Better use of job boards

Greg Wyatt • April 20, 2026

On Tuesday 28th April at 1pm BST, Simon Ward and I will be joined on our weekly LinkedIn Live by CV Library.

I'll share the details of this free interactive session as soon as the event link is available - bring your questions.

If you don't know CV Library it's one of the main job boards in the UK. While they might sit behind others in terms of coverage, I find them easy to work with and helpful - they are responsive, they have fewer fake jobs than LinkedIn, they have a CV database I can search across that is in many ways more effective than #OpenToWork.

They'll be showing how to get a better mileage from their CV database, as a job seeker, and many other helpful things - points you can apply to LinkedIn too, as an inbound sources of recruiter searches and the principles we use to look for viable candidates.

It seems timely to share this updated chapter from A Career Breakdown Kit (2026), which I will no doubt update with learnings from the session.

38 - Better use of job boards

Job boards are often the first port of call when new to a job search.

It’s a natural inclination that they are where vacancies are to be found. Quickly followed by disappointment, anxiety and frustration when you get close to 0% hit rate.

And not even a single reply.

Let’s take a step back, look at the overall picture and make a plan.

There are many job boards in the UK that sell their systems to employers and recruitment agencies.

You may be familiar with Indeed, Reed, CV Library, Jobsite / Totaljobs, LinkedIn (yes, it is a job board, disguised by being a social media platform).

Aside from the generic, there are also many sites specific to your niche. As well as ATS platforms themselves.

Job boards sell two things to their clients - advertising and access to their CV database.

Although LinkedIn differs in how it is wrapped up with content and networking, it does have a form of CV database in how we can use the Recruiter Licence to search profiles (we can even make do without through more advanced techniques such as X-ray searching and programmable search engines).

There are also aggregator websites which scrape content from one job board to their own or a third party. You can often tell because when you click apply it takes you to another website instead of properly starting an application.

Job board priorities and what that means for you

Job boards want to sell their services and make money, which is entirely sensible.

To support their argument they use all sorts of metrics such as the number of CVs on their database and the number of applications made (by job or month).

It’s to their advantage that adverts receive as many applications as possible - their advice on improving advert performance is geared around volume. Rather than around suitable candidates.

This disconnect happens because clients often lie about how effective adverts have been by the measure of vacancies filled - because of concern it will affect renewal prices. This is feedback given to me from account managers at two different job boards when researching job search advice. Job boards can only prove the number of applications, so that becomes the target.

The most effective job adverts have fewer applications and a higher number of suitable candidates - what I aim for in mine.

To maximise the number of applications they do things like scraping, aggregation and affiliate arrangements.

They offer services like automatic relisting where an advert is reposted as new once a week throughout the term of the listing (could be up to 6 weeks by default, or longer by choice).

These are sold as benefits to employers which might help when there are limited candidates, yet often hinder when there are too many candidates for jobs.

You may remember the same from Fake jobs (p81).

They make it as Easy as possible for you to Apply for these jobs, so that you can be an additional metric.

As Goodhart says, ‘When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’

The consequence for you as an applicant is twofold.

You are encouraged to be one of the numbers of applicants to purposefully generic adverts you are not the most suitable for.

When you are the most suitable, you are in competition both with people from the line above and people who are wholly unsuitable.

I should point out I don’t think job boards do this cynically. They do so because they think high numbers are best.

It’s also a problem for recruiters who may find it impossible to deal with this volume unless through automation or by finding ways to manually eliminate applications at scale.

Job boards, employers, agencies and candidates are all wrapped up in this cycle of speed and volume. And with use of AI-style automation, so too are many job seekers. Where's the specificity and accuracy?

Though it might be the best way to make money.

Job seekers are accountable too, partly because of how they have been trained to apply.

Don’t blame recruiters.

Don’t blame employers.

Don’t blame unqualified applicants.

Blame the system we are all part of.

And if you ever find yourself a hiring authority - be the change you hope for.

Better use of job boards

Let’s go back to that point about applications.

In the current market, it’s not uncommon to see hundreds to thousands of applications per vacancy.

Rarely are those applications qualified candidates.

