Nowadays, very few people move from office to office depositing their resumes. The possibility of looking for jobs online has made this process seamless and less time-consuming. Indeed alone has over 200 million resumes. This means that it is very profitable to create a job board website that helps employers fill vacant positions.
So, learning how to create an online job board (and monetize it) can be an excellent online business opportunity. That is why this article will walk you through the process of setting up a job board website.
What Is a Job Board Website?
A job search website is an online platform that helps people to find employment opportunities.
With the help of job search websites, employees can create and share their resumes and search for vacancies, while employers can post job offerings and look for suitable candidates.
The first job search websites started to appear in the mid-1990s. During the dot-com boom a few years later, hundreds of websites started on the global market, and online job searching became very popular.
During the next 20 years, the world experienced huge growth in job search engines:
- The Monster Board (1994)
- CareerBuilder (1994)
- HotJobs (1996)
- Applicant Tracking Systems (1998)
- LinkedIn, The Ladders (2003)
- FlexJobs (2007)
- Glassdoor (2008)
Today, job search websites are the most popular tools to use while looking for a job. As we already mentioned, up to 70% of job seekers choose this option when they are searching for career opportunities.
Top 3 Job Board Websites
How to create a job board website? Before starting to create a job board from scratch, it’s worth checking out who your key competitors are.
Glassdoor
This is a platform that allows employees to leave reviews about the companies they worked for.
The Glassdoor website also provides its customers with the ability to search for job opportunities and post resumes/CVs. Moreover, the platform allows customers to submit and compare salaries anonymously. The popularity of this site has only been rising. In May 2022, close to 665.2 million unique global visitors had visited Indeed.com, up from 514.9 million visitors in December 2021.
Worldwide visits to Indeed from December 2021 to May 2022
LinkedIn is a service that focuses on employment and professional networking.
The service helps companies to post job offerings and search for qualified candidates, while regular customers can use their accounts to post their resumes/CVs and connect with employers. Its traffic has significantly increased over the years. In 2019, LinkedIn sessions increased 25 percent year-over-year, with 358 billion feed updates viewed.
LinkedIn Homepage
Indeed
Indeed Homepage
If you are thinking of how to create a job board website and its core features, we advise you to take a closer look at Indeed.
Indeed is a job-seeking website that gives employees free access to search for
- jobs
- post resumes/CVs
- companies and job opportunities
To make search results more relevant Indeed scrapes vacancies from company career pages. Additionally, employers can post job offerings directly on the Indeed platform. That is why the traffic to their site is ever-growing. In May 2022, close to 665.2 million unique global visitors had visited Indeed.com, up from 514.9 million visitors in December 2021.
9 Core Features Of a Job Board Website
Every website has its purpose and a job board is no different. For the platform to serve its purpose, it needs to have some core features that engage the users.
In the case of a job board, there are two types of users – job seekers and employers. So, let’s look at their features individually.
Applicants need features that will help them easily find the position that matches their resume:
Registration
Sign in/Sign up feature allows the customers of the job searching platform to register and log into the service.
As a standard, users are asked to specify their names, locations, emails, and passwords. It is also better to include social login options so that users can enter the website using their social network accounts such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.
Sign-In Feature
Personal Profiles
The personal profiles of a job search website contain all the tools and information one may need to start searching for a job.
Such websites as Glassdoor provide personal profiles of their customers with job filters and recommendations, and opportunities to
- explore salaries
- follow companies
- read featured articles
- obtain other valuable information
Employers, in turn, can use their profiles to share information about their companies and job offerings.
Personal Profile
Resume Creation
The users are asked to fill in a questionnaire about the work they do, their education, skills, previous experience, desired salary, location, and certifications.
Build a Resume Feature
File Uploader
An opportunity to upload a resume file comes in handy in those cases when the customers already have a ready-made resume. In that case, users can just upload the document without spending additional time filling in the questionnaire to build their resume. We implemented a similar feature in one of our projects – Foody. Here, users can upload pictures and videos of their food preparation process.
Upload Resume Feature
Bookmarking
The bookmarking feature can be helpful when job seekers like a vacancy, but due to lack of time or hesitation can’t apply right at that moment. With bookmarking, people can save their favorite job posts to check them out later.
Bookmarking Feature
Job Search
Using a job search website, both job seekers and employers should be able to look for suitable job options and candidates. At this point, the website should contain a search feature with such filters as
- job title
- salary
- company size
- ability to work remotely
Search Feature
Notifications
Notifications are needed to inform the users about any job search platform updates. For example, it is possible to share news, inform about job searching statistics, or remind the customers to apply for jobs or complete their resumes.
Notifications Feature
Job Listing
It should be easy for employers to post vacancies on the job board. There should be options to add all the necessary information about the vacancy.
Applicant Search
Employers should be able to search for applicants based on different criteria such as industry, position, level, type of employment, experience, location, etc.
Tips On How To Create a Job Board Website
Creating a job board website is not all about the software development process. It is also important to ensure that it is successful and profitable. To do this, you should use the following tips:
Choose Your Niche
There are lots of job search websites on the market, which makes competition very tough. However, while most of the services offer wider job searching opportunities, a startup can choose a specific niche in which there are no direct competitors.
You can choose a narrow niche to get more of your customers like Gary’s Job Board did. They created a board for truck drivers. Or Creativepool, who built a platform for creative specialists.
