Where to look for jobs: the five channels that work

They carry volume and fierce competition: every visible advert draws hundreds of applications. Useful for reading the market and for scale, but leaning on them alone is what stretches a search into months.

A large share of vacancies is filled before it's ever posted. Writing to an employer with a CV tailored to what they actually do, addressed to a named person, puts you in a pile of three rather than three hundred.

Former colleagues, suppliers, clients and people in your trade. Don't ask “let me know if you hear anything” — ask something specific (“I'm after hotel reception work in Bristol, do you know anyone in a chain?”). An internal referral skips the entire first sift.

In hospitality, retail, trades, care and cleaning almost nothing is advertised: hiring happens by proximity. List the businesses within your travel radius, go at a quiet hour, and hand over the CV asking for the person in charge.

Fixed deadlines and scored criteria: qualifications, courses with hours and time served all earn points. If your sector runs a register (health, education, social care), joining it and keeping your evidence current beats a hundred scattered applications.

A realistic split: 40% boards, 25% speculative, 20% network, 15% local and registers. Log every application with date, employer and stage: without a record you repeat employers, lose follow-ups and never learn which channel works.

The five channels don't compete, they complement each other, and each has a different rhythm. Job boards give volume and read the market, but every visible advert draws hundreds of applications. Speculative applications reach what's never posted and face very little competition. Your network converts best, because an internal referral skips the entire first sift.

Local employers are the decisive channel in hospitality, retail, trades, care and cleaning, where almost nothing is advertised and hiring happens by proximity. Public sector and register lists run on fixed deadlines and scored criteria: they won't deliver this week, but they accumulate evidence that scores for years.

On boards, save searches with daily alerts and apply the day an advert goes live, tailoring your headline and keywords. Speculatively, research the employer for five minutes, find the named person in charge, and send a tailored CV plus a short letter about what they do rather than what you need.

With your network, ask for something specific and actionable: not “let me know if you hear anything”, but “I'm after hotel reception work in Bristol, do you know anyone in a chain?”. Locally, list the businesses within your travel radius, visit at a quiet hour — mid-morning or mid-afternoon, never peak — and hand the CV over asking for the person in charge. On registers, read the scoring criteria and add the courses that earn points before the deadline closes.

A realistic split for an active search: 40% of your time on boards, 25% on speculative applications, 20% on your network and 15% on local employers and registers. With a measurable weekly target — say ten applications and three new contacts — and fixed blocks of time, because a search without a schedule dissolves into the day.

And log everything: date, employer, role, channel, which CV version you sent, follow-up date and stage. Without a record you repeat employers, lose the five-day follow-ups and, above all, never learn which channel produces interviews. After three weeks the record tells you where to invest your time, and that's when the search accelerates.