As an employer, choosing the right job board for your vacancy is crucial to the success of your online recruitment campaign. If your job advert is on the wrong job board, you could be wasting valuable time & money. This blog provides you with the key questions you need to ask when choosing a job board.
General vs Specific Job Board
There are two different types of job board – general and specific. A generalist job board will cover many sectors and provide a wide range of jobseekers. A specific job board like jobs.ac.uk target a specific audience and industry, in this case Higher Education.
It is important to advertise on a job site whose target audience and sector aligns with your company or institution. It is not worthwhile advertising on a site specific to a sector if your company is not in that sector as the job will be advertised to inappropriate jobseekers and you will either not get applicants or get unsuitable ones.
Generalist job board will have a broad range of jobseekers, this is great if your job is not industry specific, there is no job board catering just to your sector or the job could be an opportunity for someone to break into your industry.
A specific job board will have a more limited audience compared to a general job board, but there are many benefits to advertising on a specific job board; attract jobseekers with particular skills or background, receive relevant applications, and reduced competition.
Demographic
Some job boards utilise surveys to determine who is on their site – their qualifications, location, and job seeking preferences.
Researching the demographics will help you to determine how suitable the site is for advertising your vacancies and if you will reach the target audience you want.
Similar Vacancies?
If the job board doesn’t carry jobs like yours then it will not attract people looking for jobs like yours. Look to see who advertises on the site. Are any of them your competitors?
Searching similar jobs can also give you an idea on how to structure or write your advert, see our guide on how to write an effective advert for more tips.
Cost
Consider the cost of advertising a job, comparing to similar job boards. Is it more or less expensive? Do they offer additional services or a high level of support from management? Beware of jobs boards which offer free advertising which offer little back in terms of audience size or quality assurance.
Additional Services
Look out for button advertising, email alerts, recruitment microsites and employer profiles; all which can help to increase your chances of online recruitment success.
jobs.ac.uk have all these services as well as social media support at no extra cost, publishing your job on our social media channels as well as opportunities to get involved in our social media projects which boost your employer brand.
We also host webinars for both jobseekers and clients, driving traffic to the site and in turn your job.
Every year we hold a conference for recruiters and HR employees from our client universities and institutions, bringing together top minds in Higher Education and industry providing you with informative seminars designed to improve your recruitment experience.
Account Management
Many job boards offer the option to post a job yourself, but this isn’t always the best option if you have never done it before. Most recruiters aren’t experts in online recruitment or choosing the right keywords/categories to make their adverts work on a jobs board. Therefore, an Account Manager can be a great source of advice and assistance to ensure your recruitment campaign is categorised correctly and is successful.
Job Board Assessment Checklist
- How many jobs are on the site?
- How many jobs are similar to the one you are recruiting?
- For senior or specialist roles, what jobseeker targeting options are available?
- How long can your advert be displayed for?
- How many competitors use the site? (Identify similar roles, compare pay etc)
- How large is the jobseeker audience? Unique users? Jobs by email subscribers?
- How qualified is the jobseeker audience?
- Where are the jobseekers located?
- How does the site attract jobseekers?
- When searching for the job title on search engines, does the website show on page one of the listings?
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