Better use of job boards

Greg Wyatt • April 20, 2026

On Tuesday 28th April at 1pm BST, Simon Ward and I will be joined on our weekly LinkedIn Live by CV Library.


I'll share the details of this free interactive session as soon as the event link is available - bring your questions.


If you don't know CV Library it's one of the main job boards in the UK. While they might sit behind others in terms of coverage, I find them easy to work with and helpful - they are responsive, they have fewer fake jobs than LinkedIn, they have a CV database I can search across that is in many ways more effective than #OpenToWork.


They'll be showing how to get a better mileage from their CV database, as a job seeker, and many other helpful things - points you can apply to LinkedIn too, as an inbound sources of recruiter searches and the principles we use to look for viable candidates.


It seems timely to share this updated chapter from A Career Breakdown Kit (2026), which I will no doubt update with learnings from the session.


38 - Better use of job boards

 

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.


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


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


You may be familiar with Indeed, Reed, CV Library, Jobsite / Totaljobs, LinkedIn (yes, it is a job board, disguised by being a social media platform).


Aside from the generic, there are also many sites specific to your niche. As well as ATS platforms themselves.


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

Although LinkedIn differs in how it is wrapped up with content and networking, it does have a form of CV database in how we can use the Recruiter Licence to search profiles (we can even make do without through more advanced techniques such as X-ray searching and programmable search engines).


There are also aggregator websites which scrape content from one job board to their own or a third party. You can often tell because when you click apply it takes you to another website instead of properly starting an application.


Job board priorities and what that means for you


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


This disconnect happens because clients often lie about how effective adverts have been by the measure of vacancies filled - because of concern it will affect renewal prices. This is feedback given to me from account managers at two different job boards when researching job search advice. Job boards can only prove the number of applications, so that becomes the target.


The most effective job adverts have fewer applications and a higher number of suitable candidates - what I aim for in mine.


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


They offer services like automatic relisting where an advert is 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, yet often hinder when there are too many candidates for jobs.


You may remember the same from Fake jobs (p81).


They make it as Easy as possible for you to Apply for 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.


I should point out I don’t think job boards do this cynically. They do so 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. And with use of AI-style automation, so too are many job seekers. Where's the specificity and accuracy?


Though it might be the best way to make money.


Job seekers are accountable too, partly because of how they have been trained to apply.


Don’t blame recruiters.


Don’t blame employers.


Don’t blame unqualified applicants.


Blame the system we are all part of.


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


Better use of job boards


Let’s go back to that point about applications.


In the current market, it’s not uncommon to see hundreds to thousands of applications per vacancy.


Rarely are those applications qualified candidates.


For a typical job description templated advert you can expect the high majority of applicants to be wholly unsuitable.


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.


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


As a job seeker, your minimum requirement to apply for a vacancy should be that you can logically prove to yourself you are qualified based on the evidence provided. Read back through Should I customise my CV? (p178) for more on this.


… 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 (a hub for business parks in Cambridge where I worked many moons ago).


How to optimise for CV databases


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


Your permission to have your CV added may 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 the example I wrote about earlier.


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


  • Log all the job boards you’ve applied through
  • Make a list of all that have CV databases, including login details
  • Ensure your CV is up to date containing the keywords for the job you are most suitable for
  • Check your contact details are correct
  • Check all the details on your account. Salary details, location, preferences should all be current.
  • 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
  • Update your CV and profiles once a week. It shouldn’t take long. If you are active in the past week, this will show up in recruiter searches, assuming a recruiter only looks at activity from the past 14 days


The CV databases at the back end of job boards are one of the resources I use to fill roles whether advertised or not. They’re a good marginal gain and may bring you leads you’d never hear about otherwise.


A note on the ATS


Whenever you come across an advert linked to an ATS like Workable, many companies will use that ATS. These may recruit for relevant vacancies in a commutable location.


Try this command in Google -


site:workable.com London “Marketing Manager”


Site: directs the search to a particular website. Change the location and job title to ones relevant for you.


Some of these vacancies may never make it to a job board you are aware of.


Why you should hack LinkedIn advert results


URLs (website page addresses) are a funny thing - they often contain commands for a website related to your requests.


Changing certain points can have interesting results.


For example, here’s a URL for a job search for Marketing Manager near me over the past 24 hours:


https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search-results/?f_TPR=r86400&keywords=Marketing%20Manager&origin=JOBS_HOME_SEARCH_BUTTON


Don’t worry about the bulk of the URL. Take note of the bold - r86400 which matches seconds in a day.


Let’s say you log on at 9.30am and you want to check jobs posted in the last hour. This feature isn’t available as standard in the search tools.


