The start of a new year is a time to reassess our work and projects, and that often means looking for new challenges and clients. Working in the creative industry can be competitive, but fortunately there are numerous high-quality niche job boards that feature professional, specialized listings.
This post highlights 13 of the leading job boards that cater to those in the creative industries, from designers, photographers and fashion stylists to web developers and architects.
See also: 12 Free Web Apps to Boost Your Drawing Skills
It's important to note that generic job listing sites such as Elance and oDesk have been omitted, along with "bidding" sites such as 99Designs, as this is an industry-specific roundup.
Authentic Jobs has been helping companies find qualified, creative professionals since 2005. It's trusted by some of the biggest names in the world, including Apple, Facebook, ESPN, HBO and more. The filter controls make it easy to narrow your preferences and save them in your personal account, with postings for all types of creative jobs, such as front-end development and visual design.
There's also the option to choose between six types of employment -- full-time, part-time, contract, freelance, moonlighting and internship -- to suit any requirement.
It's Nice That is a new job board for finding the best opportunities within the creative industries. The job posts range from individual studios to selected recruitment agencies. As a prospective employee you have peace of mind knowing the site does not post unpaid internships, and all placements must meet the (UK) national minimum wage.
Only jobs from selected partner employment agencies are posted, with posts from employers based mostly in the UK, and limited opportunities also available worldwide.
The JobList from creative platform Behance showcases opportunities within some of the top global brands, including Google, Facebook, EA, Sony, Adobe, Apple, Microsoft and others. You can search via company or category to help refine and narrow your results.
If you're a Behance member, you can set alerts for jobs that meet your specific requirements, flag particular jobs, share postings and even add a private note about a job that interests you. The job postings cover the whole spectrum of creative industries, from illustration to copywriting, and feature full-time, part-time, contract and freelance opportunities.
Dribbble is undoubtedly one of the top platforms to showcase your talent and work -- having a profile there is now a very valuable asset. The Dribble Job listings have featured global companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Tumblr, Amazon, Vimeo, Yelp and many others looking to hire talent.
From freelance to full-time, the job listings come from companies around the world, and they're listed in date order, so you always see the latest postings. You can also refine your search using location, setting a preferred distance or for remote, work from home listings.
Dribbble also offers a Jobs RSS feed and a Twitter feed, so you never miss the latest opportunities.
We Work Remotely is the new job board from 37signals, taking over from its previous job board that ran since 2006 and connected thousands of talented people with great jobs.
As 37signals is a big supporter of working remotely (75% of its staff does so), We Work Remotely is reserved exclusively for remote job listings. It features programming, customer service and support, design, business, and miscellaneous jobs, with the latest postings featured first. You can also grab the RSS feed so you never miss an opportunity.
Krop started in 2000 as a private mailing list and has grown into one of biggest job boards online. It has over 1 million visits each month, and is constantly evolving with new tools and features. You can search by keyword or location to find jobs that match your requirements, and have new jobs that match your criteria emailed to you as they are posted.
Krop also offers the ability to host your own creative portfolio and style it to your own brand, putting your work in front of companies from around the world.
Coroflot initially launched as a portfolio platform in 1997, growing to host more than 150,000 new projects each month, along with a dedicated job board that is one of the most active on the web. It specifically targets the creative industries and features job postings from industry leaders such as Nike, Intel, Nokia, Sony, Microsoft and more.
You can search via company, keyword or location, and choose your speciality to narrow the results. There are six job levels to choose from: executive, senior staff, mid-level staff, junior staff, freelance and intern.
AIGA is the oldest and largest professional membership organization for design. Founded in 1914, it aims to advance design as a professional craft. Since 2004, the AIGA Design Jobs board has successfully matched candidates with more than 10,000 jobs from firms, agencies and companies across the United States, including Amazon, Facebook, MTV, Nokia, Bloomberg and others.
You can search for professional, pro bono and internship opportunities, and narrow your search for certain positions, including executive, senior, middle, junior and freelance. AIGA also provides RSS feeds for each category, so you can keep up to date.
Sensational Jobs was born out of a desire to connect talented candidates to employers within the web development industry, using a simple, dedicated platform. You can search by keyword, company or location, with the newest listings shown first.
If you'd like to save a job listing for later, you can add it to your favorites by clicking the star icon to the left side of each job post. You can then access favorites by clicking on the Favorites tab; to remove one, simply click the star again.
Sensational Jobs also provides RSS, Twitter and Facebook feeds of the latest jobs, which you can subscribe to or follow.
DSGN JBS is an automated feed of the best design job board postings from Dribbble, Behance, Authentic Jobs, SmashingMag, 37Signals and more. It takes a fresh look at how job boards should look and function, with a unique color scheme that takes the aggregate-type site and mixes it up to create something genuinely useful, usable and radical.
The website displays the 19 latest job listings, and you can follow DSGN JBS on Twitter to keep up to date with all of the best design jobs.
SourceForge is a community dedicated to making open source projects successful, with more than 3.4 million active developers. SourceForge Jobs lists more than 70,000 web development and tech jobs, powered by Dice.
You can order by job title, company, location and date posted, and choose jobs posted anywhere between one and 30 days. The job postings range from web developer, project coordinator, network engineer and many more. With so many development and tech jobs, there is a job posting to suit everyone.
Design Jobs Board is job board dedicated to the creative industry, catering to design, fashion and architecture jobs to help connect discerning designers with creative design studios. While many of the jobs are based within the UK, there are plenty of postings in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia.
You can search by keyword or location, and view the specific job boards for fashion and architecture. There is a corresponding Twitter feed that posts the latest jobs, so you can always stay updated.
Creative Hotlist is a career resource for creative professionals in visual communications, with which you can post a resume, create an online portfolio and search the job listings.
You can search and filter by keyword, location or level of experience, and sort by date, geographic location or alphabetically. You can save, file or access sorted jobs anytime by creating a free account. You can also filter job postings by industry, with most creative sectors accounted for, including advertising, print, film, fashion and more.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Image: Mashable composite; iStock, Tsuji