Job Search Using Online Niche Job Boards

According to WEDDLE'S Fast Facts on Job Boards, there are over 100,000 online job boards in operation. If you are like me, finding the Internet Job Boards that produce the best results for job seekers and employers can be time consuming and technologically challenging. Trying to match a job with an ideal candidate using online job boards can often feel like an overwhelming endless task with unproductive time management and no results.

The explosion and popularity of niche networks in social networking communities is spilling over into the Internet job board industry. You may be one of those online job seekers looking for a job on Monster, SimplyHired, Indeed, or CareerBuilder, but the new trend in Internet job hunting is online niche job boards. Headhunters, employment staffing companies, recruiters, and hiring employers often use niche job board networks like those provided on LinkedIn and Beyond.com to match jobs and candidates.

It is true that you can define niche job searches and get email job alerts for specific industry, company, job title, or geographic location with the big aggregating job boards and generic job boards, but my recent experience with those job boards has been dismal at best. I set up email job alerts with the big four generic job boards using all the different niche job hunt criteria including the most recent job postings.

My job alerts are filled with jobs that are not related to my search criteria, not in the city I specified, and not the company I specified. A few times I applied online through a generic job board only to find later at the employer career site that the job was no longer available. It seems as though my resume and application is floating in Cyber Space never to be seen.

One reason job seekers may not be getting employer call backs from generic job board resume posting is that many companies block incoming emails from those job boards during peak business hours to avoid crashing their IT systems. It just so happens the peak job hunting time for job seekers is 10am-2pm according to research done with Beyond.com users.

Niche Job Hunting Tips for Finding Niche Job Boards

There are niche job boards for everything and everyone looking for a job including college graduates, Veterans, women, race minorities, MBAs, over age 50, disabled, and well, you get the idea. The trick is finding the ones that fit all your job search criteria including geographic preference, education level, career level or experience. Here are some job search tools to help you find niche job boards:

International Association of Employment Web Sites Member Roster
Many niche job boards are members of the International Association of Employment Web Sites and they have provided links to their member niche job boards at their web site. You can search for all the niche job boards that fit your job hunting needs.

Inc. 500/5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America
This is a great job search tool because you can create lists of companies to target in your job search based on different criteria, and then click on links directly to those companies. According to a trend report published by Beyond.com, 73% of its' employers are looking for full time employees, and a high percentage of those employers have fewer than 50 employees. Smaller, fast-growing companies may be where you have a better chance of landing a job. I was recently interviewed by a small, fast-growing company and their job posting was not on one of the big generic job boards; it was on a niche job board where they could post for free.

WEDDLE'S Free Association Directory
WEDDLE'S provides both free and priced resources for job seekers, career changers, and employers. The WEDDLE'S web site has a directory of associations that provide niche job boards. Some of these association web sites also offer job networking communities, email job alerts and resume posting capabilities for the active job seeker.

Beyond.com Network
Beyond.com is currently the largest network on niche job boards on the Internet. What makes Beyond.com so valuable for job seekers and employers is that they publish quarterly job trend reports about where the jobs are and who is applying for them. You can fine tune your job search using different niche job boards depending on the hiring and application trends performed by Beyond.com.

Federal, State, Local Government Procurement Web Sites
Part of my background is writing proposals for competitive bids, unsolicited proposals, sole source proposals and strategic marketing technical writing. With my past employer, part of my job was to search for RFPs on government procurement web sites. Often times, government agencies will post solicitations to hire direct for certain job titles and get job candidates to bid on their salary. They also post solicitations for contract employees with specialties particularly in the IT, training, and engineering job areas. You will have to register to do business with most of these sites, but it could lead to getting a job.

Check it out and good luck with your job hunt.