However, you can edit the URL from a standard search to:


https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search-results/?f_TPR=r3600&keywords=Marketing%20Manager&origin=JOBS_HOME_SEARCH_BUTTON


Because there are 3,600 seconds in an hour. Try it and see what happens.


(Edit: in error checking for this article, originally updated in January, this particular ‘hack’ no longer appears to work. Why not try it yourself on a job you’re interested in and let me know if it works for you? I’ll update this properly for the next book update. I've left it here to show how this kind of tactical advice can change so quickly as to make it obsolete.


Next week's article is on Content Strategy & Philosophy for promoting yourself on LinkedIn. Call it personal branding, call it copywriting - expect some people to jump on with strong opinions without reading the article)



A social superpower - the big truth about little lies

By Greg Wyatt • April 16, 2026
(With luck she won't sue me for copyright infringement) I was reminded about the imperative to lie at times, when commenting on a post about namism this week. Namism is discrimination against uncommon names, with proof that a change of name improves the likelihood of getting an interview from an application. A lie that mitigates the worst behaviour in a recruitment process seems reasonable behaviour to me. What follows is an article released around the same time as my sister's book, as a tribute to her fine work. At the time I planned to call it "Nothing but the truth" the name she refused to use, because her publisher told her negative titles don't sell - he clearly hasn't seen a Bond film. Instead, I went for a House quote, "Everybody lies", because like it or not, everybody does. June 2023 At the end of her speech, my sister made a simple request: “Put your hand in the air if you’ve lied today.” Only one person didn’t put their hand up – me. Lying’s not in my nature, except in a couple of specific situations where no harm is caused. You can believe that or not, up to you. The earlier part of the speech touched on all those little moments in our lives where we tell a little lie, either to ourselves or someone else. Sometimes it’s to protect feelings. Sometimes to protect ourselves. Sometimes it’s to keep up the narrative of how we are perceived because we don’t want to share our secret selves. It was a great launch for a book on how society doesn’t just put up with lies to function, it may even rely on them. She interviewed a wide range of experts on lying including spies and toddler scientists, showed how the face can lie, and talked about her amnesia and what it was like to be in the closet. She didn’t interview me about recruitment, so I’m putting that right today. Lies are rampant everywhere you look in recruitment. In a survey last year, 51% of respondents admitted to lying on their CVs. I expect the true number to be higher, considering some won’t even admit a lie to themselves. It’s common to extrapolate behaviour from what we experience. One lie may lead to more, and that may be the only reason you need to reject a candidate. Not all lies are born equal. Broadly I differentiate them between lies of impact, lies to protect, and lies of inconsequence. A lie of impact is one which leads to a decision based on that lie. Here an example would be John Andrewes , who lied about his experience and qualifications to land a top NHS job. He was jailed for 2 years and required to pay £100k, the remainder of his assets. Fraud. Or lying about reasons for departure – they say redundancy, they meant gross misconduct. Misrepresenting capability and qualifications. Mispresenting a role to make it more appealing. £Competitive salary, when you meant lowball to get a deal. The lies we should find and cull at the earliest opportunity. A lie to protect can be many things. I remember an HR candidate early in my career who changed her name twice. It was highly suspicious to me at the time. “Apunanwu Oluwayo” became “Apunanwu Roberts” became “Judith Roberts”. This first change suggested a marriage or divorce. The second I couldn’t fathom. What a liar, 2005 Greg thought. Of course, now I know better. It’s likely she changed her name to a British one because she suffered from namism – one report indicates candidates are 60% less likely to receive a call-back with a foreign-sounding name. Despite my ignorance, I gave Judith the benefit of the doubt and invited her to interview. You can see why blind CVs are a fair measure to prevent this happen, although I wonder if it’s better to treat the illness rather than rely on palliative measures. How about not disclosing identifiable education for the same reasons? What about disability and neurodivergence? If a condition requires an accommodation to fulfil a role, is non-disclosure a lie by omission? Another could be lying about reasons for departure – they said ‘left to focus on a job search’, they meant they couldn’t put up with a harmful environment any longer. A lie of protection, which isn’t one of impact, should be clarified but, in my opinion, not penalised without investigation. The lie above is one of protection – I changed the names to protect the individual, one of the situations in which I will lie deliberately, with good reason. How about a lie of inconsequence? By this I mean a lie that doesn’t impact employability, reflect capability or have any bearing on what that person is like to work with. Examples here might be fudging employment dates to prevent the question “Why were you unemployed for 2 days in 2012?” Or perhaps they might say People Business Partner on their CV, which they fulfilled functionally, yet had a misrepresentative job title of Operations Manager. Sometimes what seem to be lies of impact, might be lies of inconsequence: I once had a candidate withdraw from an interview. Aladdin said his father had passed away, and he had decided to suspend his job search. I spoke to the hiring manager, Jaffar, and said “This smacks of lying” principally because of a change in behaviour that didn’t seem related to grief, and the very high mortality rate candidates sometimes experience throughout recruitment. It was a tough vacancy to fill, so we made a plan. Jaffar would contact him directly a couple of weeks after, to check in and see if he fancied a pint. We put our suspicion aside, while also considering how he might have perceived his relationship with me. Long story short Aladdin took the job and was there for eight years. He gave me a lovely recommendation too. I’m pleased to say his father made a full recovery. While this appears to be a lie of impact, it’s actually one of inconsequence. He lied because he didn’t feel safe telling me he was having second thoughts. That’s on me, because it is my job to create a safe space for candidates so that they trust me and tell me inconvenient truths. It’s not dissimilar to the hilariously high rate of car breakdowns in recruitment. Have we considered our part in that lie? These three types of lies are a gross simplification to paint the picture. Our perception of lying is highly subjective, and there is no one right answer. I think it’s understandable to feel a lie is a dealbreaker. For lies of impact, this should be the case. For other lies though, perhaps a judgment call is better than an assumption. Why did that person lie? Could it even be something we did? Does that lie really matter? And if it does matter – how many times have you lied in the same way today? The next eminently-an-epistole is on technical debt in recruitment, and why we should consider the long-term impact of a short-term compromise.  Regards, Greg P.s. if you’re interested in Kathleen’s book, you can read about it here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Superpower-Truth-About-Little-ebook/dp/B09MDWNL44

