Better use of job boards

Greg Wyatt • March 5, 2024

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!

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

In this article we’ll look at:

  1. A background on job boards

  2. Job board priorities and what these mean for you

  3. Better use of job boards

  4. How to optimise for CV databases

Yes this is long, but it is jam-packed with insight on the recruitment industry, why we are the way we are, and how you can take the right steps forward.

1 / A background on job boards

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

You may be familiar with

  • Indeed

  • Reed

  • CV Library

  • Jobsite / Totaljobs (the same company, owned by Stepstone)

  • Monster (used to be decent many years ago)

  • LinkedIn (yes it is a job board, disguised by being a social media platform)

Aside from generic job boards, there are also many sites specialist to your niche.

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

LinkedIn differs in how it is wrapped up with content and networking, but it too has a form of CV database in how we can use the Recruiter Licence to search profiles (you can even make do without).

There are also aggregator websites, which scrape (automatically copy) content from one job board to their own or a 3rd party. You can often tell because when you click apply it takes you to another job board (rather than properly start an application).

Indeed and LinkedIn also act as aggregators and can lead to no end of confusion on whether adverts are still live, or if they were filled in 2022, when adverts are scraped across multiple boards.

True story - CV Library once set up an affiliate arrangement with a recruitment agency that scraped their ads. If you googled Bircham Wyatt Recruitment (that’s me) you’d see that agency list my ads - it looked like I worked for them.

CV Library was good enough to put a stop to this when I unleashed my outrage on LinkedIn (made a post about it and got some influencers involved).

The job board market in the UK is a hot mess.

2/ Job board priorities and what that means for you

Job boards want to sell their services and make money, which is of course 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, so their advice on improving advert performance is geared around this. Rather than around suitable candidates.

Indeed, the most effective job adverts have fewer applications and a higher number of suitable candidates - that’s what I aim for in mine.

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

They also offer services like automatic relisting, whereby an advert is (for example) 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, but likely hinders when there are too many candidates for jobs.

They also make it as Easy(Apply) as possible for you to apply to 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 (some of whom follow the guru’s advice to ‘shoot your shot’).

We’ll come back to this notion above in the next section.

I should point out I don’t think job boards do this cynically, I think they do this 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. Most everyone but the job seeker thinks it’s the best way to recruit - it is not.

Though it might be the best way to make money.

And yes jobseekers are accountable too, but only because of how they have been trained to apply.

What do I mean by reducing applications at scale?

Well, as I said to one person today, I’ve heard recruiters rejecting everyone after the 40th applicant, no matter how good they might be, because they have enough for an interview shortlist.

That’s rare, but it’s one of many examples of how shortcuts might be taken to contend with an impossible task. I’m not excusing it - these are companies who signal loudly about candidate experience and the importance of diversity.

Don’t blame recruiters.

Don’t blame employers.

Blame the system we are all part of.

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

3/ Better use of job boards

Let’s go back to that point about applications.

In the current market, it’s not uncommon to see 100 to 4000 applications per vacancy. That’s wild!

Not all job boards show this metric, although LinkedIn does (in a broken sort of way - often they’ll register clicks falsely as applications. This can be when an ATS is involved and is referred to as attrition if full applications are not completed.)

However, rarely are those applications actually candidates (people who can do and should want to do the job).

For a typical job-description templated advert you can expect 90 to 99% of applicants to be wholly unsuitable. I don’t have specific evidence of this, only anecdotes in talking to many recruiters.

Even in my adverts, which I take great care to write, at best I’d expect 40% of applicants to be candidates.

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.

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

As a jobseeker, your minimum requirement to apply for a job should be that you can logically prove to yourself, based on the evidence provided (which might be generic twaddle) that you are suitable.

If you can’t, you shouldn’t apply.

You’ll go from an approximately 0% hit rate to… well about the same, but with less time and bother.

This also means avoiding step-down jobs unless you can show how and why being overqualified is a good thing, as well as how and why you are interested beyond wanting a job.

It’s not pleasant having to write this, but the simple truth is, through a transactional application, you will seldom be considered if there are ‘core-fit’ applicants available.

The same goes for transferrable skills.

Unless you can show how your skills apply, how can skilled recruiters see your candidacy?

If not them; how about the less effective recruiters?

If you see adverts you aren’t sure about, by all means apply.

But treat them as transactionally as they are written. Fire, schedule one followup, then forget.

Save your time, energy and focus for non-transactional adverts - the ones that show you how great you are for them, the ones that sing.

These are rare, but we’ve written them carefully with you in mind.

The care taken to write them means we want you to apply because you are an ideal candidate who helps us see your suitability.

Your hit rate will be far higher.

Sadly it will still be close to zero if you are in a specialism for which there are many great candidates and few vacancies. I’ve seen this recently with talent acquisition, HR and marketing.

The state of the market is out of our control.

At least job boards aren't the be all and end all.

