Last week SJB came out with a feature that has been longed for among job board startups. The ability to make a private, membership based site where you can charge job seekers for access.
That’s now a reality. But what makes for a good member only job board?
Over the years I have received many calls from prospective job board startups, asking if this type of platform existed. It didn’t until now. But it also doesn’t mean you should rush out to start one.
Running a membership job board has been done successfully before but not in great numbers. Two of the most successful have been WorkinSports.com and Flexjobs.com.
These sites had once thing in common–they both offered jobs that were hard to find. Workinsports.com offered coveted jobs with professional sports teams while Flexjobs.com gave seekers access to work at home listings.
Now that Covid-19 has made work at home jobs ubiquitous, I dont think a site like Flexjobs could launch in this current environment. There are a slew of remote job board competitors that all offer free job access.
The key to a membership based job site really comes down to this: can you give paying job seekers access to jobs that are hard to find or can you give them a curated list of jobs in a certain niche that save them time?
By curating/researching the jobs manually you may be able to offer enough value in order for them to consider paying you $5, $10, even $20 per month.
It will be interesting to see what niches job board startups go after with this new functionality. In an era where many more people are looking for work it may be possible to build a business off of them IF you can find the right fit.
