There are many factors that go into determining how successful a job board can become. Design of your site, the industry, the competition and your effort all play a part. For brand new job boards just starting out, expect not to earn much until after the first year. You need to spend the first year on content and building a community of candidates before you start adding employers to the mix.
The job board industry is mature. There are already multiple job boards for each niche. But that does not mean you cant make money. You just need to set your expectations, pick the right niche and get to work. A small niche job board that someone works on part-time typically brings in $10-$25k per year. I encourage all new job board owners to keep their day job and run their site on the side for at least a few years. Use the job board to supplement your income.
After 1 year, a typical small niche job board might have about 5,000 – 10,000 monthly users and attract 5-20 postings per month. In addition to postings, there is also the potential of earning revenue from Google Adsense and money from clicks generated by an Indeed or SimplyHired backfill.
Additional revenue sources will go a long way towards adding to your bottom line. Multiple revenue streams are a must for any job board.
Example of a “small” niche job board
I run a small niche job board call UAVjobbank.com. It targets the drone and UAV industry which is fairly new. At the moment I spend Zero hours running it. It brings in approx 3-5k users per month strictly through SEO. Back in 2014 I saw a future niche and launched the site. In the coming year I will finally be expanding the site and building more a community on it.
The site brought in about $3k last year with no work on my part. Now that the site is established, I’ll be putting more effort and money into expanding its footprint in that market.
To reach six figures in sales will take a job board 3+ years depending on size of the market. Healthcare, technology and sales are examples of strong markets. Sites in those industries have the biggest potential. Smaller markets have lower potential.
Another strategy I suggest is looking at the competition and trying to buy one of them. Look at sites that already exist, perhaps one of them is in decline or has gone dormant. Buying a used site will allow you to avoid the Google sandbox and have traffic right away. You may be able to buy an old site for $2k-$10k. It might be a good investment.
Goals & Milestones
After a year, a job board should try to focus on getting 5,000-10,000 monthly users coming the site each month. From a resume standpoint my target goal would be about 2,000 profiles/resumes registered. Thats about 150 candidates per month to get to signup.
Your goal the first year is to crank out tons of content about the niche you serve. Blog every day (or at least 3x week). Build up an audience, especially through social media. Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin offer you the chance to get FREE traffic so use them to your advantage. Give away job postings for free. After a year you should then have enough of an audience to charge for job postings.
