Hello everyone. I’m Eamon Dubaissi, a Research Staff Developer with Prosper. In this video, we will be taking a closer look at job boards, understanding what they are and how to use them in your job search. The information contained in this video is correct at the time of recording, so please bear in mind that some of the details may change with time. By the end of the video, you should have a good understanding of what job boards are and how they have evolved over time. You should know the difference between job boards and job aggregators, and also have an appreciation that there are some large, generalised job boards that dominate the market, but also many smaller, niche job boards that cover specialist areas. Finally, we will touch upon the hidden jobs market, what it is and how it might lead to opportunities that are not advertised on job boards. So let’s start with the basics. What exactly are job boards? As a postdoc, it’s possible that you’ve never even used a job board before, especially if you’ve never worked beyond academia or stayed in the same research group for most of your career. Perhaps you have found previous roles through word of mouth, posts on journal websites or social media. One job board which might be more familiar to some of you is jobs.ac.uk, which advertises vacancies in academic, research science, and related professions. These days, job boards refer to websites that employers use to advertise their vacancies to jobseekers. You might see them also called a job site, job portal, job website, or employment website. They essentially create the first connection between an employer or recruiter acting on behalf of an employer, and those looking for jobs. Job boards as we know them began in the early days of the internet in the 1990s, but it took a while for a sufficient number of people to be regularly using the internet for them to really take off. Even in the mid-90s, most people were hired through classified ads in newspapers. It wasn’t till the turn of the millennium that internet job boards took over. Before newspaper classified ads, jobs tended to be advertised in job centres, often with ads displayed on physical boards, or via face-to-face meetings with recruiters. Many of today’s well-known job boards first launched online in the mid to late ’90s, with monster.com often regarded as the first online public job board. A pure jobs board works directly with employers to advertise their open positions. They don’t advertise jobs posted on other job boards. The job seeker applies to the open position either on the job board site itself or by redirection to the employer’s website. Job aggregators, on the other hand, compile lists of jobs from different boards. They are sometimes called job search engines, and they essentially search multiple job boards, giving a wide spectrum of job ads from everywhere. Aggregators are useful for returning a lot of different jobs, but the user experience can be clunky as there is a lot of redirection to other websites. These days, many of the largest job boards operate a hybrid model, whereby they advertise job boards by working directly with employers, but also aggregate relevant jobs from elsewhere. Generalist job boards describe those that advertise jobs across a whole range of sectors and industries. There are many of these job boards, but the market is dominated by a few very large organisations. At the time of recording, the largest are Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn Jobs. Each of these job boards have several similar features, but they also have key elements that they are best known for. Currently, Indeed is the largest job board. It has the most jobs advertised and is the most popular by site visitors. Glassdoor is also very popular, and it is known for its emphasis on company culture and salary estimates. It has employee reviews of companies that can help you to get a feel for what it might be like to work there. Whilst other job boards now have these features, Glassdoor was the first to use them in this way. LinkedIn Jobs is integrated into the LinkedIn platform, so you can search for jobs on the main search bar. It advertises a lot of jobs, but it has the additional benefit of being able to make connections with employees that work in the organisation advertising the job. Making these connections allows you to ask more detailed questions and arrange informational interviews. Of course, using each of these three job boards interchangeably is a powerful approach. This is discussed in more detail in the section on career exploration strategies. Searching for jobs by skills in ‘explore’. Next, I’ll give a brief overview of each of these three main, major job boards. Indeed started life as a job aggregator, but now also posts jobs directly from employers. Indeed has a huge database of jobs, and its site currently gets over 250 million visits per month. It houses 200 million CVs and ten jobs are added per second. When searching for jobs, Indeed has very sophisticated filter options, including education level, remote working, industry and salary estimate. As a job seeker, you can set up your own profile and upload a CV. Indeed’s ‘apply now’ is a feature associated with many jobs that are advertised directly from the employer, that allows you to apply for jobs quickly, using your uploaded CV or a CV created from scratch with Indeed. You’ll