how to find a niche job board

Much has been written about the big 3 job boards as a place to find work. But those sites are just a small slice of the available job market. In the past few years companies and recruiters have begun shifting their jobs to many niche job boards - local or industry specific sites and online communities. Recruiting today is all about location and quality of hire.

Thats why these niche sites are so popular. Many charge much less (for job postings) than the big boards and deliver more quality traffic. But for some job seekers (and even recruiters) these sites are not appearing on their radar. But ignoring these niche job boards can be detrimental to either your job search or your recruiting budget.

Here are 9 easy ways to find the perfect niche job board for seekers who want jobs or the recruiters who want to post them.

1. AIRS directory: one of the oldest & comprehensive job board directories. You'll need to register to get it.

2. Job Boarders: an online community for job board professionals. There's no directory per se, but do a keyword search on the type of jobs you're looking for.

3. AllStarJobs: a simple directory of niche and local sites which has been around for many years.

4. Jobtarget's One Click: this service for recruiters shows you many niche sites and professional association's job boards.

5. CareerCast: publisher of many niche and local sites including many newspaper sites.

6. IAEWS directory: the association for employment websites has a great directory.

7. Jobboardreviews.com is a self help job board directory. Sites have to add themselves so its not very comprehensive yet.

8. Job-hunt.org's job boards by state: one of the best directories for local job sites.

9. Google: do a search on your targeted phrase, i.e. 'engineering jobs' and check the first 3 pages of results. Also look to see who is advertising for those terms as that can indicate a quality board.

NOTE: Not all niche job boards are created equal. To spot the good ones you'll need to look for a few clues. See if they belong to the IAEWS (employment website association). Check to see how many total jobs they have listed and how many resumes are in their database. Look for testimonials. See if they are advertising on places like Google Adwords, Indeed and SimplyHired. Most good job boards worth their salt will be doing all or some of the above.