Job aggregators are starting to take over the online job board world, but that may not be the great thing that everyone thinks it is. According to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, New York State uses a job aggregator for its free job board service and a good number of them are dead jobs. That means they are jobs that have already been filled, or job listings that employers leave up to keep a steady flow of resumes from candidates they will probably never hire.
The story about the New York State job site has many aggregators wondering how to get rid of dead end jobs on their sites to avoid being obsolete. The biggest problem with a job board that has a lot of dead jobs is it gets a reputation for not being efficient, and that means less traffic to generate revenue. There are steps you can take to prevent dead jobs on your job board, and you should look into as many ways as possible to keep your board relevant.
RELATED: Eeek! 4 Ways to Avoid Turning Into a Zombie Job Board
Try Expiration Dates
You may have to experiment with this one a bit, but job ad expiration dates can help prevent those perpetual ads that take in resumes without resulting in interviews for candidates. While companies that want to run perpetual ads could just keep reposting them, the likelihood that they would do so would be small. In the meantime, you would need to experiment to see what types of expiration dates work for your clients and consider offering a range of ad durations.
Limit The Kind Of Information Employers Can Ask For
Sometimes, customers posing as employers are actually scammers looking for information to use to steal some identities. According to the DailyKos.com, online scammers that post fake job ads that are actually dead job postings ask for information that no employer needs during the recruiting process. You can weed out these scammers by not allowing ads that ask for information such as the applicant’s social security number and their annual income. If you post the fact that unnecessary information will not be collected on your site, then you can prevent those dead job posts in the first place.
Curate Your Content
Curating content on an aggregator job board can be almost impossible, but there are ways you can prevent dead ads from even appearing on your board in the first place. When your aggregator software searches for new job listings, tell it to reject any listings that are more than three months old. This will prevent those perpetual dead job ads from getting posted, and it will also make sure that you do not post ads that employers simply forgot to take down when the job was filled.
Dead ends on your job board can ruin your board’s reputation and prevent candidates and employers from investing time and money into your business. While moderating a job board built by an aggregator can be difficult, it would be worth your time to make sure that you improve the overall quality of your listings and prevent dead ends from bringing down your board.
What are some additional issues job boards need to tackle that are affecting their reputation? Should job boards places issues such as job relevancy and search efficiency at the top of their to-do list?
George N Root III is a professional freelance writer who has expertise in topics such as Internet marketing, business, advertising, and personal finance.