see phrases such as ‘easily apply’ or ‘apply instantly’ in the job ad, to inform you that this option is available, but do remember that tailoring your application and CV to the specific job is the best way to get an interview. Indeed also has company reviews, including those from employees, a salary comparison tool, and an app for convenience. There are also many articles about job hunting, CVs, applications and more. Glassdoor is also very large and puts the most emphasis on company culture, employee reviews, and provides a lot of insights into salaries. They’re also in lots of detailed information about benefits provided by companies, the interview process, and company insights such as work-life balance. As well as applying for jobs, it’s a great place for doing research, enabling you to approach your applications with more knowledge. Like Indeed, it has a great number of filter options, and an option called ‘easy apply’ to apply with your CV. LinkedIn is by far the best platform for connecting with employers when you have seen a job advert of interest. To search for jobs, use the main search bar and filter for jobs. Like the other two sites, there are a great array of other filter options, including options for remote working, job type, and experience needed. A key feature is that your LinkedIn profile can act as your CV. The standard option in the job ad says ‘apply’, and this often redirects you to the organisation’s job site. With this option, you can select if you want to share your LinkedIn profile with the employer. However, there is an easy apply option for many jobs and this is also one of the filter choices. If the easy apply option is available, you can apply without leaving LinkedIn, saving you the time of creating new accounts and manually inputting all of the same information each time. It allows you to pull up information that you already have stored in your LinkedIn profile, saving valuable time if you are short of it. You can also upload your CV to your LinkedIn account, and use that in the easy apply function. Again, be aware that a tailored application stands the most chance of success. On LinkedIn, when applying for jobs, you can also see if you have any contacts currently at the organisation and how many people have applied for the job via LinkedIn. If you have LinkedIn Premium or Career, you can gain extra information into listings, salary data, and who has applied. You also have more extensive messaging options such as InMail to message anyone, regardless of whether they are a contact. You also have the option of selecting ‘open to work’, allowing recruiters to find you rather than you doing all the work. There are many generalist job boards out there. Here are a few examples in the UK market. Reed was actually the UK’s first ever job board. It is UK-focussed, and has a good offering of education training courses, in addition to job ads. It has good filters and careers advice. Totaljobs is also an established player with over 250,000 jobs advertised at any one time. CV-Library has similar numbers of jobs and is popular in the UK. As mentioned earlier, jobs.ac.uk is popular for university roles, research organisations, and charities. It has over 4000 roles advertised and many career articles to read. Guardian Jobs offers a range of high-calibre roles with well-established employers. Guardian Jobs is particularly suitable for roles in education, the NHS, media, government, marketing, social care and the arts. Now, we’ll turn our attention to job aggregators, which collate job ads from several sources and usually have advanced filter options too. Popular job aggregators include Jooble, which offers more than 500,000 jobs and SimplyHired, which has 190,000 UK visitors each month. Jobted also has a large number of visitors per month. Adzuna is an interesting aggregator, because it uses bespoke algorithms to help find the right role for you, but it is limited to certain industries. Over 1 million jobs are advertised, and it also has a ‘value my CV’ tool which attempts to calculate how much your skills and experience are worth based on a submitted CV. It also suggests improvements to your CV and matches you to relevant jobs. If no salary is given in the job ad, it can also estimate the salary and is correct to within ten per cent on average. Other job aggregators include ZipRecruiter, Talent and Careerjet, which have large databases, but are less frequently used by a UK audience. I’ve left Google to the end because it, at the time of recording, has relatively recently got into the job aggregator market. When you go to the Google search bar, if you put in search terms and jobs, for example, if you input ‘chemistry jobs’, a box is returned with the title ‘jobs’. This box can be opened fully, and jobs can be filtered. You can click on the job to be taken to the board, where you can apply directly or you can be directed to the organisation’s website. Another genre of job boards and job aggregators are the niche or specialised sites. These are usually industry- or sector-specific, and are valued by employers and job seekers, because they tend to select the candidates that are well matched to the roles. Other niche job boards have a broad spectrum of roles in different industries, but target other areas such as gender, diversity and work style, for example, remote working. With niche job boards, from a