Will Thompson, J.D. – Talent Advisor and Recruitment Leader

Job Hunting requires the right weapons… metaphorically speaking.

Ah, the magical world of job boards! It’s like stepping into a never-ending maze of opportunities, but with a million different tunnel links and repeating your information over and over again until you go brain dead! It’s like the early days of the internet when you had more search engines than friends on your MySpace page. Remember AltaVista? WebCrawler? Jeebs? But then a small child was born: Google. Overnight Google grew up into a search behemoth and before you knew it swept you off your cyber-feet like a pirate romance novel cover! … and suddenly life became a whole lot easier.

Now, fast forward to the job search side of things, where every day a new job board sprouts like a mushroom after rain. It’s like a game of whack-a-mole mixed in with the joy of your email inbox being overloaded by EVERY ONE OF THEM. The trouble is, anyone with a sprinkle of technical knowledge can set up a job board faster than you can click those fake unsubscribe buttons. So, as a job seeker, you find yourself lost in a sea of websites, signing up, uploading resumes, and feeling like a contestant in a never-ending modern day “Running Man” reality show. It’s enough to make your head explode.

But fear not, my fellow job hunters, for there’s a hero in this chaotic job board universe – the job search engine aggregators! These are like the Google of job hunting, aggregating postings from every nook and cranny of the internet. They pull job listings from job boards, company career pages, recruiter sites, and even that classifieds section buried deep in your local newspaper.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “But wait, won’t I drown in a tsunami of results?” Ah, my dear friend, that’s where the art of specificity comes into play. Instead of typing in ‘marketing job,’ try ‘digital marketing specialist job in my cozy little town zip code.’ Voila! Your search becomes as precise as a laser beam, saving you from a flood of irrelevant listings. IE – Curtail, curtail, curtail. For example: Title: Senior Talent Advisor. Within 10 miles of area code 00003. Send email updates once a week. My personal recommendation is utilize just 3: Google Jobs, LinkedIn Jobs and Indeed. Granted, if you have specific Job type / Job qualifications that come in to play you’ll need to adjust accordingly. Engineers: Add in DICE. Work for a US Federal Contractor with a TS/SCI Clearance? Add in ClearanceJobs.com.

And there you have it without all the hoopla – time-saving magic! Instead of doing the job board tango on multiple sites every day, you can relax and let the aggregator do the hard work. No more hopping from one board to another like a caffeinated kangaroo. All your options neatly laid out in one place, giving you more time to perfect your resume, practice your interview skills, or binge-watch that new series you’ve been eyeing. (I recommend “Invasion” on Apple TV myself.)

But, my friends, a word of caution: beware of the duplicates! If a job is posted on different sites, you might see it multiple times in your search results. Don’t get too click-happy and apply thrice for the same position. It won’t earn you any brownie points with the recruiters; instead, you might end up on their ‘overenthusiastic applicant’ list. (However, if you have your passwords being saved in chrome the auto-populate profile and password action should prevent you from setting up 2-3 different profiles and being a bother to the recruiter in the above manner.

So, there you have it, the quirky world of job board aggregators! A treasure trove of opportunities, a time-saving wizard, and your trusty guide in the vast wilderness of job hunting. Now, go forth, be specific, and conquer your job search journey! And hey, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Happy hunting! 🚀✨