Choosing a Niche Job Board – The Optical Illusion!
By Steve Crosbie of SupplyChainRecruit.com
With thousands of job boards out there, and new sites launching everyday, it has become very difficult for advertisers to pick out top performers job boards from the rest. Rather than consolidate as happened with the large generalist boards, the niche market has exploded, fuelled by low cost websites and pay per click advertising.
The potential advertiser is now bombarded with opportunities to place their ads on a variety of niche job boards, or generalist job boards dressed up as niche job boards. This might initially appear to be a good thing, and it may be helpful from a price point of view (as there is always somebody selling cheaper), but it is causing both confusion and disappointment to advertisers who fail to achieve the results that they were promised, or anticipated.
In any niche job board sector you will generally find one dominant market leader, who more often than not will also be the original entry into that particular niche sector, accompanied by lots of “hopefuls”. The “hopefuls” will make themselves appear as established and high performing market participants with the use of “Pay per Click” advertising and listing lots of jobs and banners, most of which may have been placed there for free in order to make the job board look busy. Search engines like Google and MSN etc have created tools (Pay Per Click) that enable any business to appear as the most prominent market player at or near the top of the search results, when in fact they may have just started in business that very day, week, or month. When the ad fails to live up to expectation the advertiser will assume that they were let-down by “internet advertising” as a whole, rather than the particular job board that they worked with. The niche sector is being damaged by the over ambitious claims of job board market hopefuls who take the clients money but do not deliver.
There are a few simple rules that should help to ensure that you are working with a genuine market leader in the niche job board sector that interests you, and thereby maximise the opportunity for success.
1. There is nothing wrong with appearing in the Pay Per Click sponsored listing at the top of the search engines, but only work with job boards that also appear in the first page of the natural listings. On Google these are the listings below the first two or three bold listings at the top. Natural listings are indicative of a high quality job board that receives a high volume of click throughs from candidates searching on the terms used. You can’t fake it! Research shows nearly 90% of candidates searching for jobs on the internet do not follow the sponsored Pay Per Click search listings, they are advertisement averse, preferring to select from the natural listings. So if the job board that you choose is not in the natural listings they are probably a lower performer in terms of delivering applications to your advertisement.
2. Ask any job board that you are considering how long they have been established advertising online. You may be able to check their information on the Companies House website by doing a quick check on the legal (limited) company name, or by looking the domain name up on the “Who Is” register. The niche job board market is now very mature and if the prospect has not been around for at least three years then think about looking elsewhere. There will be an established successful job board in the sector.
3. Check that the job board is happy to show full contact details and application links on the job ads. If you are paying for advertising then you want to be sure that you maximise the number of applications. Many candidates will not post their details on websites so if you use a job board that does not list full contact and application details on every job then you are unlikely to be receiving all possible applications. Job boards that force candidates to register in order to apply are putting their own interests before those of the advertiser. In the generalist sector the largest player Monster learnt this lesson and offers to display full contact details on all job ads.
4. Find out who really owns the job board. Many recruitment companies have launched job sites as it provides an opportunity for cheaper advertising for their own recruitment business, and it builds a useful database of CV’s. Always ask if the job board has any connection with a recruitment business, and if it has, look elsewhere. Top performing job boards are just that, Job Boards, they do not have any conflict of interests, their only objective is to maximise the advertisers satisfaction. Such connected job boards will generally deny the link initially, because they know that it is a negative, and it will probably be hidden through ownership by a separate limited company. Such is the seriousness of this problem that some online job board listing portals have now forced recruitment company connected job boards to declare such interests or have their listings removed.
It’s a mine field out their – Good Luck.
Steve Crosbie is Managing Director of purchasing, logistics, and supply chain job board SupplyChainRecruit.com . Established in 2001, SupplyChainRecruit.com is the UK and European leader in online purchasing and supply chain job advertising.
www.supplychainrecruit.com
supply chain jobs, purchasing jobs, procurement jobs, buying jobs, buyer jobs, warehouse jobs, distribution jobs, logistics jobs supply chain recruitment, purchasing recruitment, procurement recruitment, buyer recruitment, warehouse recruitment, dustribution recruitment, logistics recruitment purchasing, supply chain, supply chain management, logistics, warehouse, warehousing, inventory, distribution, buyer, buying
http://www.supplychainrecruit.com/
http://www.jobs4purchasing.com/
http://www.jobs4logistics.com/
http://www.jobs4warehousing.com/
http://www.jobs4supplychain.com/
and
http://www.supplychainagenda.com/
