Many people have found themselves pecking away on the internet trying to find a job lately in this economy, and searching for jobs online has grown and improved drastically. This process can be very time consuming without direction and frustrating without guidance. Posting jobs online is highly effective for employers and potential employees. It is relatively inexpensive for companies and rewarding for job seekers. Unfortunately, very few businesses out there these days allow prospects to apply in person. Just like in NBC’s Premier Season of 'The Voice,’ your looks, either good or bad, are irrelevant without the proper credentials in today’s job market. With all the diverse and niche job boards out there, it can be easy to take a wrong turn, especially if you are fairly new to the process. Whether you are in the market for a new job, unemployed, recently laid off, or just like to plan ahead, leveraging job boards will increase your chances of landing a job. Here are 3 secrets to follow.

Look Beyond the Fog

In 1952, May Florence attempted to swim the 26 miles between Catalina Island and the California coastline. As she began, she was flanked by small boats that watched for sharks and were prepared to help her if she got hurt or grew tired. After about 15 hours a thick fog set in. Florence began to doubt her ability, and she told her mother, who was in one of the boats, that she didn’t think she could make it. She swam for another hour before asking to be pulled out, unable to see the coastline due to the fog. As she sat in the boat, she found out she had stopped swimming just one mile away from her destination.

Setting a goal and focusing on it is essential to be successful at anything. There will always be sharks in the water, competition, fog, and other various distractions trying to knock you off track. One simple old school way to get past this is to simply write your goals down. A successful manager, owner, and mentor once told me that if I don’t write down my goals, I will just be helping someone else achieve his or hers. Same holds true for trying to land a job online. When I say goals, I don’t mean you have to isolate yourself to one job. Write your goal down. I love whiteboards and being able to reflect visually on what it is I am doing. For example, you could have a main goal with the company you are targeting and position. Then, below it, you could write an objective to prepare and submit your resume to a group of job boards and list them. After completing, a milestone could be noted as complete. Ben Franklin is famous for many things, but the most when considering goals, consider how successful Ben Franklin was and how he made decisions. He would weigh out the pros and cons on paper and then make an intelligent decision.

Create a Personal Billboard

To compete in today's online job application market, you need a professionally written resume. To prolong your way to the top you cannot use yesterday's methods. Writing is a very specialized skill, and you may have it. However, if you find yourself among many others, writing a resume professionally may not be second nature. Either way, your resume will act as an advertisement to a recruiter that you are a perfect solution to the company’s needs. The only catch is that the average recruiter spends less than 30 seconds reading the resume initially. You want to stand out in a way that matches the company’s needs to your qualifications and personality quickly. Many resume writing services and resume writers are job search experts who will skillfully market you to a company with all the appropriate keywords.

Get Moving

Now that you are clearly focused and armed with an appropriate billboard to market you, it is time to start blasting away and applying to as many jobs within your scope on as many job boards as possible. This is where I recommend doing things a little differently. There are numerous blogs, posts, and articles out there now that try and say one job board is better than the other. Well, what I found in my research is that many corporations prefer certain job boards over the other. In fact a recent post at US News was released stating that it pays to "go niche" when applying for jobs online. Basically, the article explained how certain jobs could be located on numerous different job boards. What this means for the job seeker is the more job boards a job seeker is proactive on, the greater the chance for the job seeker to land an interview. After all, finding a job these days is a numbers game. Not every job will be on one certain job board, and not every recruiter goes fishing in the same pond. The first thing to do is submit your resume to as many job boards as possible. If you live in the United States or are seeking work in the United States, try CareerUSA. Below are two additional job boards to try next: Snag a Job and Monster, After submitting your resume to these job boards, reflect back to your plan and start applying on each job board separately. CareerUSA does make the application process very fast which allows you to apply to more jobs per hour.

In closing remember that action follows thought. You have to think success if you want to be successful. Your thoughts activate your emotions and your emotions determine your experience. You will find creative ways to expand on the job searching process, but don’t let the fog keep you from achieving your goals. In Sean Park’s and Mac Anderson’s book entitled ‘212 the Extra Degree,’ they portray the analogy of water boiling at 212 degrees, hence the small difference between 211 and 212 degrees, and how boiling water leads to steam which is powerful enough to power a locomotive. "It’s your life" they say. Always remember that a little extra effort can yield substantially larger returns when trying to find a job in this economy. Make best use of your time. Apply to as many jobs as possible and keep diversifying and submitting your resume to multiple job boards.