When the bottom fell out of the global economy in 2008, the effects were felt in every business sector. Aside from the financial world, one of the hardest hit industries was the online recruiting industry. With very few jobs to advertise and a glut of people looking for jobs, job boards suddenly found themselves struggling to survive. As the world continues to climb out of the financial chaos, many top tier job boards are gaining momentum and picking up revenue. But the smaller boards are like zombies left over after an apocalypse. They are boards that are driving down prices within the industry and clinging to a life that could go on without substance forever.

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There are many owners of smaller job boards who are so wrapped up in surviving that they have no idea that their boards are actually zombies that are dragging the industry down. If your job board has not experienced an increase in employer revenue for years and is seeing 40 percent or more of its traffic from aggregators, then you have a zombie job board on your hands and you need to take the necessary steps to inject your board with the zombie antidote.

Monitor Your Aggregator Traffic

If you rely on job board aggregators for 40 percent or more of your traffic, then your site will go out of business if those aggregators stop operating. Aggregators come and go, but if you notice an unusually large amount of aggregator traffic coming to your site, then you need to take action immediately.

Find Your Niche

Thousands of job boards offer employers the opportunity to review resumes and set up recruiting campaigns. To rescue your zombie job board, you need to find a niche and become a valuable recruiting asset to your employers. If you cannot get your job board to stand apart from the rest, then you will remain in limbo forever.

Communicate With The People Who Use Your Service

How often do you survey your paying employers and your employment candidates? Do you know what the people who use your website like and do not like about the site? You need to set up ways of staying in constant contact with your audience and gather input that will help your board to become more valuable to everyone who uses it.

Offer More Services

If all you are offering is the ability for candidates to post resumes and search for jobs, then you are doing nothing more than what thousands of other sites are doing. If all you offer employers is the ability to post ads and browse resumes, then there is little reason to choose your job board from a host of others. Use the data you get from surveying your clients and start developing services that fit their needs. If you want your zombie board to snap out of it and become profitable, then you need to offer unique value to your clients.

In the wake of the catastrophe of 2008, the Internet has become flooded with zombie job boards. If your job board is just struggling to stay alive, or if you have not generated any real revenue in a long time, then you have a zombie on your hands. Start paying attention to what your customers want and need and you can turn your zombie board into a profit center once again.