Q&A with Madgex (free)

I asked Alastair Digby from Uk based Madgex to tell us more about their job board software.

1. What is the history of Madgex?

Madgex has been supplying job boards and resume database solutions to the UK market for the past 10 years. In that time Madgex has established themself as the UK’s leading job board provider working with 85% of the B2B market in the UK. Today we power over 250 job boards for clients across the globe including the Guardian, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Washington Post and Incisive Media.

2. Who are some of your leading job board sites?

One of our major success stories has been for the UK newspaper The Guardian who have grown to pass 2 million users month during January 2010. This demonstrates just how successful the site has become recording 20,870,445 page impressions. They were also credited as a Hitwise Top 10 Award winner for the period between July – December 2009. Some of our other leading sites include Caterer Global, Brand Republic Jobs and Minneapolis Star Tribune.

3. Your graphic design/interfaces are very well designed…but what’s the backend look like? What features do you offer for employers and job board owners?

Our aim is to help job seekers to find the best jobs and recruiters to find the best candidates by delivering inspirational and innovative digital recruitment. Over the years we have invested extensively in user experience to create a platform that meets the needs of today’s market. This translates into a range of features designed to increase application rates, lower operational costs and maximise revenues. Employers benefit from self service job posting and can create recruiter profiles, fully branded mini-sites and video jobs. They can also choose from a range of standard and premium job up-sells designed to increase response rates. Our ongoing enhancement and innovation means that new functionality is added constantly at no extra cost to our clients for the duration of their contract.

4. Are your sites Search engine friendly?

Our job board platform incorporates a powerful SEO component that allows job board owners to fully tailor their SEO via our content management system. It’s crucial that our clients attract a relevant audience to their site based on the search terms job seekers actually use with search engines. This is also combined with dynamic automatically generated landing pages so job seekers can easily find relevant content. We also include a range of analytics options to further enhance reporting and monitor activity across the entire.

5. Whats the cost?

There is an initial set up fee then an annual license, at present we don’t offer a rev share although we are open to the idea depending on the circumstances.

6. What US sites do you power?

In June 2009 Madgex launched its first US job board for no. 11 ranking US newspaper; Minneapolis Star Tribune. Star Tribune made the decision to move to the Madgex Job Board platform due to the remarkable user interface design and focus on innovation. Madgex also provides job scrapping services for the Washington Post. Madgex Job Scraper automatically extracts job adverts directly from employers’ and recruiters’ web sites, increasing the content of their own sites. Madgex will be making further announcements regarding increasing our client base in the US.

7. Do you collect payments or is the job board operator responsible for setting that up?

Our job board owners are responsible for collecting payments themselves. Clients have the ability to manage their rate card via the content management system and also run promotions at their discretion. We are able to work with a number of payment providers enabling clients to choose one that best suits their individual needs.

8. In your opinion, what is the future of the job board industry?

Trying to predict the future of the job board industry can be very difficult especially in the challenging times we’ve all faced over the last few years. Ultimately, innovation in technology will be the key driver for how job seekers find jobs. We feel there will be more cross-over with social media platforms such as Twitter, but that ultimately job boards will remain the central point for job content to proliferate through the web. Due to the high number of job boards in the market, finding the most relevant content has become increasingly difficult for job seekers. We believe the future lies in matching candidates using resume search and match technology which has numerous benefits for both job seekers and recruiters. This technology will enable recruiters to source candidates more effectively saving time and money by only purchasing resumes that match their needs. Job seekers benefit from only being put forward for roles based on their skills and experience therefore increasing their chances of a successful application.

9. Our strength is our team

Like any great organisation, the team at Madgex are our strongest asset, this was recognised in 2009 when Madgex was ranked in the top 50 of the Sunday Times Best Small Companies to Work For. In the same year Madgex was also included in the Tech Media Invest Top 100 list which was a fantastic achievement for the business. Our developers are allocated 15% of their time to work on new concepts and ideas that can often help push our products and services forward and help improve our client offering. We are passionate about user experience and you will often find focus groups and testing taking place from eye tracking to advancing our mobile applications to helping us better understand what job seekers need from platform job site. By investing in our team and supporting their own personal development we are rewarded by having a great working environment and offering an unrivalled service to our clients.