Come, Use, Go Away

Although I'm the president and founder of job board CollegeRecruiter.com and therefore have a vested interest in getting job seekers to use job boards, I also recognize that far too many job seekers spend far too much time on job boards. No one can use all or even most of them.

Just about every job seeker will be well served by using the big 3 general boards (Careerbuilder, Monster, and HotJobs), 2 or 3 niche boards that target your occupational field or experience level, and 2 or 3 niche boards that target your geographic preferences.

Once you find the general and niche sites that best fit your interests, go to each of them, register, apply to all of the advertised jobs for which you are qualified, and set up job match agents (sometimes called alerts) and then go away and don't come back until you receive an e-mailed alert telling you a job has just been posted. You should spend at most one day on the job boards and then at most an hour a week after that.

Keywords Matter When You Search

Virtually every job board allows candidates to search by a combination of keywords and geographic parameters. Are you actually looking for a retail sales position in Manhattan? Then search using the keywords "retail sales" and the geographic parameter "Manhattan." Your results will be of much higher quality because most of the potential matches you'll see will actually be of interest to you.

Keywords Also Matter When You Apply

The trick is to get your resume noticed by the employer when they are reviewing resumes submitted for a job for which you are both qualified and interested. Rather than referring to your previous experience just as an "Account Executive," also include the word "sales" if that's what your function actually was. Rather than referring to yourself as a "Registered Nurse," also include the acronym "RN" because some employers will search one way and others the other way.

Fraud Alert

Protect yourself by posting your resume anonymously at the job boards that offer that option so that employers and fraudsters who search the resume bank can't see your name, e-mail, or other contact information. Better yet, patronize the small number of major job boards like CollegeRecruiter.com that do not sell resume searching access to employers so as to better protect the candidates who are using the sites.

Follow-Up

Keep track of the jobs to which you've applied. Follow-up with each and every employer. Give them four or five business days to review your resume. Then e-mail or call using any contact in- formation included in the job posting. If there is no such information in the ad, and there often isn't, then go to the employer's web site and use the Contact Us or other such page to contact the human resources office. All you want to know at this stage is if they received your resume and when they'll likely review it. Be polite but firm in getting that information. Any good employer should be able and willing to communicate that to you. If they tell you 5 business days, call or e-mail them back on the sixth business day to ask for an update and the timing of the next step. If they tell you that they'll be setting up interviews in 10 business days, then call or e-mail them back on the eleventh day.