job boards but where do you find the niche boards, and how do you know if they are any good? Eric has been in the job board business for many years, and recently came out with his list of 100 Top Job Board Niches for 2008. From his post (note, each niche has its own list of top job boards): First, the top 30 job board niches. These rankings represent an average of 12 months search data at Google and are influenced by seasonal considerations as well as the recession so take this top 30 ranking loosely. 1. work at home jobs 2. marketing jobs 3. medical jobs 4. sales jobs 5. accounting jobs 6. airport jobs 7. art jobs 8. bank jobs 9. warehouse jobs 10. college jobs 11. computer jobs 12. construction jobs 13. data entry jobs 14. driver jobs 15. security jobs 16. engineering jobs 17. entry level jobs 18. environmental jobs 19. federal jobs 20. finance jobs 21. government jobs 22. healthcare jobs 23. education jobs 24. hotel jobs 25. insurance jobs 26. international jobs 27. hr jobs 28. legal jobs 29. nursing jobs 30. law enforcement jobs Eric, great job on putting these niches together, and recognizing job boards for each niche. I know it wasnt easy, as shown in the comments from a job board that was not listed :/ Job Board Strategies and The Top 100 Job Boards from Eric Shannon I remember Peter Weddle, Mr. Job Board himself, talk about an effective job board strategy at a conference.   If I remember correctly, he suggested that you get on two major job boards, two niche job boards (for your industry or profession), and at least one geographic job board (based on where you are looking). If you count company job boards, I was on dozens of job boards.   How amazingly frustrating it was to have to have different logins, processes to create a profile, upload a resume, apply for a job, etc.   I wished there were some uniformity, but I digress :p I agree with Peters advice to limit your job board strategy to just a few key job boards, as opposed to a job board frenzy, like I was on.   Heres another strategy issue Consider only a percentage of jobs are found through job boards.   There is a significant (boring) debate on the percentage of jobs 3% if you ask the networking experts, 25% if you ask the job board owners.   I dont care what the real number is, and it will vary depending on your level, income, profession, industry, etc.   But heres the point:   If only 3% (or 25%) of jobs are found from job boards, why do you spend more than 3% (or 25%) of your time on job boards? I spent over 90% of my time, 60 hours a week, on job boards.   I totally neglected other methods, and had a very unbalanced job search strategy.   With job board agents, where you get e-mails when a job listing matches your criteria, it really makes it easy to spend a minimal amount of time. With all the leftover time, you should be doing other things, not hanging out on CNN.com or wikipedia.   Go out and NETWORK.   Grow your network, nurture relationships, meet new people get out of the house! Thats my suggested job search strategy (first, get on a few job boards, as per Peter Weddle, next, spend a small amount of time there (set up job board search agents), next, MOVE ON to another job search strategy!). Now, to make sense out of the 40,000-plus job boards, I turn to Eric Shannon.   Youve heard of Monster and CareerBuilder which are two main job boards but where do you find the niche boards, and how do you know if they are any good? Eric has been in the job board business for many years, and recently came out with his list of 100 Top Job Board Niches for 2008. From his post (note, each niche has its own list of top job boards): First, the top 30 job board niches. These rankings represent an average of 12 months search data at Google and are influenced by seasonal considerations as well as the recession so take this top 30 ranking loosely. 1. work at home jobs 2. marketing jobs 3. medical jobs 4. sales jobs 5. accounting jobs 6. airport jobs 7. art jobs 8. bank jobs 9. warehouse jobs 10. college jobs 11. computer jobs 12. construction jobs 13. data entry jobs 14. driver jobs 15. security jobs 16. engineering jobs 17. entry level jobs 18. environmental jobs 19. federal jobs 20. finance jobs 21. government jobs 22. healthcare jobs 23. education jobs 24. hotel jobs 25. insurance jobs 26. international jobs 27. hr jobs 28. legal jobs 29. nursing jobs 30. law enforcement jobs Eric, great job on putting these niches together, and recognizing job boards for each niche. I know it wasnt easy, as shown in the comments from a job board that was not listed :/