recruiter perspective, there is more potential to target and tailor job ads to the most qualified or suitable candidates. From the perspective of the job seeker, it reduces the sheer number of job ads to wade through and the niche job boards often have very relevant industry-specific information. Although these specialist sites don’t have the same traffic as the generalist job boards, they often do attract higher-quality applications from suitable candidates. These niche job boards are often able to monopolise a particular area or sector. Passive candidates that are not looking for jobs immediately or wanting more information often come to specialised job boards. Employers can be keen to maintain a presence on these sites so as to secure their future talent pipeline. I’ll now take you through some examples of niche job boards so that you can get an idea of what’s out there. You can find links to these job boards on the portal page. Let’s start with the industry- or sector-specific job boards. Note that many of the ones that we have chosen map to the career clusters, and we’ve tried to highlight where this is the case. Not all of the clusters are mapped, but if you don’t find an area that is of interest to you, try searching for niche or specialised job boards in the sectors that particularly appeal to you. Starting with government and non-profit, there are several sites covering charities and the third sector. These include Charity Job and 80,000 Hours, which is the average time people spend working in their careers. Idealist advertises mission-driven jobs and also voluntary opportunities. Third Sector is a leading publication on the charity and voluntary sector. It has a specialised jobs page for job seekers looking in this area. The Social Research Association is a membership organisation for social researchers, and has a dedicated careers page discussing careers in this area and housing a jobs board. Finally, the Civil Service, highlighted here with the image of the crown, has its own dedicated page for searching for job opportunities within the Civil Service. The UK has quite a large life sciences and pharmaceuticals sector, and here are some of the niche job boards in this area. They include Taylorollinson, CK Group, PharmiWeb, EuroPharmaJobs, Seltek and EmedCareers. Check these out if you’re looking for jobs in this area, or even if you just want more information about what kind of opportunities are available. Moving onto financial businesses and professional services. If you are interested in looking for job opportunities in these areas, there are some specialised job boards. They include accountancy and finance jobs, like GAAPweb; finance, banking and tech jobs like eFinancialCareers; and jobs for lawyers, accountants, and other professional service roles at STEP careers. CareersinAudit focusses on the jobs for auditors and those in risk, compliance, cybersecurity and data analytics. Finally, IP Careers is a jobs board focussing on careers in intellectual property in the UK. One primary example of a job board in the health and care sector is NHS Jobs, which advertises a huge array of jobs in the NHS. Some of the life sciences and pharmaceuticals niche job boards are also relevant to candidates seeking job opportunities in health and care. In the creative and cultural industries, examples of niche job boards include Campaign Jobs for creative, media and marketing roles, and ScreenSkills, for careers in film, TV, visual effects, animation and gaming. In education and publishing, as well as jobs.ac.uk and journal-specific job boards for higher education, bookcareers.com advertises roles in the book industry, which includes eBooks, digital media and publications. The government education website gives information about teaching, whilst Tes, which stands for the education society, is a community supporting teachers, but has a dedicated jobs board for roles in education, including international postings. Niche job boards in the environment and energy sector include Conservation Jobs, which has insight into careers, courses and events as well as a dedicated jobs page. GreenJobs advertises roles in the environmental and renewable energy sectors. If you’re interested in working for a startup organisation, there are also job boards dedicated to these. Two examples are UK Startup Jobs and WorkinStartups. If you’re keen on taking on a diverse range of responsibilities, opportunities to grow within an organisation, and work in a small close-knit team, then searching for jobs in UK Startup Jobs might be for you. There are a range of job postings from different sectors and a blog which discusses what it’s like to work in a startup, and the kind of skills and experiences needed. The platform is easy to use and only displays those jobs in startup organisations. There is an easy-to-apply function enabling you to apply by uploading a CV and cover letter, but note that the numbers of jobs that are advertised on this site are limited. WorkinStartups is dedicated to job postings from UK technology startup companies. It is very specific, so if you are looking for roles in tech startups, check it out. In ICT and digital technology, there are many niche job boards, reflecting the size and growth of these sectors. Itjobboard.net focusses in on roles in IT, ICT and tech. CW Jobs are specialised in the IT and technology sector, and is often