For a typical job description templated advert you can expect the high majority of applicants to be wholly unsuitable.

What do I mean by wholly unsuitable?

People who require work permits when a role doesn’t sponsor them.

People who don’t meet the minimum requirements set out in an advert.

People who are clearly unsuitable for this role.

When you see a number, don’t be disheartened by the number alone.

As a job seeker, your minimum requirement to apply for a vacancy should be that you can logically prove to yourself you are qualified based on the evidence provided. Read back through Should I customise my CV? (p178) for more on this.

… tips and bits

Finding vacancies is as important as applying for them. Collect those synonyms you’ve been tailoring your CV with and use these in your searches.

If you find an obscure term which represents what you can do, why not search solely on that term?

You might find a horribly written advert whose only correct word is that term.

It’s a trick we use to find candidates too - occasionally I might search on something like ‘egnieer’ because typos don’t make a bad candidate.

Location is a key search criterion.

Most people search from their home address. How about running tight searches where you are prepared to work - e.g. 1 mile from CB4 0WZ (a hub for business parks in Cambridge where I worked many moons ago).

How to optimise for CV databases

When you apply for a vacancy on a new job board they will likely have a CV database tethered to your application.

Your permission to have your CV added may be hidden in their terms and conditions.

A CV database is an opportunity for you to be found.

Sometimes this will be for vacancies that are never advertised, such as the example I wrote about earlier.

You have an opportunity to leverage CV databases to improve the number of inbound enquiries you receive.

Log all the job boards you’ve applied through
Make a list of all that have CV databases, including login details
Ensure your CV is up to date containing the keywords for the job you are most suitable for
Check your contact details are correct
Check all the details on your account. Salary details, location, preferences should all be current.
Register your postcode for where you want to be found. If you plan to move to Scunthorpe in April, that should be your current location. It’s where we will look for you
Update your CV and profiles once a week. It shouldn’t take long. If you are active in the past week, this will show up in recruiter searches, assuming a recruiter only looks at activity from the past 14 days

The CV databases at the back end of job boards are one of the resources I use to fill roles whether advertised or not. They’re a good marginal gain and may bring you leads you’d never hear about otherwise.

A note on the ATS

Whenever you come across an advert linked to an ATS like Workable, many companies will use that ATS. These may recruit for relevant vacancies in a commutable location.

Try this command in Google -

site:workable.com London “Marketing Manager”

Site: directs the search to a particular website. Change the location and job title to ones relevant for you.

Some of these vacancies may never make it to a job board you are aware of.

Why you should hack LinkedIn advert results

URLs (website page addresses) are a funny thing - they often contain commands for a website related to your requests.

Changing certain points can have interesting results.

For example, here’s a URL for a job search for Marketing Manager near me over the past 24 hours:

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search-results/?f_TPR=r86400&keywords=Marketing%20Manager&origin=JOBS_HOME_SEARCH_BUTTON

Don’t worry about the bulk of the URL. Take note of the bold - r86400 which matches seconds in a day.

Let’s say you log on at 9.30am and you want to check jobs posted in the last hour. This feature isn’t available as standard in the search tools.

However, you can edit the URL from a standard search to:

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search-results/?f_TPR=r3600&keywords=Marketing%20Manager&origin=JOBS_HOME_SEARCH_BUTTON

Because there are 3,600 seconds in an hour. Try it and see what happens.

(Edit: in error checking for this article, originally updated in January, this particular ‘hack’ no longer appears to work. Why not try it yourself on a job you’re interested in and let me know if it works for you? I’ll update this properly for the next book update. I've left it here to show how this kind of tactical advice can change so quickly as to make it obsolete.

