As a member of LinkedIn's Human Resources Group, every other day I get email alerts touting a new job board launch. I'm not the biggest fan of the boards because apparently less than 4 percent of people using them actually land a new position. However, 4 percent is 4 percent (especially in this job economy) and, therefore, boards really should be part of your job search strategy.
The question is, "If you are in digital media, which job boards and career sites do you turn to?" The Monsters, HotJobs and CareerBuilders, or the niche industry sites? The answer is both. The big boards are easy enough to use. Create your career profiles and have the site push appropriate jobs to you as they come in. In terms of the smaller sites, you've got to be a bit more proactive.
What follows is a list of sites that should be on your radar screen in some capacity. Yes, it's a lot. But, making a career change really is a full-time job in itself. The reality is, you probably only need 30 minutes or so a day to go through the sites to find any new job postings. Come up with a time -- whether you get up a half-hour earlier than usual or stay up a half-hour later. Stick to it and at least you'll know you won't miss out on new opportunities.
MediaBistro
Started by Laurel Touby, a former magazine editor, MediaBistro started as a site that primarily catered to those on the content side of the media business. It has morphed to encompass ad sales and marketing as well.
I did a search for account executives the other day and 34 postings popped up. Clients included myYearbook.com, Waterfront Media, Hulu, and The Knot -- good, solid names. All in all, the site has about 700 jobs up right now -- some are even part-time and freelance. One bonus is that if you post your resume on their site, they act as recruiters for you. If a potential employer calls up MediaBistro with a job they need to fill and your resume fits the bill, MediaBistro will call you to see if you are interested and then send your resume over to the client. Since one of the dangers in having your resume up on a job board is that your current employer might see it, this is a nice way to maintain your anonymity.
iMedia Connection
I'm going to assume if you are reading this that iMedia Connection's job board is already on your radar screen. They feature a select array of jobs from some top agencies, clients, and ad networks, and should be on your list.
Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com
Indeed and SimplyHired are aggregators. Just like you might turn to Kayak.com to peruse information from all the travel sites for the best hotel or airfare deals, these sites crawl through the various job boards and put them all together in one neat site package. Both boast hundreds-of-thousands of new jobs, and you can search for postings made in the past seven days or since your last visit.
Both have Google-like interfaces, making it easy for you to search according to your particular job criteria. When I did a search for "account executive, media in NY" on indeed.com, I got over 9,000 responses that came from individual company sites (i.e., Cablevision) as well as job boards (CareerBuilder, TheLadders). When I did the same on SimplyHired, 364 jobs came up with companies like Yahoo, Tribune, Clear Channel, and Time Warner. Clearly this is a vast difference but, either way, that's just too many ads to look through. So, you have to be able to really define your keywords when you conduct a search on these sites. Play around with both and see which one suits your needs best, and then search it on a daily basis.
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