Like them or not job boards are a viable route to employment.

Use them optimally to get them working for you.

When you search for a job there are common criteria to filter the results: keyword, salary, location, job type, date posted.

If you aren’t getting the right results, a few tweaks can bring good improvements:

- Extend your location search from 15 miles to 20 – these 5 miles will double the number of results. 5 to 10 miles is 4x. 20 to 25 is 1.5x. Population density will affect results too
- If you have too many results, run a narrow search across where you want to work (e.g. 5 miles from Cambridge Science Park, which has a high density of employers), rather than 20 miles from your home
- If searching for your job title and skills, think about those that are equivalent to your own – Product Manager can mean many things. Is it technical, commercial, bridging, mini CEO? Instead of Technical Product Manager, you might search on ((NPI or NPD) and “programme manager”)) or “product launch” or (“stage gate” or “stage-gate” or “phase gate” or “phase-gate”) – Boolean is your friend when it comes to searches (link for an overview on how they work in comments). Think about how an employer might describe your ideal job and search for that
- If you have too few results, try keeping your searches as simple as possible.
- On date range, it’s tempting to keep current, but what if that one-month-old vacancy has few relevant applications? They may be more open-minded if you decide to apply now. Make that “candidate shortage” work for you
- Keep an eye on your email junk folder!

How about CV databases?

- Make sure you list your correct contact number and email
- On the point about job titles and skills above, if your CV doesn’t include these phrases, they should.
- If you are able to enter your skills manually when registering your CV, do that too
- Have your registered postcode where you want to work, rather than where you are, especially if relocating
- Update your CV once a week in the assumption that a lazy recruiter may only search on recent CVs for a new vacancy. Keep yourself at the top of the pile!

Recruiters search for you in the same way you search for jobs - help us find you.

Try these points and let me know if this improves your experience with job boards.