Next week's article is on Content Strategy & Philosophy for promoting yourself on LinkedIn. Call it personal branding, call it copywriting - expect some people to jump on with strong opinions without reading the article)

< Older Post

Newer Post >

An inverted job search

By Greg Wyatt • October 7, 2026

I realise I've shared this chapter fairly recently, but there's good reason to revisit it. On Friday, I launched a new AI tool - Your Job Search Plan. You can find it here: https://your-jobsearch-plan.netlify.app/ It's based on the inversion principle below: the optimal job search is an inversion of how that job is optimally recruited. In other words, the first step in a job search should be to understand how recruiters and hiring processes seek to fill your ideal vacancy. Then to access all those channels while putting your best foot forward. It connects your applications, your networking, your CV, your LinkedIn profile, and so on, all of which should stem from your professional identity, the context of your career, the market conditions for that career, and therefore the work you'll need to do to boost your odds. One thing I'm pleased about with this tool is how it relates to the other tools and resources on www.bwrecruitment.co.uk/resources . So what seemed abstract, or painful activities without guaranteed outcome, become a practical arrow in the quiver of your search. I hope you find these tools helpful. They are a starting point, rather than a resolution. 20 - An inverted job search So, your broad approach to looking for a job is based on a product marketing strategy. How does this link to your job search and how companies hire? The next step is to recognise a job search is an inverted recruitment process. Whatever you can learn about the actual workings of recruitment, the better armed you are to navigate them. The first way in which this is true is around the routes to market employers take to fill a job. Employers want to fill vacancies in the most economical and efficient means possible. Sometimes they’ll rely on external advice, sometimes they’ll figure out their own way, and sometimes they’ll employ people to do it for them (such as a Talent Acquisition Manager or internal recruiter). When they rely on external advice, it may not surprise you it’s as varied and contradictory as job seeker advice. Take this nugget of wisdom: 80% of suitable candidates are not actively looking for work. By advertising, you’ll only have access to the 20% that applies to adverts. Hang on a minute! Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like the hidden jobs market? Of course, candidates aren’t hidden - much like hidden jobs, the priority is to understand the channels through which candidates are found. These channels directly mirror the channels through which you look for that job: Job boards; LinkedIn; Recruitment agencies; Confidential headhunting; Internal promotions; Secondments; Temp-to-perm hires; Consulting-to-perm hires; Referrals; Networking; Speculative approaches; Careers pages; Talent pools; Candidate databases Every job is different, dictated by principles like supply and demand, confidentiality, reputational risk, wherewithal, budget and capacity. The hiring process of a Software Developer is different from that of a Sales Director. If an employer only hires through an advert - this means if you don’t apply for adverts, there’s no way in which you can be considered for that vacancy. A second way it’s accurate is the notion that what’s true for one may not be true for others. This relates to candidate resentment . You may read online that some recruitment behaviours are signs of a bad employer. Yet, you should always follow the instructions given when applying for an advert or through an agency. They may instruct you to: 1/ Write a CV, cover letter and duplicate it on their ATS 2/ Tell them your salary when they don’t list theirs 3/ Do 17 interviews before reaching a decision 4/ Deliver a 6-month strategy plan by presentation 5/ Or any other request deemed unreasonable by Career Coaches, Job seekers, or people otherwise uninvolved in that process What some consider red flags, others will deem acceptable practice. It becomes your choice to play the game or not. Either follow their instructions or step away. You don’t have to apply if you don’t want to. In a similar vein, if you hear a hiring process has a preference, or if there are gaps in their employment armoury - these might be biases you can lean into. The hiring manager loves Arsenal Football Club and is biased towards people who love the same? Now might be the time to switch allegiance, if you can fake it or make it. They love a one page CV? Apply with a one page CV. You know the hiring manager of an advert with 400 applications? Give them a call - they might give you an unfair advantage. Poor practice from the employer, yet these are problems you can turn into opportunity. A third way in which this is true is by comparing inbound and outbound activity Outbound activity is where you go to your prospect (phone calls, messaging). Inbound activity is where the prospect comes to you (job adverts, content). Yet an outbound activity for a recruiter is an inbound activity for you (you receive phone calls and messages). While an inbound activity has you getting in touch because of their advert or content. When we talk about optimising your work, whether your CV, profile or interviews, it has to give the process what it needs. How can you be more discoverable, so you receive more relevant calls and messages? How can you improve your return on applications and your outbound messages? What about inverse non-recruitment? A brilliant, if strange question, with the same answer. When networking, going direct, seeking to become a referral, doorknocking, or other, what is the inverse of that activity? How does that person find or recommend people, if they become aware of a vacancy? How might they see you as a person to solve their problems, even if it isn’t a vacancy? You do these activities because of how they might help you and because of the benefit the other party experiences. What’s in it for them? If there isn’t anything in it for them, why should they help you? For each and every stage in recruitment, there is an opposed force, as candidates and the hiring process meet each other. It’s rarely an equal force, because every vacancy has supply and demand, resource, skill level, biases and intent at play. This is why each type of role has a different method of looking for work. Executive vacancies typically prioritise headhunted candidates, with fewer public adverts. Here the priority shifts towards building relationships with, and being discoverable by, Executive Search recruiters. If executives rely mainly on job boards, they may never think to focus on more suited channels. If you can learn what the other needs for that process to be successful, you can deliver the same. Speak to peers, speak to hiring managers you know, speak to recruiters, speak to former job seekers. How have they found work, and how would they recruit for your roles? Research your market to find viable employers, to identify recruiters and to build your network. Then execute an appropriate strategy to access these channels.