seen as the first port of call for roles in these areas. CW Jobs have a fairly large database for a niche job board, and leading tech employers use their CV database to sort new recruits. The jobs board Hired aims to make searching for tech jobs simple, and they take a data science approach to matching candidates with jobs, using bespoke algorithms. They match candidates to companies based on their profile, taking skills and preferences into consideration. Companies then apply to candidates that match. Candidates can then compare interview requests side by side. Dice is a huge technology jobs board with many jobs advertised, but it is mainly focussed on the US market. Interestingly, Dice was one of the very early job boards in the 1990s, and actually started out as a bulletin board service before the first websites appeared. Finally, Bubble Jobs aims to promote the digital and technology sectors. Unusually, Bubble don’t ask for you to sign up or submit CVs, they just provide the links for you to apply for roles in this area. There are several other niche job boards that focus in on identifying diverse candidates for jobs. So these jobs are across several sectors, but the emphasis is on diversity. For employers who want to recruit a diverse array of employees, these niche job boards can be useful to find them, whereas individuals tend to get lost on the large generalist job boards. From a candidate’s perspective, employers that advertise roles on these diversity job boards are usually demonstrating their genuine commitment to being inclusive, supportive, and championing diversity. Examples include lgbtjobs.co.uk, which has several thousand jobs currently live, collating ads from many employers that wish to advertise that inclusivity is very important to them. Pink Jobs is another example of a jobs board that is LGBT+ friendly, and advertises roles with an emphasis on equal opportunities. BME Jobs focusses on black and minority ethnic recruitment and was created by the same group responsible for LGBT Jobs. Evenbreak is a specialist jobs board for disabled candidates. It was set up to help disabled people who were struggling to find employers that genuinely and actively champion recruitment of disabled candidates in the workplace. On the other side, many employers were struggling to know how to attract and where to find disabled candidates. Investing in Women is a jobs board for women looking at flexible and part-time roles. Women, particularly mothers struggling to balance parenting demands with work, often leave jobs that they really enjoy because of difficulties getting a balance. Investing in Women aims to bring these candidates to employers who champion part-time and flexible work arrangements that are family-friendly. Finally, DiverseJobsMatter supports all underrepresented groups and communities in the UK and advertise jobs on behalf of employers that are committed to diversity and inclusion in the hiring process. At the time of recording, they have a large and growing database of over 160,000 jobs. As working styles have changed over the last decade and more, new and niche job boards have sprung up with a main emphasis on advertising flexible and remote work. So being able to work when you want and/or where you want. Whilst many larger, generalist job boards have these as filters, these niche sites are solely dedicated to jobs that offer these working arrangements. Again, this shows the real commitment of employers to promote this type of working. Two examples are We Work Remotely and FlexJobs. We Work Remotely advertises jobs where people can work from anywhere. It is the largest remote-specific job board, but due to the nature of remote work, it attracts worldwide candidates, so it can be very competitive. It has a database of international remote employers and a Slack community to share tips with likeminded individuals. FlexJobs include remote working, working from home, and hybrid roles. On their simple platform, they evaluate each job ad and display the best of these roles. However, there is a subscription fee associated. Having described the wide variety of job boards that can help you gain employment, before the end of the video, I just wanted to emphasise that using job boards is not the only way to secure a new role. It is conservatively estimated that 60 per cent of roles are never advertised or posted online. This is a hidden jobs market, and involves networking, referrals, and job seekers actively looking for opportunities to talk to people in industries and organisations which appeal to them. Many employers often have a preference for referrals, because they trust that current employees understand the role and can identify suitable candidates. In addition, it gives an indication that the candidate is serious about applying and they can also save on recruitment costs. As discussed in detail elsewhere on the portal, making a deliberate effort to network, conduct informational interviews, and letting people know that you are looking for a new role, can lead to opportunities that are yet to be advertised, or sometimes even roles that are specifically created for you. We hope that you’ve found the content in this video useful, and you can use some of the insight provided in your career development and job hunt going forwards. Thank you for your time.

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