Networking with Job Boards
In Ch. 1: What is Networking we covered the basic concept of networking and why it's important for every career professional. Networking is an important aspect of any job search — and is critical to do to ensure that you make your job search a little bit easier.
In this chapter, we'll focus on the difference between the types of job boards, and which one is better for your search.
The various types of job boards can provide different benefits for you when you begin your networking efforts — and it’s important to know where you should devote your time and effort based on where you are in your career, what goals you have, etc.
With 74% of workers actively seeking new opportunities and 2/3 of those candidates searching for opportunities online, career portals have become the new way job seekers find jobs.
One of these career portals is the ever-increasing in popularity job boards. Job boards offer individuals and professionals a unique way of networking that hadn’t been considered before.
On job boards, professionals can find connections with professionals in similar industries, or important professionals at potential places of employment.
With over 120 million searches on Google for jobs, 80 percent of people start their search on search engines, and then they get funneled into various job boards according to what they are looking for.
Job boards allow job seekers to apply for open jobs directly using a vast database. Not only do job boards allow job seekers to apply directly to jobs through a large job database, increasingly job boards are becoming niche job boards.
This means that healthcare recruiters, hiring managers, and employers can find more qualified candidates through niche job boards — and job seekers can network with specific individuals within one industry.
This not only saves time for those individuals who are passionate about expanding their network connections, but can also do so within their own industry and avoid wasting time with connections that won’t pay off in the long run.
60 percent of job board hires are made from job postings and not by resume searches.
This means that job seekers increasingly need to find new ways network through the use of job boards and the applications they submit from the job postings listed on job boards.
This also means that for those individuals who are spending a bunch of time on these job boards, they should also take the time to invest a portion of their time on those job boards to developing connections.
Employers, hiring managers, and recruiters are also finding ways to connect with healthcare professionals on job boards.
Job boards allow for healthcare recruiters, hiring managers, and employers to connect directly with healthcare professionals on niche job boards instead of having to sort through tons of spam applications.
When healthcare employers, hiring managers, and healthcare recruiters no longer have to sort through the spam applications, they can spend more time directly connecting with those qualified candidates who are applying to their jobs.
Meaning, employers are finding job seekers through their posts on job boards and not by searching through piles of resumes — paper or online.
This means that if you want to spend your efforts directly connecting with healthcare hiring managers, employers, and recruiters — you need to dedicate time to effectively connecting with them on job boards where you’ll find them actively seeking qualified candidates.
It's important, as a job seeker, not to take the shotgun approach, where you blast out as many resumes as possible to as many job posts as possible.
You do not want to use the shotgun approach when it comes to connecting with individuals through your resume submissions on job boards either.
Employers are looking for the most relevant, qualified candidates, and that is why it is crucial to be specific, know what you want before looking for jobs, and apply to only a small group of jobs you are qualified for.
In doing so, you can ensure that you don’t waste your time, and don’t waste their time.
Just like any other part of your job search process, you want to optimize your job search process — and that also includes optimizing your networking through job boards.
There are two main categories of job boards that will be addressed in this guide: general job boards and niche job boards.
We will break down some of the benefits and drawbacks of each job board type, and how you should go about networking on each platform.
Knowing how you should go about networking on each platform will help you approach each in the most efficient way possible — and ensure that you improve your job search success.
The approach that you should take for each job board will be different — and understanding how you should approach each job board will help separate you from those candidates who approach networking with a shotgun approach.
If you use a more refined approach when networking on job boards, especially the different type of job boards, then you’ll stand out amongst those other candidates.
General Job Boards
General job boards house huge volumes of jobs. The top general job boards are boards like Indeed.com, Careerbuilder.com, and Monster.com.
General job boards make it easy to get lost and overwhelmed when searching for jobs. Also, they make it easy to use the shotgun method and apply for every job under the sun.
Attempting to navigate and network on some of these large job boards can be incredibly difficult.
They can either be difficult in attempting to find who to connect with, who to contact, who is making the decisions, who is the individual you should submit your resume/cover letter to, etc.
Not only are these large job boards difficult to figure out who you should contact and who is realistically making all of the decisions on the candidate-pool, they can also be quite difficult for candidates in their efforts to separate themselves from the pack.
Large job boards, like the sites we mentioned above, often have hundreds of candidates who apply to a single job on the job board.
This means that you are not only competing against a handful of other individuals, but you’re competing against potentially hundreds of candidates at any given time.
In addition, you’re not only competing against hundreds of candidates at the same time, but most of them aren’t even remotely qualified for the position they are applying for.
This means that you could potentially get buried underneath other spam applications and simply passed over.
