Job Board ROI

March 17, 2010

A great blog post by whatjobsite has us talking about the survival of job boards at born today.

There’s little doubt that the days of Launch (site), Load (up on users) and Laugh (as you sell for millions) are over for job boards; new sites have to have a solid offering (usually niche) and be ready for the long term. There’ll be some quick winners, but these are likely to be the boards with innovating technology.

Given the figures quoted in whatjobsite’s post (up to £40 to attract a registered candidate), it’s hard to see how new job boards can make a solid profit nowadays. What’s more, in the heyday of job board acquisitions the average ‘cost per unique users’ was as little as £27 (and it’s likely to be far less now), so making money out of ’selling the job board’ seems less feasible.

However, there are some positive options for new job site launches. If the job site is attached to a web presence that already has traffic (say a membership based site or technical forum), there is an opportunity to use a job board to get extra benefit from existing traffic.

We’ve noticed more and more specialist IT sites doing this (take 37Signals for example), the site already exists and a job board pop-ups as another navigation tab. Using this approach the expense of running the job board are often absorbed into the company’s existing infrastructure, reducing overhead and overall costs.

The case for launching a new job board may be difficult, but the case for launching a job board as an extension to an existing site is still very much worth arguing. Worth millions - no, but a worthwhile extra revenue stream none-the-less.

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© Photographer:Craig Mckay | Agency: Dreamstime.com

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1 Comment »

1. I think you have hit the nail on the head. The key for new launches is to have a ready audience which allows immediate monetization. In many ways, we could be back to where this whole online recruitment revolution started: niche press/trade/journal but now in an online incarnation.

   This is not the end of the job board story. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning of the job board story.

   Comment by whatjobsite — March 17, 2010 @ 11:16 pm

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