Job advertising is a component of talent acquisition that has always and will always be necessary, but until recent years, it required little upkeep. The mid-2000s proved a tough job market for candidates and easy recruitment for talent acquisition teams.
Today, the job advertising vertical is one of the largest in terms of market size (consolidated revenue of all companies) and in terms of the number of players. This broad area is broken up into three segments: Job Boards, Job Board Aggregators and Job Marketing and Distribution, all of which are seeing an increasing number of users every year.
Job Boards
There are a large number of job boards in business, with varying levels of scale and success. Oftentimes, an entering job board player will identify a market niche or segment (e.g., tech talent in Untapt) and focus on building a talent pool in that category to gain scale and relevance. Most job boards offer job seeker solutions for free to attract candidates to their respective platforms, likely why they are the most used search channel for job seekers today.
The current trend of crossing over social network recruitment with job board recruitment is stirring things up in this area of talent acquisition. As a result, job board companies are stepping up their game and putting a greater focus on the candidate experience. Innovative companies leveraging mobile functionality are reinventing the job board model by introducing gamified elements and features of successful mobile apps (e.g., swipe right for “yes”) to improve the candidate experience. Big data continues to be a competitive differentiator for companies that can successfully leverage it to offer more personalized, data-driven solutions to individual and recruiter customers. Many of the job boards are moving to a pay per click model following Indeed’s success.
Job Board Contenders:
- Monster
- Untapt
- Careerleaf
- Dice
- Workpop
- Careerbuilder
- The Ladders
Job Board Aggregators
Job Board Aggregators provide solutions to both individuals and employers. These companies aggregate job listings from job boards, niche job sites and directly from employers. Similar to job boards, employers are able to pay to post jobs through these aggregators or to search through candidate databases.
These companies run into the same issues as traditional job boards with social recruitment. For that reason, many job board aggregators are enhancing the customer experience with candidate-focused features. For example, many companies are ramping up advanced search functionality and customizing email alerts for users.
Job Aggregator Contenders:
- Indeed
- Simply Hired
- Jobrapido
- Jobs2Careers
Job Marketing and Distribution
This segment is employer-focused and is generally meant for companies doing a significant volume of hiring, including job boards and staffing firms. These companies offer a plethora of features that help larger companies streamline their talent acquisition efforts to optimize the promotion and distribution of their jobs.
What makes these companies unique is their data-driven approach to job advertising. For example, users:
- can source candidates who rank high on predetermined matching criteria.
- have access to reporting tools and analytics to allow recruiters to track performance leveraging real-time data.
- have access to predictive analytics / benchmarking software to identify the attributes of company’s top performing employees in order to hire more employees who share these winning attributes.
Job Marketing and Distribution Contenders:
- ZipRecruiter
- ClearFit
- Smashfly
- Clinch
- Seedjobs
As companies continue integrating social platforms with job ads and job boards, the competition for finding the best possible talent is becoming far more complex. Sticking to one method isn’t going to get you the results your competition found. Keep up by using this three prong approach to talent.
This article originally featured on Recruiter.com.
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