Hierarchy of Pain

By Greg Wyatt • September 23, 2026

I had an aborted conversation at a networking event on Tuesday. It was about a problem vacancy a fractional people lead was looking at. Her client had instructed various executive search firms and none had produced a viable candidate. It seems the consistent approach was to match CVs to job description - pureplay transactional - and none were candidates that met the goal of the vacancy. You see that organisational pain that the vacancy heals wasn't defined by documentation, and therefore if you rely on that documentation to find candidates, it's happenstance that you come across someone viable. It's such a common problem, and when I 'fix' problem vacancies, it's invariably something that isn't described which was holding back a successful hire. The irony is this shouldn't be a hidden pain - presuming it's appropriate to share, it should be front and centre. What complicates modern recruitment is that, instead of better specifying vacancies, both sides of the hiring fence increasingly rely on LLMs to produce documentation that shaves the edges off. And as a result a candidate that has extensively healed the hidden pain a vacancy might even remove the evidence from their application in a bit to better match an advert or job description. The more transactional recruitment comes, particularly through reliance on technology, the worse this problem becomes. Probably not an issue for business as usual vacancy, but when a vacancy has impact, standard process of "5 CVs by Friday" will invariably hold you back. The chapter below is from A Career Breakdown Kit , my guide for navigating a skewiff employment market. It may be for job seekers, but the problem and solution are directly mirrored by the hiring side. It's taken word for word from the book, so some of the content is interconnected with other chapters. You can read most of them for free in the Jobseeker Basics newsletter. Hierarchy of pain This chapter reflects on how buyers make decisions, how this is reflected in hiring and why it matters in how you put forward your CV, application, interviews and other messages. If you’ve ever encountered sales in your career or life you are likely familiar with the concepts of Features and Benefits. The product is what is proposed. Features are what it does. Benefits are how it helps. However there are actually three other components in this hierarchy that make up commercial messaging. Value is what the benefits mean to you. “Sell the sizzle, not the sausage” - the sizzle isn’t a benefit, if you don’t like sausages. Outcomes are the tangible long-term results from using that product or service. “Sell the picture frame, not the screwdriver” - or rather what’s in the frame. Why does it matter? The idea being these peel back the layers of the onion to help a potential customer understand exactly What’s In It For Them. Yet, it may not matter whatsoever if your brilliantly put together message doesn’t achieve one element - show how you heal their hidden pain. In that frame example above, this might be a photo of a loved one, no longer with us. The photo is for our memories and feelings. The frame has to be right, to commemorate them properly. While it needs to be mounted well, using tools that make the job easier. Could you market that loss to sell a screwdriver? Hopefully not, though the message might be, “For memories that matter,” instead of "High Quality Screwdriver". It's a common pain many share, yet not one you might discuss down the DIY shop. Early in my career I had a lesson on hidden pain and its importance. I recruited an HR Manager for a high growth business whose requirement was for someone with broad experience in a similar environment. I presented an excellent candidate who was only available due to the shutdown of her employer - she had to stay to the final day to manage the process well, which limited her availability to start work. That was the only reason I explained her current situation to this new employer, because redundancy management wasn’t on the job description. She got the job! On day one of her new employment, her role was made redundant and she was offered a retention bonus to shut down the local site - everyone was to lose their jobs. The hidden pain here was redundancy, something not even mentioned to me during the vacancy briefing, and something I never broached with Julie. IIRC, there was no mention of it during the interview process either. Perhaps that’s an extreme example, but it does show what can happen behind the scenes. And if you happened to be out of work, a fixed term contract with a retention bonus might be quite appealing. Were you to apply to that