I saw this news recently and wanted to write about the prospects of local job boards. This is a JBS members only post.
I’m proud to announce today’s launch of Lookout Santa Cruz’s new Job Board, hosted and run by the Lookout’s Community & Commerce team. This Job Board is made by Santa Cruz County residents, for Santa Cruz County residents. My team and I are proud to offer this new resource on Lookout, aiming to streamline the efforts of both job seekers and those that are hiring.
We’ll be sharing every listing to our 19,000+ email subscribers and the Job Board site, now promptly featured in our main navigation menu. Be sure to follow along in the Morning Lookout, Lookout PM, and Lily Belli on Food newsletters to see the positions for which top Santa Cruz County companies are actively hiring.
Why This Local Job Board Makes Sense
Local job boards are the hardest ones to launch from scratch today. Indeed and Ziprecruiter’s dominance have to put an end to local independent sites with a few exceptions like already established ones such as MacsList.org and Andrew Hudson’s Job List for Colorado. They have been operating for many years and have a loyal audince.
You cant get that today with a local site. But in the scenario above a local job board makes sense because that local news site for Santa Cruz already HAS an audience. They have existing web traffic and 19,000 emails to market a job board too.
I’m sure they aren’t going to make a ton of money with it but they should bring in a supplemental revenue stream (perhaps an extra $10k – $20k) that adds to their bottom line. I’m sure they already make money through advertising and such so a job board with paid listings is another way for them to monetize.
Having existing traffic is key however. Employers are more likely to trust a site like this vs a new Santa Cruz only job board. For Lookout, this is a natural evolution of their platform. Local jobs make sense.