LinkedIn profiles that convert

By Greg Wyatt • April 13, 2026
What follows is Chapter 37 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . I expect you've read and heard many arguments about how important is to have a discoverable LinkedIn profile - one where recruiters can find you for their vacancies, including the ones that aren't advertised. Indeed, when you hit the market, your LinkedIn profile is one of the first activities you should try and get right - because your job search can optimise for inbound leads before you think about anything else. Yet a lot of the focus is on getting found, and there's a consequence to this that I think is worse than not getting found at all: the recruiter who reads your profile for an ideal vacancy and decides not to contact you. And because Recruiter Licence accesses your data in a different way to the platform you use, you'll never know. So this Chapter is the direct follow up to LinkedIn Profiles that Get Found , one which aims to convert an invisible reader to someone that contacts you for legitimate reasons. I'm going to be updating that chapter soon, with some additional findings, such as why your headline doesn't carry quite as much weight as you might think. I should point out, as a recruiter I am quite happy for you to have a weak profile, given it means I am more likely to find you through rigour, if others rely on well specified information. For example tomorrow I will be setting up an interview for someone who has 1 LinkedIn connection and only a job title and company name - nothing else. He came up for me because his job title matched my search, and I used an industry term in the "Company Name" section - an approach that is common for employers in that niche industry. But as I always say - it's better to help the weakest link in the chain see you as a viable candidate because same work helps everyone. 37 - LinkedIn profiles that convert An Amazon (job) search When I buy a commodity item on Amazon there are two stages to my buying process. I know what I want and I have to find an acceptable shortlist of possibilities. Only then do I assess and decide on what to buy. As a sweaty runner that clocks up 50-60km a week, I burn through Bluetooth headphones regularly. I’m also deaf in one ear and can’t tell the difference in higher quality sound. My context is a little different to the normal buyer although likely no more different than most buyers are from each other. A search on ‘Bluetooth headphones’ brings up over 2,000 results, which is hardly manageable. I change the search to ‘waterproof Bluetooth headphones’, and filter by: £15-£30, in ear, Prime, running. 125 results. Much better. Now I scan down the list and I ignore Sponsored. I’m not sure why. Click on the first one with a relevant headline promising 50hrs playtime and skim past all the marketing twaddle. Who cares what they say - what do their buyers think? I go straight to the three-star reviews because they are generally good with caveats. One of the three-star reviews says they were offered a discount to change it to five. That’s BS that turns me right off. I click through a few more products and buy one. The decent guarantee swung it for me. I didn’t get past the first 40 results. Now think about your own commodity purchases, where you have to do differing levels of research to get what you need. What kind of search criteria do you use? How do you filter? What informs your decision to buy? Perhaps you already know what you want to buy, having researched buyer guides, YouTube videos and user forums, and are just sourcing the best price. Or maybe you need something adequate, and literally anything above an acceptable threshold will do - 5 minutes and done. These are examples of a buyer’s journey across a transactional process. Which isn’t far removed from how recruiters might search for candidates. On LinkedIn and other channels. Bringing it back to your job search LinkedIn and Amazon - what’s the difference? In a hiring process, they are both volume, transactional marketplaces that allow searches and filters to create an appropriate shortlist to read through. As with a product on Amazon, your LinkedIn profile is one of many that fit similar criteria and might be found at any stage in a recruitment process. From a search through the Recruiter Licence A hiring manager reading more on a shortlisted candidate Their boss researching you at final interview Out of curiosity from a comment or post you wrote Checking it out on receipt of an application Because you were recommended Because you worked at a certain company In the same way customers might visit a product page on Amazon, so too might someone hiring visit your profile. This means that it doesn’t have to just stand on its own merits, it has to corroborate and support any other documentation a reader might have come across: Your CV or application Your LinkedIn posts and comments Something you did that’s in the public domain - an interview, video, article Where there’s a conflict, such as an overly customised CV that contradicts your LinkedIn profile - that can be a problem. Assuming your contents all support each other, the aim is to prompt an