7 Ways to Avoid Job Boards and Still Get Hired | JobSearchTV.com

I caught an article that Hannah Morgan from CareerSherpa wrote. Hannah wrote an article called, “7 tactics that beat the job boards.” The idea is that job boards are the pond that all the fish are in and when a company throws out a line, all the fish are trying to jump on the hook, right? That's what it's kind of like. Fishing. It's hard to be that one fish amongst that ocean of fish that finds the hook and is able to get there 1st and gets caught.

So, Hannah’s article (and I’ve done similar things in the past) and I kind of broken it up, coalesces a couple ways that you could be more effective use job boards. I'm not saying that you don't use boards but only using them is a mistake. Again, you're just in it with all the other fish.

So, #1 she says is, in-person networking. Connecting one-on-one with people in a variety of different ways to make connection or make reconnection. Remember, the statistics are 70% of positions are filled as a result of networking and 70% of the 70% or 49% are as a result of introductions your network makes to people you don't know that they know. So, again, networking becomes very important.

The next option is online networking. LinkedIn groups. Facebook groups (remember Facebook has groups). So, get involved with groups and organizations where groups exist.

Number 3 on her list is recruiters. I have a problem with this, even though I worked in recruiting for as many years as I did because, statistically, recruiters don't fill a lot of positions. As a matter of fact, between job boards and recruiters, together, they fill about 30% of all jobs (I seen as low as 27%, 26% but, let’s say it's 30%. The result is a lot you spent all your effort on recruiters thinking that's the easy way when your experience tells you really isn’t.

After all, recruiters of those people who lie to you all the time, who exaggerate what the employer is going to do for you. Yada yada yada. Don't overwork the recruiters anymore than you do the job boards. Pullback on both of them and emphasize some of the other areas.

The next she points to is targeting potential employers. Now, this goes well with the online networking strategy because you may not know people who work at a firm that you want to target but, number 1, you may be part of groups with people who work there and, number 2, people you know may know people who work there.

The easiest way to find out is through LinkedIn which is a resource when I started in recruiting 100 years ago, it was the old boys club (By the way in the world of networking, there is now a very strong and powerful “old girls club,” as well. That's fabulous. Not as powerful as the boys club, but it's still fabulous that the there are organizations and groups and people who look out for one and other.

So, you target potential employers. Find out who you know what those firms. 1 of the easiest ways to do this is, obviously, do a 1st level search, but you may also find that if you follow the company on LinkedIn and then notice the right-hand column, in the current version of LinkedIn, there is a field there at the bottom that will tell you who you're connected with in some way-- 1st or 2nd level connection. That is associated with that firm that can help you get connected into the firm.
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Another way to connect to a firm way is by volunteering. If the role, not all of you want to work in for-profit organizations and there are also people who work at for profit organizations who volunteer. To me, this is not as high a priority because you have to be lucky on this 1.

The right person has to walk in or the organization has to have sufficient funding in order to make this work. And, the next 2 really, to me, go hand-in-hand-- online visibility and speaking, consulting and writing. Writing takes a lot of different forms. You can write for medium; you could write from LinkedIn.

You can speak and consult. You can create online visibility for yourself with all these medium as part of building as part of the “b word” that so many of you will click away from but, I am telling you, it's 1 of the most important things that you can do in your career – –branding. Branding yourself as an expert at what you do.

If you an executive assistant, it's kind of hard, except you through reputation built. How do you build a reputation? You know better than I? I don't know how to do that one publicly except to associating with the executive the you are supporting. If that person has no brand or no name, you are out of luck! But, if you are someone who's in a field where you can show your expertise, speak to your expertise. Develop a reputation for yourself through what you write, through YouTube, through speaking, through consulting, through Instagram it, through a variety of different places, through writing.

You could write a book. It doesn't have to be the most profound book known to mankind. it just has to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise. It becomes a business card for you in many respects that will help you get in the door at different organizations.

So, these are a couple strategies. I also want to remind you that there are alumni groups and alumni from your school that can help as well. For example, for someone is very inexperienced, you can use LinkedIn to find people who graduated a year or 2 ahead of you and network with them. That is something that is not in Hannah’s article
I've done videos and then, articles about this previously.