Almost 10 years ago on this very blog I published a post about the value proposition of niche based job boards. In that post I quoted 3 sources;
Forrester Research: “Local Sites Matter. Geography is more important to job seekers than industry focused sites. Monster.com is the most popular career site, but local sites place second and fourth in usage.”
Weddles.com: “These (local) Web-sites offer focused recruiting opportunities within specific geographic areas. Some concentrate on unique metropolitan districts while others have a broader, regional span. In either case, they enable you to reach large concentrations of prospective candidates for positions where relocation support is not available or a local background is important to successful job performance.”
CollegeRecruiter.com: There are several benefits to using niche/local job boards. First, little to no advertising money is wasted targeting unqualified candidates. Because the high profile, general boards target all candidates, the result is that the vast majority of the candidates using those boards will not be interested in the position posted by the employer because it falls outside of their career path, geographic preference or skill level.
By posting the position to the appropriate niche board, virtually all of the candidates using that niche/local board will be qualified for the position. As a result, even if the site has a small fraction of the traffic of the high profile, general board, the number of qualified candidates using the niche board tends to be higher. Second, the cost to post a position to a niche/local board is usually far less.
These quotes are still relevant today. Niche boards will always exist because they are targeted communities of like minded people. When listing the benefits of your site to employers, use quotes like this to give the recruiter “piece of mind” that their ad dollar will not go to waste.
Remind them constantly that your site is not like Indeed or the other big guys. (Quality vs Quantity) Remind them that you can get them listed on Google for Jobs. Niche boards have a singular focus unlike your competition.
