The 6 Kinds of Job Boards
What You Need to Know to Source More Job Leads
Source more jobs and more job leads by making smarter use of the 6 kinds of online job boards. Which ones should you use?
Did you know that there are six different kinds of online job boards? Do you know which ones you should use and why? You should!
Generic Job Boards such as Monster.com do not specialize in any given industry, career field, industry, or level of position.
Advantages:
- Generic job boards offer a wide variety of job postings and are a great source of key words.
Disadvantages:
- These boards tend to yield irrelevant jobs and/or business opportunities masquerading as jobs. Over-relying on generic boards tends to maximize your competition for the job.
Meta-Search Job Boards sift through dozens and dozens of other search boards to help you achieve more results with less effort. Thus, job boards like Indeed.com will search many different generic, niche, and geographic-specific boards in order to aggregate job leads for you.
Advantages:
- You can identify more job leads while spending less time on different job boards and can source job leads through these boards that you could easily miss on the generic boards.
Disadvantages:
- These boards will tend to offer you a broader selection of jobs to choose from, which may overwhelm you or cause you to over-rely on job boards, thus slowing down your job search.
Niche Job Boards like MarketingJobs.com specialize in particular career fields, types of positions, or industries.
Advantages:
- If you’re new to a career field or just exploring career options, niche boards offer a broad perspective on the types of work available in any given field.
Disadvantages:
- Not all industries, position types, and career fields have their own job boards. Niche boards are often smaller and thus tend to offer fewer features than the major generic job boards.
Geographic-Specific Job Boards showcase jobs that have a geographic locale in common. One example is NewYorkJobs.com.
Advantages:
- Geographic boards will often list jobs that aren’t listed on the major niche, generic, or meta-search boards.
Disadvantages:
- If you’re looking for higher level, higher paying, or corporate positions, these often are not advertised on geographic boards.
Executive Job Boards cater to the unique career needs of executives, who are usually defined as Director, VP, and/or C-level job seekers earning $100,000 and up. One of the best-known examples of executive job boards is ExecuNet.com.
Advantages:
- Most executive job boards offer ancillary services that are helpful to executive job seekers, such as live and virtual networking events for executives only.
Disadvantages:
- Many, though not all, executive job boards charge a membership or subscription fee, unlike most other job boards which only charge employers and/or recruiters for job postings.
International Job Boards, unlike state, and country-specific job boards, tend to cover a broad geographic region or include a global focus. One example is EuroJobs.com.
Advantages:
- If you’re seeking work outside the U.S. or in the global marketplace, international job boards will present you with more appropriate job leads than most other boards.
Disadvantages:
- Not all international job boards cover the same countries or regions, so it may be necessary to search through more of these boards to source the same quantity and quality of job leads available on other types of boards.
The bottom line on job boards is that they vary widely in scope, purpose, and usefulness. Pay attention to which type serve your job search best, and then focus on using fewer boards in smarter ways.