When your skills apply, provide evidence.

This is the main case in which tailoring CVs is effective.

If an advert uses synonyms for your skills, and they are proveably the same, use their language. An HR Manager can be a Head of People if the duties are the same.

This post on LinkedIn may help with searchesl

Show common process, common lifecycles, common context (company size, trajectory, culture) - show how you meet their requirement.

These principles allow a human reader to see your candidacy, and allow you to ‘beat the ATS’. Any choice or tool to eliminate you afterwards is a human decision.

Always show how you meet the essential requirements, and the desirable ones too if you can. A perhaps obvious point the majority of applications neglect.

… 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 (where I worked many moons ago)?

Lastly, try not to let a ‘bad recruitment’ process get in the way of what might be good enough employment. Many of us know not what we do.

Competitive salary. Cover letter. All these unsavoury things - I know great companies who ask for the same.

4/ How to optimise for CV databases

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

Maybe it will 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 an example I wrote about today.

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

  1. Log all the job boards you’ve applied for

  2. Make a list of all that have CV databases, including login in details

  3. Ensure your CV is up-to-date containing the key words for the job you are most suitable for (skills, job titles, memberships, frameworks, tools, processes, everything)

  4. And that your contact details are correct.

  5. Check all the details on your account. Salary details, location, preferences should all be current.

  6. 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.

  7. Update your CV and profiles once a week. It’s a chore but won’t take long. If you are active in the past week, this will show up in recruiter searches. Particularly if, for example in the post I shared above, I only look at active CVs from the past 14 days. This is a mega-hack no one talks about (it’s not a hack, there are no hacks, just bloody hard work, it is true though).

That’s it! I’m sure I’ve forgotten a bunch of stuff that should be included. But this has taken me two hours to write on a Tuesday night. I’ll correct any errors when I can.

DM me on LinkedIn with any questions, or email me at greg.wyatt@bwrecruitment.co.uk with any questions. I’ll reply when I can and, if appropriate will update this article.

Thank you and good luck.

Greg

p.s. don’t forget to check out my recruitment newsletter, if you recruit at any point or know someone who wants to break the transactional mould - gregwyatt.substack.com.

Why five? Innovation from Iteration, pt 1

By Greg Wyatt • February 26, 2026
So here were are, the start of a new series. This series may be around 10 editions, looking at the things other industries do that we can implement into recruitment. These were written 3 years ago, right at the start of the AI zazzle, and in some ways have dated quite a bit. In others, the way in which they haven't dated at all, because the principles of how we live our business lives can be universal. So, I'm not sure yet, how much editing I'll do, whether there will be any inclusions, or whether I'll leave articles intact, as a moment in time. I've learnt all of these notions from candidates and clients, as I came to understand the function of their vacancies. Hearing about the daily practice from people doing jobs, I couldn't help but notice the same relevance in recruitment. So while these articles are hardly comprehensive, perhaps they'll make you look at your candidates differently, in what we can learn from them, and how that might improve our recruitment. Why five? December 2022 Ask anyone involved in active recruitment what their key problems are, and they’ll likely talk about skills shortages and candidate behaviour. On the face of it, problems which are out of our control, worthy of complaint with little opportunity to find improvement. But what if these were issues that weren’t entirely out of our control? What if we could apply a replicable process to understand what’s really going on, and how we can make a difference? Fortunately, we needn’t invent the wheel, as other industries have already done this for us. One such is 5Y, or Five Whys, a problem-solving technique that was developed by Toyota in the 1930s. It's part of the Toyota Management System that has inspired much of my work. Five is the general number of “Why?”s needed to get to the root of a problem. Often you can get to the heart of the issue sooner, sometimes later. Often there are multiple root causes. More than just solving problems, it’s about establishing practical countermeasures to prevent these problems from coming up in future. 5Y is an example of Toyota’s philosophy of “go and see”: working on the shop floor to find out how things work in practice to find ways for iterative improvement. This isn’t a theoretical idea to try out on a whim – it’s based on grounded reality and almost always works. There are two costs – time and accountability. Here’s a practical example, then a recruitment one. (Names have been removed to protect my identity) Problem 1 : The children were late for school. Why? Traffic held us up. Why? We left the house late. Why? The children weren’t ready on time. Why? Their school uniforms weren’t prepared. Why? We hadn’t set them out the night before. Here the countermeasure is to get everything ready the night before, rather than blame traffic for being late. Perhaps we might have gotten to school on time without heavy traffic, but that is an element out of our control. Of course, here there is another root cause – very naughty children – but better to focus on the simple changes. And sometimes traffic is the root cause after all, once you’ve ruled out other elements in your control. (2026 note: my eldest now often drives my youngest to school. A time laden solution I hadn't considered three years ago. Now I don't care if they're late 😆) Problem 2: Candidates keep ghosting us. Why? They weren’t committed to responding. Why? They didn’t accept my requirement for a response. Why? They saw no value in my requirement. Why? I didn’t create an environment where this requirement has value ( root cause 1 ). Or because they are very naughty candidates, with a bad attitude. Why have we allowed someone with a bad attitude in our recruitment process? Because we didn’t prequalify them well enough ( root cause 2 ) The first root cause is something we can work on by giving candidates what they need, building trust, and working to mutual obligations. There are many ways to do this – I’ve already talked about examples in previous newsletters. It comes down to good candidate experience and reciprocity. The second root cause requires us to work harder at understanding candidate needs, aspirations, behaviours and attitudes at the outset of a recruitment process. There’s a reason for their behaviour. We can be accountable for finding it. That’s no mean skill to develop, yet an essential one for anyone whose core responsibility is recruitment. And it’s hard to do in a transactional volume process, so the question then becomes, does your process help more than it hinders? You can apply 5Y to any issue you come across, as long as you are prepared to be accountable. At worst you may find that the things that were out of your control are at fault. In this case, you are at least armed with good information to report to your stakeholders, by ruling out other possibilities. What’s the point of doing all this? For me it’s continually improving how I recruit, with the consequence, in the example above, that I am rarely ghosted at all. And you can 5Y any issue you come across. Are poor agency CV submissions their fault, or in part down to your briefing and process? Are skills genuinely scarce, or is your requirement unrealistic? Is it true that your agency hasn’t listened to you, or do you engage the right partners in the right way? 5Y has the answers. Regards, Greg

