I wanted to highlight some ways that job boards are changing/evolving in order to show you some of the trends that are taking place.
1. Making it easier to apply. In the past most job boards forced you to login/register in order to apply to a job. But I think the trend is going away from this. Job seekers want it “easy”. They want to get in and out of a job so they can move on to the next one. They dont have time to register on some long ass form when all they want to do is upload their resume. Thats why you are seeing new software like Jobboard.io which has no job seeker registration. There’s only 2 ways an employer can request candidates via another url or by email. Its dead simple.
2. No more resumes. Ok so the resume isnt going to die anytime soon but we are starting to see the start of mobile effect the way people apply to jobs. Now they can just login to their Linkedin account and send those details. Many ATS providers like SmartRecruiters are building in these features on mobile. Its only going to get more pervasive over the next 2-3 years so be prepared.
3. Mobile traffic is increasing. If your site isn’t mobile friendly yet you’d better get it there. Google is going to start to penalize sites that don’t have mobile friendly pages. SimplyHired gets 30% of their traffic from mobile right now! Have a look at their site on your iphone/android to see how they do it.
4. More content. Job boards need to produce more content around their niche and be everywhere for SEO and Social traffic. That means not just twitter/facebook but Youtube, podcasts, instagram, pinterest and tumblr. You need to take your social to a whole new level. Publish stuff that job seekers WANT to read. Educate them. Provide your clients with valuable tips and resources and they will come back to you again and again. Social is the new SEO.
5. Different business models. We are starting to see a variety of recruiting related startups with different business models than just job postings. Hired.com takes 1% of ne hire salary over 24 months. InterviewJet charges 5k per placement. PPC of course from the aggregators. The Muse charges companies to create “company profile pages. So start to look at alternate ways to make money. You may just find something that employers will like.