In other words, there is a high probability that your potential chances to connect with a recruiter, hiring manager, or employer through these large job boards is nearly slim to none.
The reason for this is because recruiters, hiring managers, and employers eventually grow tired of sifting through candidates and potentially connecting with individuals associated with job postings on those large job boards — and ultimately decide that they should move on to different sourcing pools.
In the event that this happens, you’ve only wasted your time and made your potential networking opportunities that much harder to establish.
If you’re looking to conduct a more efficient and effective job search by networking — then this is the last thing you should do.
However, there are plenty of great ways to connect with individuals on those large job boards without wasting your time and making your efforts worthless.
It is important, especially when looking on general job boards, to know what job you are looking for before you start your search.
When you know what job you are planning on going after, or know what you are looking for — then you can tailor your efforts towards that job.
As an example, if you don’t want to work as a marketer, then you shouldn’t include skills that would be more relevant to a marketer than a healthcare professional on your resume or cover letter that you are handing out to connections you are networking with through job boards.
You want to ensure that you are taking steps to focus your networking efforts towards the job you ultimately want.
One great way of ensuring that you are doing this is to continually ask yourself before you reach out to potential networking contacts, “Does this person or this connection ultimately help me in achieving or working towards my dream job as a (healthcare role)?”
If the answer is no, then you can dedicate that time and effort somewhere else that is more beneficial in achieving that goal.
In the same regard, you want to tailor your efforts towards those jobs you are most qualified for.
Job boards are fantastic for viewing multiple job postings at any given time.
The great thing about these job postings is that employers, hiring managers, and recruiters try to include as much detail as possible without overwhelming potential candidates.
This means they will include any required qualifications or experience for job seekers to have before applying for the job.
This helps eliminate some of the concerns for them that is associated with unknown candidates.
Before you even begin reaching out to those job board connections to attempt to network with them and secure an interview, ensure that your skills, certifications, education, and background meet what they are looking for.
After checking to make sure that you meet all the qualifications they are looking for, make sure that your submitted documents also reference those qualifications.
The submitted documents include your resume, cover letter, and any additional certification documents or qualification documents you might submit.
When you take the time to make sure your qualifications align with the details on the job posting — then your networking reach-out will be that much more efficient and effective.
For example, when you reach out to network with them, and your qualifications and paperwork match exactly what they were looking for, then you leave no room for doubt.
If you leave something out, then you’re hoping that the individual you’re reaching out to will respond and ask you for that extra information.
There is a high probability that they will notice that you didn’t include or mention that you have some of those extra qualifications or required qualifications, and immediately decline to network with you or reach back out to you.
You don’t want that to happen.
You want every single potential connection you reach out to, to be a solid connection that develops into a professional relationship that ultimately helps you in your journey to securing a healthcare job or hospital job with ease.
Don’t Get Overwhelmed
The same qualities that make general job boards overwhelming are also the qualities that can make them advantageous — if you know what you want.
Since general job boards have so many job opportunities, you can find almost anything you are looking for. Also, they refresh their lists regularly.
This means that you don’t have to feel obligated to apply to the individual jobs that are there because you’re worried that there won’t be new jobs in the future.
If you browse through a job board on one day and realize that there aren’t many jobs that you’re excited about or feel like applying to, then don’t.
The beauty of job boards is that you don’t have to apply to them because they are updated constantly.
If you don't find a good job one week, you can probably go back the next week and find a whole new list of jobs.
Job boards allow you to avoid getting overwhelmed with the feeling that you are obligated to apply to every job you see.
You don’t have to feel this way, and you certainly don’t have to get overwhelmed in your job search.
The Problems With General Job Boards
General job boards are fantastic to use when you’re attempting to network with other healthcare professionals, but they can also have their own significant problems that niche job boards don’t have.
For one, many general job boards don't focus on user friendliness, so it can frustrate and tire users.
Many general job boards are still using the same technology that they’ve used for a decade.
This includes the presentation and layout of the jobs to individual job seekers.
These frustrating layouts and job presentations make it harder for healthcare job seekers or hospital job seekers to get the information they need to successfully network or connect with individuals through these general job boards.
In many cases, these old general job boards also make it hard to even discern whether or not the healthcare job seeker or hospital job seeker is remotely qualified to apply or network with the individual overseeing the job as we mentioned above.
This is due to the formatting issues or technical issues that can arise from these old job boards.
Old general job boards can easily be compared to movie warehouses.
It's like trying to look through a movie warehouse, full of movies, for one perfect movie — and you don't even know what you're in the mood to watch.
Not only do you struggle to figure out what you’re in the mood to watch, but once you decide on what you want to watch — you can’t find anything that meets what you’re looking for.
