Generalist job boards are a great place to begin the job search for a new job in accounting. Although they do cater for all industries, you do have the facility to search solely within accountancy. They provide many opportunities from a broad range of recruitment agencies and direct clients and allow you to compare the differences between the jobs all on one site. The beauty of these sites is there are so many opportunities to look through and compare.

Accounting Job Alerts

They let you set up job alerts for relevant accounting jobs so they can let you know about new opportunities as soon as they are registered online.

CV Database

Because the generalist job boards are larger than the niche sites, more recruiters will use the CV database and being registered will increase your chances of being contacted about potential accounting job opportunities.

Locations

They provide you with a wide range of locations, especially of interest if you are looking to re-locate. You can search through the various accounting jobs online in different locations comparing the salaries on offer and opportunities available.

Career Advice

Most generalist sites can also help you with career advice. They provide career articles on their websites that can help with writing CV's and cover letters and can help you deal with interviews and other career related issues.

Cons

Not specialist

When using generalist job boards, more often than not the jobs will be more general accounting jobs rather than specialist.

Outdated / fake

Some jobs on the very large job boards can end up being fake or outdated. Because the job boards are so big they do not keep such a close eye on the accounting jobs being registered. Some vacancies are fake jobs and can be scams. Some are get rich quick schemes or pyramid schemes, which are obviously not real jobs.

Difficult to find named people

When you are applying for a new accounting job, it is advisable to contact a named person. Using these generalist job boards can prove hard to find a named contact to follow up the application made. It tends to be more impersonal than applying to a company directly.

Open to everyone

When you register onto a generalist job board you are putting yourself in front of a whole host of recruiters and become a target for those who have jobs that don't necessarily match what you're looking for. Big generalist job boards are used by recruitment agencies, headhunters and executive search firms.

Less chance of a response

Because these large job boards are inundated with candidates and jobs get receive many applications, recruiters are less likely to respond to the applications made, especially when they are no good. If you do not hear back from the recruiter, it is a good idea to follow up the application.

Spam

By being registered on a generalist job board, you become a target for spam from recruiters. Many recruiters will use the service to contact candidates registered on the database about get rich quick schemes, scams and other services they wish to sell to the candidates. These are totally irrelevant to the accounting job you wish for!