I’m going to cover how to effectively use job boards in your executive job search in this article. Executive career advice is plentiful on our website, so feel to use a key word search for other subjects.

Job boards are a necessary component in the job hunting jigsaw, but they’re often somewhat underutilized by senior level executives. I fully understand the reticence to unleash your CV onto these jobs boards, as many executive candidates fear the inevitable inappropriate level job approaches, or just that feeling that you’re not in control perhaps?

I have a recommended list of jobs boards which I am constantly updating as the market changes, and it would be wrong to quote my favorites or any recommendations here, as it’s a fast moving market.

What I would suggest is that you upload / register your CV to some selected jobs boards. You need a spread, as recruiters can gravitate toward certain ones, and these trends can change over time.

Once you have registered your information on a jobs board, it important to keep re-visiting it and updating your CV, so that it stays toward the “recent” end of updated CV’s.

Why is this important as part of your overall job search strategy? CV’s can be searched for by recruiters, and they may use a filter showing the most recently updated CV’s, but also the results on any given search on a jobs board will naturally in most cases, bump the most recently “updated” to the top. Now of course, that update can be something minimal.

While having carefully crafted and selected keywords suitably included in your CV, there is one activity I would steer well clear of. This used to be called “white lining” or “white fonting”, where keywords are listed at the bottom of a CV and saved as white text, in other words invisible.

This type of activity is needless to say highly frowned on by the recruitment industry, and guaranteed to get your CV binned if discovered, as software can now be used to detect this practice. Don’t misunderstand me here; I don’t imagine for one minute that you will try this yourself, but you should be aware of the activity. It could equally work against you if your CV got in front of some human eyes, who could not then see the keywords that brought the CV to their attention in the first place! Enough said.

‘Kissing frogs’ – part of the job hunt for sure, and it can be more prevalent with Job Boards as you may find yourself being approached for various (often not at all what you’re looking for) opportunities by those who subscribe to that job boards data base. Just take the rough with the smooth.

So upload your CV and keep a weekly update schedule to remain ‘current’ (making minor amendments to your CV will suffice) on that particular job board.

This is an extract from my book Reverse Headhunting: How to land your next (and best) senior executive job.