Determine Your Target Audience
Once the niche is determined, it’s time to focus on the target audience study. For example, if you’re building a job search website for students, you can think about the integration of features such as
- part-time job posting filters
- internship and study project promotions
It is important to understand what the product’s target audience needs the most: this will not only attract more loyal customers but may help to find more monetization opportunities or ideas on how to create a better UX and architecture that will be convenient for customers.
Discover Your Competitors
Before starting any development, it is crucial to determine the core competitors. The idea of a job-searching website isn’t new. There are lots of strong players on the market, but that doesn’t mean that your job search website cannot be successful.
Competitive research helps to determine the core MVP functionality and see the strengths and weaknesses of the main competitors, so it would be easier to create your unique value proposition to stand out from the competitors and attract more users.
Choose the Monetization Model
Don’t ever start without a monetization plan. It often happens that the idea itself may be good, but its further development shows that there are no opportunities to monetize it. Think about this first after the competitor research to be sure that a job-searching product will be profitable.
For example, there are ways to monetize a job search website including
- advertisement
- partnerships
- subscriptions
Follow Market Trends To Create a UVP
Watching the current market trends helps to create a job board website that is unique and in high demand. For example, in 2020, remote working became very popular due to lockdown. In the USA there are already 44% of employees who started working remotely during COVID-19 compared to 17% during pre-coronavirus times.
Such a trend may be an idea of a job-searching service that is only dedicated to remote jobs. Such approaches help to distinguish startups from the existing services due to their UVP – the unique value proposition – something unique that you can offer for your users that no competitor has. A UVP helps to expand the market of potential customers.
Challenges of Creating a Job Board Website
When starting a job board website, it’s important to make sure you’re ready to face some challenges. Among the most common ones are candidate mismatches and the reliability of job postings.
Candidate Mismatch
The matching algorithms of job-seeking websites help users to find their desired vacancies. The more keywords job seekers use in their resumes/CVs, the more chances they have to get onto a shortlist of companies that are searching for new teammates.
However, the problem is that lots of job seekers happen to be overqualified, or vice-versa, not skilled enough for a particular position. This causes mismatching.
Solution: Advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning can deliver more accurate search results for better matching.
For example, it is possible to use AI and ML to check not only keywords but social networking accounts to learn more about someone’s soft skills to find the results for the desired job.
Reliability Of Job Postings
When creating a job search website, it is crucial to block spam posts or remove outdated job offerings.
Solution: To avoid such problems, we suggest improving the moderation of your website, and always remembering to regulate the quality of job offering posts.
The spam issue appears when employers and companies get some personal information about job seekers. For example, by having email and phone numbers, companies can easily start spamming candidates – so make sure that the personal user information is well-protected.
Standing Out from the Crowd
The recruitment market is very competitive. That’s why it is important to be unique and stand out from your competitors. If not, your online job board will fall into the crowd and be labeled “just another recruitment agency”, with no real incentive for new clients or candidates to use you above others. So, how do you build and operate a job board that stands out?
Solution: Every business has subtle differences, including online job boards. Whether that be company culture, a unique workflow, niche market expertise, a focused location, or even specific job types, your job search website needs to emphasize those differences. Doing this will set you apart from others and ensure that you are more focused and therefore of a higher standard.
The Business Model Of a Job Searching Website
How to start a job board? Before creating a job search engine, learn more about the core competitors. Also, consider how this product should be monetized to bring revenue.
How do job boards make money? They use a working monetization model for their business. The core monetization options include fees, subscriptions, and premium features.
Listing Fees
A job listing fee is money that users pay to keep a job posting activity in the feed for a longer time.
This allows employers to have more visibility in the search results. For example, an employer who is paying the job listings fee can post job offerings that will be displayed on the website for a longer time.
Examples: Glassdoor, Indeed.
Resume Access Fees
Job searching websites that have already existing resume databases can offer paid access to them for companies that are looking for candidates.
However, this monetization model may be unsuitable for startups that have just started to grow. Nevertheless, it is always possible to include this monetization option in your future growth strategy.
Subscriptions
Monthly subscriptions allow customers to use several features to the fullest. For example, a subscribed user can post several job offerings for free.
If one wants to post multiple job offerings at a time, it is possible to purchase a monthly subscription that offers this option.
Examples: LinkedIn, Glassdoor.
This monetization model allows job search websites to earn money by offering some additional features for a fee.
For example, it is possible to offer the customers to use the service for free, but some features, like
- job offering advertisements (for employers)
- ability to hide CVs from the current employer (for employees)
These features may be offered for an additional fee.
Examples: Glassdoor.
Ways to Create a Job Board Website: SaaS vs Custom Development
While SaaS allows a job search website to be delivered more quickly, custom development provides more room for customization and scalability. Let’s dive into some details about each solution.
SaaS Solutions
SaaS solutions are a simple way to create a job search website. Such software providers offer ready-made solutions that allow building and maintaining a service for a fee.
However, a product created with SaaS will be difficult to customize, so such a solution may be great for those who need their idea to be implemented quickly. Let’s talk about the pros and cons of SaaS more precisely.
Core Benefits of SaaS Solutions
- It is easy to use. No technical knowledge or coding skills needed. The hosting and upgrades are included in the package.
- SaaS fees are cheaper than custom development. However, usually such services have fewer options for customization and won’t allow building a website with complex functionality.
SaaS Pitfalls
- It is Impossible to customize. With an SaaS solution, it is only possible to use the ready-made templates. Forget about implementing your own features or changing the existing ones.
- Along with controlling maintenance and updates, the service provider also controls all rights.