Three of the most popular and best job boards for job seekers are LinkedIn, SEEK and Indeed. Each platform has it’s strengths and weaknesses and learning how to best utilise them is a huge advantage.
Two streams of job seekers
There are two main types of job hunters:
- Active. If you’re an active job seeker, you are proactively looking for work. You know you want a new job and are pursuing this objective. As an active jobseeker you will be taking as much action as possible to secure a new job. SEEK should be the first place active job seekers look because it’s the most popular, attracting the most advertising spend from businesses looking for employees. Make sure that your profile isn’t hidden so that recruiters can be in touch with job opportunities. Active job seekers should also be utilising LinkedIn and Indeed.
- Passive. If you’re a passive job seekers then it’s likely you’re satisfied where you currently work but you’re still open to better opportunities if they come your way. As a passive job seeker you will keep a loose eye on prospects or simply wait for recruiters to approach you. LinkedIn is ideal for passive job seekers, this is due to it being a powerful networking tool and because of it’s ‘open for opportunities’ feature which allows recruiters to be in touch with suitable roles to you.
SEEK
SEEK is was started in 1997 and has grown to become a market leader in the online employment space. SEEK is listed on the ASX and is currently one of the Top 100 listed companieswith a market cap of $8.6 billion.
Benefits of SEEK
- Easy to use. SEEK is an intuitive platform featuring a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to search for jobs and apply.
- Most popular. It is the most commonly used platform for employers posting listings so it’s a good benchmark for what is out there.
- Large database. SEEK is a vast database of job listings, with thousands of new opportunities added daily. It has more than 220,000 job listings and receives more than 2 million visitors every month.
Tips for job seekers on SEEK
- SEEK profile. SEEK forces you to set up a profile in order to apply for a job. What a lot of people don’t realise that if they don’t specifically hide their profile it is public to anyone that goes on the SEEK Database. Hiding your profile still allows you to apply for jobs, but your personal information isn’t publicly accessible.
- ’What’ (SEEK keywords). Keywords are important and helpful to job ads because they allow candidates to target their search for relevant positions. Job listings that include key terms and phrases that are relevant to a particular role are more likely to be found by appropriate candidates. Beware though that when not all jobs are written in the same way and if you search by a title that is put into different words by a prospective employer then it may not come up. For example in Accounting, some firms will refer to a similar role as a senior consultant while other firms call it a senior analyst. In order to capture all the relevant job listings for you, your best bet is to use the ‘any classification’ drop down menu.
- ‘Any Classification’ This drop down menu section is where you can adapt your search to find the most relevant listings for you in your industry. For example if you want to keep it broad, you could search for ‘All Accounting’ opportunities in a region. Alternatively you are able to specify a particular area of expertise such as Insolvency or Audit. If you are aggressively looking for a new role then checking your professional section daily in the drop down menu is the way to go because you won’t miss anything because of a lack of keywords.
- ’Where’ (location searches). You can be broad or specific in this section. For instance if you’re looking for job opportunities but don’t mind where in Australia they are, you can select “All Australia” in the ‘Where’ section. Alternatively you may wish to identify a specific region such as ‘North Shore NSW’. Candidates are also now also able to select ‘Work from home’ as an option.
- Full time or other. Selecting either full-time, part-time, contract/temp or casual/vacation is super helpful for obvious reasons. You don’t want to find you dream job listing only to discover its only part-time and you’re looking for full-time.
- Salary estimator. SEEK’s salary estimator can be a useful as a rough guide but be careful about putting too much stock in it. This is because many companies and agencies will inflate salary the salary to try and get the biggest number of applications. The salary estimator could be 30-50k more than the market is paying, so it’s not the most reliable source. You’re better off speaking to agents who will give you market rate. Call us or another agent to get a more accurate idea of what your salary expectations should be.
- Listed any time. Knowing when jobs were listed is beneficial for job seekers. The early bird (typically) gets the worm! So it’s a good idea to apply for jobs within the first week of them being listed wherever possible. Don’t necessarily rule out a job that’s been up for 30 days but keep in mind that there may have been other applicants applying that could be interviewing or even have accepted the role. However if the job is still listed it’s definitely worth your time to apply for the job anyway, especially in a candidate short market, because there is every chance that the job still needs filling.
- Long application process. Be warned that some job applications on SEEK can be lengthy, which can be frustrating for job seekers who are applying for multiple roles at once. However this can often be bypassed by applying directly to the advertiser.