Choose the Right Executive Job Website

Executive job boards or posting services may seem a bit foreign to many, but as the job market tightens it’s as important as ever to use all the resources at your disposal in an organized way to land the right position. Experts agree that a combination of professional networking, recruiter contact, personal research of appropriate potential employers and job postings, along with a professional resume and cover letter are key to your search success. With layoffs at financial institutions, industrial and manufacturing operations, construction or technical trades even top executives are now looking for new opportunities whether already unemployed or just wondering if they might be next to go. In many cases, executives have never been faced with the prospect of actually undertaking a job search. Many have moved easily from job to job as the robust economy of the past has produced limitless opportunities.

Welcome to 2009. As executives face the potential for an employment search, it’s more important than ever to use all the tools available including executive job postings. The problem is that there are hundreds to choose from. Many are niche based or sponsored by a trade association, professional organization or executive search firm. There are literally hundreds of job posting sites. So how do you know where to invest your precious time (and sometimes limited resources?)

We’ve undertaken and independent review of over 218 top posting websites to help executives efficiently manage their search for opportunities with compensation over 100K annually. As a result of that review, we recommend two sites for executive job postings:

+++++ The Ladders offers a variety of tools to increase the effectiveness of your job hunt in addition to basic search and resume posting capabilities. The Ladders also offers multiple sites for different functional areas including: FinanceLadder, HRLadder, LawLadder, MktgLadder, OpsLadder, SalesLadder, TechnologyLadder, and UpLadder.

The Ladders also allows you to create up to ten job search alerts with results email to you daily or weekly. You can save jobs you’re interested in, you can discard jobs that aren’t a fit so they’re no longer included in any of your searches, saving you time. There’s a system included to track your progress from identification to applications, follow-up and interview with an ability to send yourself alerts for follow-up and save notes you might make about an opportunity.

Unique to The Ladders is a search function for recruiters in your field or geography that shows their type, specialty, and their recent job postings. In many cases, job postings also show the posting recruiter so you can also view other postings by that recruiter. There is also a tool showing the top keywords searched by recruiters so you can include those in your resume as appropriate.

In comparison searches between The Ladders and other top executive job boards, The Ladders repeatedly turned up 2-1/2 times more listings using the same search criteria.

The Ladders also includes a free resume critique with an ability for fee based resume help as well as “how to” articles with all kinds of help for your search. The Ladders is free to sign up but that service only includes the search and resume posting capabilities. A premium membership that allows online job application and all the other time saving features as well as recruiter access runs $39 per month.

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++++ 6Figure Jobs offers many of the same features included in the Ladders including search on keywords, industries, functions and locations as well as resume posting. You can also build criteria for alerts to job matches for your specific situation. The site also includes a “Quick Search” feature for several functional areas including: Consulting Jobs, Executive Jobs, Finance Jobs, Law Jobs, Medical Jobs, Management Jobs, Marketing Jobs, Operations Jobs, Real Estate Jobs, Sales Jobs, Technology Jobs although I found more job listings in the standard job search function.

6Figure Jobs also includes a “JobSweeper” function that searches not only their site but also dozens of other sites on the web and returns those results with the “Job Alert” function. The 6Figure site includes links to many resources for career management, interviewing skills, entrepreneurial opportunities, resume help and executive education. Most of theses are fee based services.

There is also a link for “CEO, SVP, GM, Dir Jobs” that is a link to ExecuNet, another job board. ExecuNet offers resume posting, search, and alert capabilities. I found their listings concentrated in northeast and larger market areas. The fee for ExecuNet is $39 monthly with discounts for extended month purchases.

While 6Figure Jobs offers a great product, in general I found fewer listing and more advertising. While 6Figure Jobs is free (and I’d still sign up and post my resume), once you purchase the ExecuNet membership for access to the juicy jobs you’re spending the same $39 bucks with fewer features.


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