What Job Seekers Want From Job Boards
ningcontentThere are approximately 50,000 job boards in the United States and about the same elsewhere in the world. Many are essentially cookie cutter boards with little to no traffic and little to no unique job posting or article content. But all serve employers and job seekers and to survive and thrive all must therefore listen to those visitors to understand what features, functionality and services they like best on today’s job boards.
Fortunately, the industry has the International Association of Employment Web Sites to help us out with keeping up-to-date on issues like this. The executive director, Peter Weddle, conducted a survey between April, 2007 and April, 2008 and generated over 15,700 responses. The results were:
- 19.4% The caliber of the job postings on a site;
- 19.1% The number of job postings on a site;
- 16.7% Ease of access to employment opportunities on the site;
- 16.2% The job search tools and information provided on a site;
- 16.1% The fact that access to employment opportunities is free; and
- 12.5% The ability to network with others on the site.
According to Peter, “these data suggest some strengths and at least one area of vulnerability for job boards. Our strengths, of course, are that we are seen as the go-to destination for large numbers of high quality employment opportunities. Almost four-out-of-ten of the respondents like either the quantity or quality of the jobs we post. And over half like the quantity, quality or convenience of our employment opportunities. In other words, people on the Web truly do see employment Web-sites as ‘the sources of success.'”
But just as we have strengths so do we have vulnerabilities. “Respondents seem not to associate our sites strongly with networking. Hence, we run the risk of losing market share if job seekers and career activists begin to associate other sites with this rapidly growing phenomenon. While much of the attention, to date, has been on social networking, interest is also growing rapidly in professional networking. As that practice gains ground–which it will undoubtedly do in today’s sagging economy–we must make sure that our sites are the go-to destination for it, as well.”
CollegeRecruiter.com is in the final stages of a complete re-build. When we re-launch in the near future, you’ll hardly recognize our look-and-feel. Just about the only feature that will look the same will be our logo. The rest of the site, from our home page to every interior page, will be MUCH cleaner and designed to optimize the user experience. We’ll still have a wealth of quality job, article, video, and other such content. But we recognize that the vast majority of job seekers come to job boards to find jobs so we’ve placed the job posting content front and center. We’re excited. We hope that you will be as well.