Map the Market. Jobseeker Basics XVIII

By Greg Wyatt • February 23, 2026
What follows is Chapter 21 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . It's a good example of how a job search is an inverted recruitment exercise, but also how the same principles from recruitment can be applied in a job search. Market mapping is one of the first steps of a search process in what is often called headhunting. Here though, instead of an exercise that helps find a person for a job, you help find a job for you. This can be in one chunk, at the outset, and iteratively, as you learn more information. It's a great example of how LinkedIn can be used as a data repository, given the vast majority of professionals are present here. And if they are present here, the insight that is their careers is too, allowing you to identify potential viable employers, who works there, and therefore where else they may have worked, with further potential hiring managers. The snake that eats its own tail. Try doing the iterative work above, every time you come across someone new, whether in an application or in networking . You can use this to build out your network, identify companies to contact proactively. Simon Ward and I will talk more on this in our LinkedIn Live on Tuesday February 24th at 1pm GMT. You can join us, and view the full recording afterwards, here: Is The Nature Of Networking Changing for Job Hunters? If you happen to read this as a hiring authority, market mapping is one of the invisible processes in a structured search. It can often take me 80 to 100 hours to fully map a role for potential viable candidates, given I try to find non-traditional candidates as well as those that are easier to find through sourcing. 21 - Map the market Market mapping is a common activity in executive search. Why wouldn’t you adopt the same approach in your inverse of a recruitment exercise? The idea is to fully understand your market, so that you are better able to navigate it. This is a summary chapter because market mapping is both a strategic and a tactical exercise. I’ll cover some of the How of mapping in Part Three. There are three ways in which to map the market. The vacancies you are qualified for This is about determining which vacancies you should focus your attention on. In which domains does your capability directly apply? This could be context related, if your expertise is in start-ups, growth, downsizing or other contexts. It could be industry related - your process manufacturing expertise might directly apply in food, plastics or pharmaceuticals. It could be job related, with the right applicable skills. Establish where there is a market for you, and if what you offer is needed by that market. Advice on the transferable skills trap (p55) and whether you are qualified (p178) to apply will help. The geography of your job search Where are all the employers and vacancies that you can sustainably commute to? A geographical map can help you target opportunities by region. What resources are available to help you with this map? Searching online for local business parks, even driving around them, can give a list of viable companies to contact. Directories and membership hubs. Local newspapers, social media stories. If you see a company you like the look of, say from an advert, search on their local post code. Who else might be there? The chapter on doorknocking (p241) has more ideas. The people of your network Every time you come across someone you might build a relationship with, connect with them on LinkedIn. Then check out their career history. Who else have they worked with? Where else have they worked? This works for peers, hiring managers, and recruiters - a headhunter in one company may well have worked in a similar domain in a previous one. Is there anyone at these previous companies you should introduce yourself to? What about their listed vacancies? Building out a map of relevant recruiters to develop relationships with (if they answer the phone) can lead to vacancies. Treat it as an iterative exercise. Check out the chapter on networking (p236). This map isn’t just about potential opportunity. It’s also about information that might be helpful now and in future. This might be for job leads. It might be industry insight you can share through content. It may even be topics for conversation in interviews or with peers. Make sure you track it in the right way, whether through Notion, Excel or other resources you have available. With any information, check it is accurate, then prune appropriately. Prioritise on degrees of separation (closest first) and context fit (where what you need is most closely aligned with what you offer).