Job board technology is evolving just like every other type of technology. As users on both the employers’ side and the job seekers’ side become more sophisticated, job board technology improves to serve them better.
Rather than simply working as a search engine for jobs, today’s job boards use sophisticated algorithms to match up employers and job seekers around the clock, and allow potential job candidates to pursue jobs on the fly using their mobile devices. As they have become more sophisticated and useful, job boards have drawn in more of the coveted ”passive job seekers,” those who are employed, but open to great opportunities.
If you have added a custom job board to your trade publication website or your digital publication to enhance revenue and audience development, you may be looking for ways to make your job board do more for you. One of the best ways is to create a thriving online community around your job board. Such a community can be a valuable addition to your website.
Why Create a Community Around Your Site’s Job Board?
Sure, a frequently-updated job board is itself a draw, but alone it may only draw those who are actively looking for a job. However, when you build a community around your job board, you make the most of job board technology by bringing people back repeatedly, including passive job seekers who want to keep a finger on the pulse of their profession and occasionally scout around for opportunities.
SEE ALSO: 3 Ways to Use Job Boards for Audience Development
Your goal should be engaging candidates on an ongoing basis rather than only when they’re actively looking for a job. By making your job board the hub of an online community, you can do that, making your job board and your site as a whole more successful.
What Should Your Job Board Community Contain?
There’s no set, prescribed way to create a community around your job board, so you have the opportunity to be creative. In addition to your job board, you might include the following:
- Industry news (if you run a trade or profession website)
- Forums, chat rooms, or other ways for job seekers to interact with each other
- A blog focused on employment
- Resources for job seekers, like resume how-tos, training, and articles on marketing oneself
- Resources for employers like company profiles, email newsletters, and sponsorship information
- Events like webinars and offline career fairs and seminars
Benefits of Turning Your Job Board into a Community
With an engaged online community centered on your job board, you not only make your job board more popular with both job seekers and employers, you give people many more reasons to return to your site, even if they’re not actively looking for a job. When you offer resources for job seekers, like tutorials on resume preparation or preparing for an interview, you can ”hook” that person who’s thinking about looking for a new opportunity.
By keeping up a steady flow of employment or industry news related to your site (either local job news for online newspapers, or profession and trade news for trade publication sites), you bring readers back repeatedly and offer more chances for them to interact. This interaction helps you understand your audience better so you can serve their needs better and make your site more valuable to advertisers and sponsors.
Job board technology is good for much more than notifying job seekers about new opportunities. It can be the foundation for an active online community that improves your site traffic, helps you with audience engagement, and makes your job board more desirable for both employers and job seekers. At RealMatch, we offer recruitment advertising solutions for digital publications and media companies that can help you with revenue development and give you the technological foundation you need for a thriving job hub on your website.
Photo Credits: adamr / freedigitalphotos.net, stockimages / freedigitalphotos.net
