The first discussion I have with potential clients centers around their target job and industry and what, if anything, they’ve been doing so far in their job search.
Many of these c-suite or senior executives tell me they’re working hard at keeping up with posting their resumes on job boards . . . but spending little or no time on efforts that will give them the best return on time invested:
- They haven’t reached out to their networks.
- They haven’t joined LinkedIn or don’t have a complete branded profile and/or haven’t gotten busy on LinkedIn.
- They have little or no online presence to be visible to recruiters and hiring decision makers searching online for viable candidates.
- They’re not spending time researching companies for market intelligence, due diligence, and to source top decision-makers.
Posting to job boards yields somewhere around a 5-10% success rate, at best. That figure is probably high for top-level executives. You can only imagine how many thousands of people are competing for those jobs!
I recommend that they do incorporate resume posting into their job search strategy, but to greatly limit those efforts, in favor of the tactics I listed above, and do it in a better way:
1. Post your resume directly on company websites.
Research companies of interest, check out their website career/job pages and respond to job listings, which may not be posted anywhere else.
Go to Job-Hunt.org for links to thousands of employers by state and Fortune 500 company career/jobs pages.
2. Look to the niche job boards instead of the big boards.
Go where the pack isn’t hanging out. See Eric Shannon’s Top 100 Job Site Niches – 2009 on Internetinc. com and also check out his very helpful methods and observations.
His list includes the top 3 or 4 niche job sites for each top employment category, but excludes:
- job sites that lack top Google rankings.
- sites with high Google rankings but low credibility, authenticity or integrity.
- sites which require registration or paid membership to be useful.
Here are just some of the categories he lists:
- Environmental
- Federal
- Finance
- Healthcare
- Insurance
- International & Overseas
- Manufacturing
- Marketing
- Retail
- Sales
Related post:
6 Essential Strategies To Land Your Next Great C-Level Executive Job