vacancy, it would be important to highlight your redundancy experience - customising your CV might even have worked against you! So how does this hierarchy fit within your job search? You are the product, with your next employer on a buyer’s journey. Your features are what you offer. In a CV this is a combination of job titles, qualifications, skills and areas of experience. It’s also your salary requirement, where you are based and other elements like Visa status and working arrangements. Get these right and a little luck might mean they are all you need, considering that these same elements are what we source and filter on. I expect in this market you’re in competition with many people that offer the same Features, so the differentiator is what you bring to the table uniquely. The contexts of your career combined with how you helped, your impact, your achievements, and what the outcomes were. Related chapters: Principles of a Good CV Should I customise my CV? LinkedIn profiles that get found LinkedIn profiles that convert These are all resources that will help you communicate the benefits of your experience, the value you bring, the problems you solve, and the outcomes of these solutions. As for the hidden pain question, which in many vacancies isn’t articulated, how can you unpick hidden? Go back to why vacancies are recruited. How did they come about in the first place? They only fit into two piles - new and replacement. However these two piles have many subcategories relating to the problems they solve and the pain they heal. Researching the company can help. Inside knowledge definitely helps - it’s one reason good agency recruiters will be a valuable ally. But this knowledge isn’t always available, and sometimes the employer may not even know! I always come back to the principle, “You can’t be all things to all people.” And when you try to do this, you appeal to no one. It’s one reason why using LLM style AI to customise CVs is so problematic. The output is necessarily same-same because it’s a probabilistic determination of what you want based on an aggregate of data. It’s why, when recruiters receive a volume of AI augmented CVs, they all look the same. Your ‘good enough’ core CV ( Should I customise my CV ) leans into your strengths. While you might tweak it to meet the essential requirements, in the language of the employer, this should naturally support your greatest strength - the unique fingerprint that is your career. The downside of relying on customisation against vague, and often misrepresentative, adverts is that you can deemphasise and even remove your biggest achievements. The same achievements that would have helped you stand out. If your application doesn’t heal the hidden pain of a vacancy, it’s either because you have not defined your strengths correctly or you aren’t that close of a fit with the actual needs of the vacancy. An example to show this pitfall in practice. I caught up with a friend yesterday who has resigned from a post that was missold to him. His career is based on commercial acumen and enablement in a field that is heavily focused on risk management and compliance. So he’s already unusual in a good way (though his CV didn’t show this). On day one of his new job, he encountered a literal unexpected disaster. While these things happen, and he managed the situation effectively, this proved a consequence of the business culture and strategy. These problems kept coming up and his functional area in the business needed a complete overhaul at executive level. Rather than the commercial enablement picture they painted, they needed someone who relished chaos - a master of disaster. Completely the opposite of the career Simon wants. This isn’t something they could publicise in their recruitment process, for reputational reasons, yet it was a fundamental baked-in aspect of the role. I’ve no doubt Simon’s CV is a match for their job description. Yet he is not a match for their job. What if they’d seen CVs of people who’d leant into strengths of healing dysfunction? What if he’d leant into his strength of enablement? He may not have left his previous job for something he went on to regret. If you’re sceptical about how crucial hidden pain is in recruitment, think about your own hidden pain when applying for jobs. What’s going on in your life that impacts which roles are ideal for you. The same points you might not divulge when you’re just trying to get back into employment. Perhaps you've even experienced the pain I did when considering a hardware purchase. How did that pain inform your buying decisions? It’s no different for employers when they consider the pain and problems inherent in their vacancy.