Boost Your Job Board - Employers and agencies (Page 2 of 4 ) Be Cost-Effective There are many ways in which an agency or employer can advertise a vacancy. In trying to attract business, your job board is competing not just with other online recruitment services but with a variety of other forms of advertising, such as the press and radio. Online recruitment has many advantages over these traditional media, but potential advertisers are unlikely to use your services unless the basic price of advertising is competitive.
Fortunately, the costs of offering recruitment services online are low enough that competing on price shouldn’t be difficult. It's often possible to offer rates up to 80% lower than are typical for traditional advertising. As a job board administrator, you should make it your business to research what both your traditional and online competitors are charging and ensure that your own rates are set appropriately. Don’t price yourself out of the market.
Offer incentives One of the best ways to encourage repeat advertising is to offer discounts on packages. These discounts often take the form of flat fees for unlimited advertising within a given time period. Bundles, usually of a certain number of advertisements for a fixed price, can also be effective. These measures tend to be most attractive to agencies and large employers who typically generate high volumes of vacancies. For smaller employers, you could consider offering a free advertisement for every two or three placed, or offer free extra services such as CV searching.
A pay-for-performance approach is an interesting but little-used pricing model that can pay dividends. A commonly-heard complaint from recruitment professionals is that pay-per-post pricing is not cost effective. Many would prefer to pay for an advertisement only when it succeeds in locating a suitable candidate. This approach overturns traditional pricing structures, but if your site prioritizes high-caliber candidates and quality service, then there’s no reason why it can’t be equally effective in revenue terms.
Be relevant However competitive your prices are, employers and agencies are unlikely to return to your site unless you can offer them relevant returns for their investments. The best way to achieve this is to endeavor to ensure that job seekers respond to relevant ads that suit their capabilities and requirements. A steady stream of suitable candidates is the best possible recommendation for your services.
In order to achieve this holy grail, the primary focus of your site should be firmly on directing job seekers towards the positions of most direct relevance to them. This can be accomplished by careful and accurate matching between candidates and positions, based on gathering as much information as possible about the candidate. As a rule, candidates will not object to providing extensive and detailed data about themselves as long as they are confident that it will significantly improve their chances of locating the right opportunities, resulting in a positive circle in which everyone benefits.
Your services should be constructed with this requirement at the forefront. One of the most common complaints about online recruitment services is the arbitrary matching of candidates to jobs. Don’t fall into this trap.
Offer bonus services The role of a job board can be extended beyond simply listing job ads and matching candidates to vacancies. One of the most useful bonus services you can offer is CV hosting, which offers candidates the opportunity to upload their CVs for searching by prospective employers. To make such a service effective, online CVs should be constructed in such a way as to emphasize the key skills and experience of candidates, while making it easy for employers to search and locate the information they require. Once employers and agencies learn that you enable them to locate strong candidates for their vacancies regularly without having to advertise, they will return to use your services again and again.
Another bonus service worth considering is providing agencies with lists of relevant candidates, unsolicited. This will obviously need the consent of your job seeker clients, but as usual this is likely to be forthcoming if it genuinely enhances their job prospects.
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