Are Job Boards Dead?
In a word, no. Some job boards are like zombies in that they’re dead but don’t know it. By that I mean that their business models are unsustainable. Those job boards are dead or dying because they’re selling products that their clients either don’t want today or won’t want tomorrow.
What are the products that employers don’t want today or won’t want tomorrow? Traditionally priced job postings and resume searching. The reason that I qualify job postings as being dead if they’re traditionally prices is that more and more employers are waking up to the reality that they can post their jobs for free and only pay if the ads work. Rather than the employer assuming the risk of the ad not working, they’re shifting that risk to their media partner. These employers are smart. They know that it is foolish to pay $400 to a Monster or Careerbuilder or even $175 to a CollegeRecruiter.com for a posting that may or may not work when they can post the same job to an Indeed, SimplyHired, JuJu, TopUSAJobs, or CollegeRecruiter.com and pay only when the candidate has pulled up the ad AND either clicked through to the employer’s web site (a pay-per-click job posting) to apply or has applied using the job board’s application form (a pay-per-applicant job posting). There’s also no risk to the employer of the ad performing too well as all of these boards are more than happy to cap the total amount spent by the employer so the employer may, for example, buy one application for say $10 or 10,000 clicks for say $2,500.
So are job boards doomed? The industry isn’t, but boards which fail to align their interests with those of their clients are. A financial analysis of the job board industry actually is quite promising as the industry has gained huge market share during the recession so as we continue to climb out of this mess the job board industry will capture a far greater share of the money spent on recruitment advertising than it did prior to the recession. So the next time someone tells you that job boards are dead, correct them. Some have died. Some will die. But many will thrive for years and years to come.
