There’s a lot of money in job advertising and there are no signs that companies will stop using job boards anytime soon. But the market is saturated with loads of job boards and aggregators and there are not a lot of niches left without direct competition. So how do job boards today succeed and grow revenues in this highly competitive market where there are most likely several other job boards just like yours and an increasing trend towards turning the industry into a business of buying and selling clicks?
Fix the real problem
As I see it, the best answer to that question is that you need to fix your customers’ real problem, which is helping them find the right hire. It’s a war for talent in a lot of industries out there so if you can solve this pain, you will most definitely get their business next time they are recruiting. In a recent Facebook study, which really baffled me by the way, small companies in North America said that hiring the right people is their number one pain – above all other things such as finding new customers and getting sales. So the problem is real!
So how do you fix this very real problem?
Well, my take is that you need to go deeper into the recruitment process and talent acquisition and become something more than ‘just a job board’. There’s really no way around it if you want to be successful in the long run. I’ll explain why and how you can do this without having to radically change your business.
Understand the jobseeker mentality
If your job board is like most others, the majority of the jobseekers that use your site do so to research employers and vacant jobs, as opposed to using your site to apply to jobs. The Job Board Doctor, Jeff Dickey-Chasins and Madgex ran a survey recently showing that this is how most jobseekers use job boards. Jobseekers prefer to apply to jobs directly on the companies’ own websites (company career sites) because they need more information than the job ad provides. There’s probably also the thought that they believe it improves their chances of getting the job in the end.
So why is this important to me and my job board, you might think. Well, have you visited a company career site recently? If you haven’t, don’t worry, because not much has happened since I joined the industry more than 12 years ago. They are still awful! I will probably do a separate article on poor career sites in a separate article. I won't have problems finding them, at least.
Some companies now do a decent career site to show off their employer brand and jobs, but most companies, particular the SMEs, have either crappy career sites or no career site at all. And these are the ones that need to strengthen their brands the most when competing for talent!
Every jobseeker counts, particular the good ones!
So what happens when the jobseekers you reach out to via your job board get sent to the company’s own website? Yes, you guessed it…a lot will leave and never apply to the jobs. They might not even return to your job board either because a lot of jobseekers have difficulties understanding where your job board ends and the company career site starts.
This is particularly a problem when it comes to the users on your job board that are not active jobseekers (i.e. the people that are already employed). They need a super smooth, friction-less and convincing user journey or they’re gone. And those are the people the companies really want! What a waste of potentially great candidates.
Provide a friction-less solution that instantly adds value
What if you offered a great looking career site looking like this that would instantly improve your customers’ employer brand without you having to deal with any time consuming website setup or support tasks because the customer can use a simple career site builder?
What if your customers when they are putting a vacant job on this new career site would be able to advertise directly on your job board in the process via one click?
I think something like this is an amazing opportunity for all job boards out there. Not only would you build a much closer customer relationship because your job board brand would be right there staring in the hiring manager’s face when they are entering their job ad. You would also be looking at making your sales and admin processes much more scalable compared to how most job boards I know are operating because you wouldn’t need to spend as much time and resource on return-sales and job posting administration.
Giving employers a great looking career site will add value to both employers and jobseekers alike. A few key benefits:
- Employers will get a great showcase of their employer brand, have easy access to advertising and get more and better applicants (higher jobseeker-visitor to applicant conversion will eventually lead to better hires)
- Jobseekers expect employers to have something like this so they can easier decide whether they want to work for the company – and with a convincing career site, it definitely increases that chance
We are looking for job board partners
Building a career site product that all job boards can use is exactly what we have been working on for the last months here at MatchWork. Also, if you don't currently have our job board software or plan to, no stress, we are happy to work with all job boards that can get value from the career site product. Obviously it helps from a technical and job ad distribution point of view, but it's not a requirement.
We are currently looking for job boards that would like to partner with us and offer career sites to their customers and get all the benefits mentioned earlier. We expect to soft launch the new product during this summer.
You can read more about the details of the new career site product called MatchWork Careersites from and end-customer point of view here https://en.matchworkcareersite.com.
Please get in contact if you would like to hear more about the opportunities of how can you increase revenues without having to radically change your job board business.
Karsten Wikke
CEO @ MatchWork
E: Karsten.wikke@matchwork.com
T: +45 21 78 50 69