General job boards are the same way. They have a large collection of jobs, and it can be difficult to sort through the mass of jobs on those platforms.
For instance, imagine you’re interested in finding Medical Coder jobs, you could search or scroll for hours on end trying to find Medical Coder jobs that you’re even remotely qualified for.
Then when you find one, they make it difficult to apply for, and you can’t find the appropriate connections to network with. Niche job boards don’t have this issue — in fact they simplify the process.
Many users sift endlessly through job offers, bouncing from site to site, and inputting their contact information.
The users upload their resume over and over — applying to every job they see.
Since the user doesn't know what they want, and the general job board gives them too many options, it can be exhausting for the job seeker.
In addition, general job boards might have jobs listed under categories that aren’t even relevant to the job itself.
For instance, “Medical Coder” might be under Programming categories, when it should really be under Information Technology or Information Management categories.
This means users can easily get lost in these old and outdated general job boards.
Take the same movie searching analogy. Now imagine, you are in the warehouse with 40,000 people searching through 10,000 movies — looking for the right movie; this might be how a job seeker might feel on job boards.
There are a ton of equally lost people searching and applying for every job they come across.
In essence, general job boards have a ton of applicants and too much competition.
It's harder for you to be visible, because you are competing with so many other job seekers who think like you and are taking the same approach.
The best way to get around these problems is to ensure that you don't be like them. Use niche job boards.
Niche Job Boards
Niche job boards are better, because they drive better — more qualified applicants through a targeted approach.
The targeted audience is specific to the industry, so you aren't competing with fast-food workers in the field of engineering or truck drivers in the field of marketing — it happens more than you know.
Niche job boards will filter through those candidates and only target healthcare candidates that are qualified.
In essence, you’re removing the number of candidates that you’re competing against significantly.
In addition, you don’t have to worry about your application, resume, or cover letter being buried underneath other spam applicants — as you would on other large general job boards.
In addition, healthcare companies and hospitals don’t have to worry about getting spam applicants from niche job boards — which means they are more receptive to networking reach-outs or connection requests.
This means that your ability to network with relevant healthcare professionals or relevant healthcare employers and hospital employers jumps up significantly.
Niche job boards allow you to more effectively conduct your job search, and improve your networking odds more than general job boards that are outdated and difficult to use.
Some of the top niche job boards are:
- HospitalCareers.com - for hospital jobs and healthcare jobs
- TheLadders.com - for $100k+ jobs
- EnergyFolks.com - for jobs in the field of energy and science
- FlexJobs.com - for those who want to telecommute or find a job that fits their busy lifestyle.
Basically, if there is a specific niche, there is probably a job board for it.
Since niche job boards reach a smaller audience, you will have less competition for the specific jobs. And employers also know they are reaching the right audience, so there won't be as much competition on their front as well.
Hospital employers and healthcare employers can reduce advertising costs, because niche sites do most of the work for them.
Also, niche job boards target your region, so it will find closer and more relevant jobs in your trade or profession of choice.
For example, we at HospitalCareers reach out to every hospital in your region and obtain a list of available jobs, so we can bring them directly to you.
HospitalCareers.com is the best in what we do, and we’re also the largest hospital and healthcare job platform in the country because we maintain relationships with area hospitals to bring you the best jobs at their earliest availability.
We work with hospitals to make sure we post new jobs as soon as they are available, so you won't have to search through the same old jobs over and over.
Employers that post on our site know they're reaching the right audience, because we target specifically to the people that search hospital jobs.
We reach out to people in the healthcare industry that are underserved by general job boards and left wanting by classified ads.
In addition, we constantly seek feedback from our healthcare job seekers, hospital job seekers, healthcare employers, and our hospital employers to ensure that our platform continually evolves to bring them the most qualified candidates — through the most efficient and effective way for the job seekers.
Even if you don't need a job right away, you can search our career profiles, career profiles, career advice, and listings to gauge your specific interests and potential job markets, so you can make the best career decision.
Summary
Job boards and career portals have become a reliable tool in today's job search, and are oftentimes the first stop for those searching for a new position or job.
Likewise, recruiters have become dependent on them to efficiently search for new talent and fill the positions within their organization in a timely and cost effective manner.
But, more importantly, there is a myriad of job boards and career portals on the web for professionals of all industries.
While general job boards indiscriminately put forth positions from all industries, niche job boards typically concentrate on one industry or even just one career.
Niche job boards are more valuable to recruiters since they consist of a community of professionals and pre-professionals; all of which are, looking to advance their career in the same field.
As a result, these job boards represent some of the best places on the web to network with any given industry.