Managing a successful career site takes more than just job listings. You need to make sure people come back again and again.
“The career site must have a robust offering including information and tools that a user finds valuable throughout the various phases of his career–not just while actively searching for a job,” says Emily Chereck, product manager for BioSpace and ClinicaSpace, sister sites that offer job listings for clinical research and biotechnology professionals.
In addition, it’s essential to offer easy-to-use functionality and mobile friendliness, she says.
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We recently checked in with Emily to get her insight on running niche job sites.
Tell us about ClinicaSpace. What does the site offer?
ClinicaSpace provides clinical research jobs and industry news and information to a wide audience of life sciences professionals. Along with its sister site BioSpace.com, we serve as the leading resource for biotechnology careers, new and resources. For more than 25 years, BioSpace.com has helped accelerate recruitment, communication and discovery among business and scientific leaders within the life sciences.
Who should be using it?
Biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device and clinical research professionals can all benefit from the industry news and information found on the site as well as take advantage of the career network and resources.
What are some of the challenges of running a career network like yours?
The online space moves so quickly, it can be hard to prioritize and manage resources for improvements. It’s important to stay on top of industry trends to ensure we make progress that is relevant for our users–both job seekers and employers.
How is technology changing the way you operate career services?
Often times technological developments somewhat dictate how we reach candidates and how candidates interact with potential employers and colleagues. Mobile optimization is a huge push for us right now. The percentage of users accessing our sites from a mobile device has increased nearly 50 percent from a year ago.
How do you measure the success of the site?
Success is measured in many ways. We look at visits, but more importantly action and engagement. We want to make it as easy as possible for candidates to connect with potential employers and for employers to find the right, qualified candidate.
What advice do you have for niche professional sites like yours on trying to expand their audience?
Focus on core markets, whether that be geographic or industry concentration, then build off of that success for expansion into additional markets.
How important are the industry news and features to the success of your site? How do they help you grow traffic?
Industry news and information is extremely important to the success of our site as we can truly capture the passive job seeker as they are visiting our site or reading a newsletter we distribute. It helps us stay top of mind with industry professionals not necessarily actively looking for a job.