action. Unlike an Amazon purchase, you aren’t expecting a sale, simply for the right people to start a conversation that meets your goals. To convert interest into an action, first, you have to be found. Think about an Amazon product page and the process you go through to buy - what do you typically read and in which order? It’s probably something like . My reading journey on a product page is . How does your profile page cater to the reading psychology of a recruiter? While a recruiter likely has access to the Recruiter Licence, you won’t. I’ll write this in a way you can emulate as a standard or Premium Member. A standard search might go across . Leading to this reading priority of someone who wants to read everything (!): #Open to Work banner (your choice) Headline Banner Location / Contact details (depending on connection and privacy settings) Activity / Featured Section / About (the order depends on whether you have Creator mode or not) Experience Education Projects Skills Recommendations Unlike Amazon reviews, I rarely look at recommendations - if I’m still interested by that point, I’ll get in touch. You can also download your profile as a PDF, which looks like a CV with contact details, headline, summary and experience. In both your profile and the downloadable PDF, your headline and summary / About section are going to be read before your experience is. This is where a lot of the decision to contact you will come from. While the career section is important, if an attention-short reader doesn’t get that far, it won’t help convert interest. An exercise to guide your approach to updating your profile Imagine you have been promoted and are tasked with recruiting your replacement. The rules are that you are only allowed to search for candidates on LinkedIn through your standard membership. You have 10 minutes to run and scan through a search and 20 minutes to form a shortlist of 3 top candidates from the results. Location and salary don’t matter for now. It’s likely you’ll search on your job titles, job specific skills and qualifications. What do the results look like? Pick your three favourite profiles from the results. Now compare them against your own profile, step by step. Would you make your own shortlist based purely on the content? If not, what is it about their profiles that is preferable and how can you emulate the same in yours? What is it in their content that has converted you from being a passive reader to having them on your imaginary shortlist? Actionable points to update your profile (and CV too) You want people with hiring authority to look at your profile and want to contact you. How can you help them see you as a candidate of choice? 1. A punchy headline that says what you do and how you can help. The first four words count - those Amazon product headlines. If you don’t read further than the first four words, you’ll never know what you missed. Check out how other people’s headlines look on your mobile phone when on their profile or if they are replying to a comment on a post - lead with relevance 2. Scrap ‘I help companies by’ because it’s meaningless. Start with your job title then add a flourish or context. ‘CTO - deep tech scale-up. Equity backed and privately owned. £20m to £120m in three years’ 3. Your banner - it’s free advertising real estate. Use Canva; include your contact details in case a reader doesn’t have access through your account 4. Make it easy to contact you by phone or email. Put it in multiple spots 5. About section - who do you help and how? What are your key skills and achievements? Keep it concise and focused on your ideal audience - move away from the ‘responsibilities led’ approach to CVs that get copied onto LinkedIn. Show context 6. While your career section is further down and may not even be read, it should still be fully populated and credible 7. How can you highlight posts, videos and articles to support your candidacy? The Featured Section is a useful facility in Creator mode 8. Keywords. Recruiters search on keywords. Remember all the job adverts and required skills you’ve read - does your LinkedIn profile show these suitably? While these need to be true how might differing acronyms and terminology mean the same thing? 9. Personal branding. How can you showcase your personality in your words? Your About Section is a form of elevator pitch. While it highlights your professional credibility you can also show your personal qualities. What are you most passionate about or best at? Lead with that 10. It’s not about you. It’s about the needs of your reader - tell us what we need to know to make an informed decision on your candidacy. Answer the questions that we should have through your content 11. Keep it simple and authentic 12. If there’s something you want us to know, make it clear. This could be anything from the job you want, to part-time status, to highlighting a recommendation you are proud of  I've mentioned ‘CV too’ because the same principles that let you get found apply in all of your documentation - such as on an ATS, on a job board, or with a referral. And because an optimised LinkedIn profile is a further reason why you might not customise your CV (p178).