When people start a job search, most do the same thing: open a job board, set up alerts, and apply. It feels productive. It is also why so many searches stall. A job board is one channel among several, and treating it as the whole search means competing with hundreds of other applicants for the most visible openings.
A better search uses several channels at once and weights them deliberately. Here is what each one is good for.
Job boards and aggregators
The obvious starting point. LinkedIn, Indeed, and the large regional boards list a high volume of roles and let you filter fast. Niche boards, the ones specific to your industry or to remote work, often have less competition and more relevant listings.
What job boards are good for: volume and breadth. What they are bad for: every other applicant is using the same board, so popular roles attract hundreds of applications. Use boards to map the market and to apply to genuine fits, not to carpet-bomb. Set up two or three precise alerts rather than ten loose ones.
Company career pages
If there are companies you would actively like to work for, go straight to their careers page. Roles sometimes appear there before they hit the boards, and applying direct occasionally routes you past the first filter.
Keep a short list of target companies, maybe ten to fifteen, and check them weekly. This works best combined with the next channel.
Your network
This is the channel most people underuse, usually because it feels uncomfortable. A large share of roles are filled through referrals, and some are filled before they are ever posted publicly.
Using your network does not mean asking everyone you know for a job. It means telling people what you are looking for so they can connect dots you cannot see. A specific message works better than a vague one: "I am looking for a junior data role, ideally in a small team" gives a contact something to act on. "Let me know if you hear of anything" does not.
Reconnecting before you need something helps. A network you only contact when job-hunting feels transactional, and people sense it.
Recruiters and staffing agencies
For some fields, especially specialized or senior roles, recruiters are a real channel. A good recruiter knows about openings you will not find and can advocate for you with a hiring manager.
The trade-off: recruiters work for the employer, not for you. They are useful, but they are not career counsellors. Be clear about what you want, stay responsive, and do not rely on them as your only channel.
Events, communities, and direct outreach
Industry meetups, online communities, and conferences put you in contact with people who hire or know who is hiring. This channel is slower and does not produce a tidy list of applications, but the connections are warmer.
Direct outreach, messaging a hiring manager or team lead about a role or a company, is the highest-effort channel and often the highest-return for the right person. It works when the message is specific and shows you understand what the team does. It fails when it reads as a mass message.
How to split your time
A rough split that works for many searches: about half your effort on boards and career pages, since that is where the volume is. The other half on network and direct outreach, since that is where competition is lowest. Recruiters and events fill in around the edges.
The exact ratio depends on your field. Early-career searches lean more on boards. Senior and specialized searches lean more on network and recruiters.
Whichever channels you use, your CV and LinkedIn profile have to be ready first, because every channel eventually points back to them. If you are turning a LinkedIn profile into a CV, a tool like Postulit can get a clean draft together quickly so you spend your time on the search itself, not on formatting.
Pick three channels to run in parallel this week. One search channel run well beats five run badly, and five run at once usually means none run well.