Every job board is a copy of somewhere else, arriving later.
This one isn't about any particular product. Aggregators exist to pull jobs from many places into one searchable index, which is a useful thing to be. It also puts two unavoidable delays between a job existing and you knowing about it.
A board indexes a job, then notifies you. We drop the first step, and the second stops being a schedule.
Side by side
Each row is how that tool is built to work, taken from what it says about itself. None of this is a benchmark we ran.
| job boards | Trakker | |
|---|---|---|
| Source | An index built from crawls and syndication feeds | The employer's live hiring system |
| Delay before you can be told | Crawl interval, plus indexing, plus the alert schedule | One pass, usually minutes |
| Duplicates and dead listings | Common, because sources disagree and expiry is guessed at | One row per job, keyed on the employer's own job id |
| Who it's for | Everyone, so the filters are generic | Students and new grads, so level is a first-class filter |
What job boards are better at
Breadth and browsing. If you don't yet know what you want or which companies you'd work for, a big searchable index beats a targeted alert feed, and there's no substitute for it at that stage.
When not to switch
Job boards make the most sense early in a search, when you're still deciding what to apply for. Speed only becomes the thing that matters once you know which jobs you want.
The detail
- The dead posting problem
- An aggregator usually can't see a job close. It can only see that the job stopped showing up in a feed, which is why boards carry roles that were filled a fortnight ago. Reading the source means a job's existence and its disappearance come from the same place.
Other comparisons
- Trakker vs LinkedIn job alertsAn alert built on an index can't be faster than the crawl that feeds it. Reading the employer's hiring system removes that step.
- Trakker vs HandshakeOne feed is defined by your school's employer list. The other is defined by the employers' own career pages, which is a different and much larger set.
- Trakker vs GitHub internship listsA repo is something you have to remember to check. An alert is something that finds you.
Stop finding out on Friday.
Setup takes about two minutes. After that, the jobs come to you.
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