1,200 recruitment job boards and counting Whatjobsite.com has established that there are now more than 1,200 job boards, job sites and recruitment websites in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Our findings were the result of a study into the UK and Ireland online recruitment advertising markets conducted during the month of November 2007. Our study aimed to replicate the experience of non-expert recruiters looking to advertise vacancies. We covered a wide range job functions, industries and locations. Job boards were researched using popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. as well as directory sites (including whatjobsite.com). We did not include employer websites, recruitment consultancy websites or job boards carrying jobs from only one client.

Clearly, 1,200 job boards, job sites and online recruitment websites offers a significant challenge for recruiters. However, it is our view that while competition is welcome in any area of business, the proliferation of job boards offers little real benefit to the recruiter.

 

Why are there so many job boards

The profusion of job boards is indeed remarkable. Since January 2007, for example, whatjobsite has tracked an average of one new job board launch per week. As we indicated above, while real competition is welcome in any sector, there is little evidence to suggest that the increasing number of new job boards offers recruiters any real recruitment advantage. This then begs the question: why are there so many job boards?

 

Low cost of entry

The recruitment industry is one in which traditionally there is constant churn in both businesses and staff. The online recruitment industry is no different. With the expectation of high profits or purchase by a larger competitor, many many job board employees have gone on to found their own job boards. What facilitates this is the low cost of entry into the job board market. A job board can be built on a shoe string allowing a single owner operator to be up in business in no time and at virtually no cost.

 

Knowing your niche

In the main, new job boards tend to be launched in niche or specialist recruitment areas. While some new niche sites have opened up previously unserved recruitment areas, most new niche job boards are simply 'me too' boards, duplicating already well-served sectors.

From a practical operational point of view, launching a niche site in a familiar sector allows a small lean operator to build a brand and business much more quickly than if they launched in a horizontal market. And, again, it's much cheaper for the job board operator.

 

SEO Job Boards

One of the most common reasons for the profusion of recruitment websites is that many are marketing exercises in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the practice whereby job boards adapt their websites in order to appear high in the search engine results and attract more candidates and recruiters. In our research for this study, for example, we identified one job board that had 150 sub job boards.

SEO Job Boards are effectively duplicate job boards or branded sub-domains of larger job boards with their job inventory derived exclusively from the larger parent site. For example, xyzjobs.com is a job board advertising jobs across many sectors. However, xyzjobs.com also operates marketeers-jobs.co.uk, directmarketeers-jobs.co.uk, digitalmarketeers-jobs.co.uk, ITmarketeers-jobs.co.uk, retailmarketeers-jobs.co.uk... and so on. Each of these sites publishes selected job roles from the parent xyzjobs.com. The objective of these sub websites is to gain competitive advantage in the search engines: ITmarketeers-jobs.co.uk can be made to appear high in search engine results for the term "IT marketeer" much more easily than xyzjobs.com.

 

Zombie Job Boards

Another reason for the number of job boards is the presence of 'Zombie Job Boards.' Zombie Job Boards are job boards that are, effectively, dormant or dying job boards. Often they are job boards that were launched by operators looking for quick returns. But job board success is a long and hard won activity — and increasingly expensive.

Zombie job boards maintain the appearance of being real live job boards by appearing carrying real live jobs. Maintaining this appearance is thanks largely to Job Posting Services. Job Posting Services are services which allow recruiters (especially recruitment agencies) to post their jobs to multiple job boards at once. In this way, the Zombie Job Boards gets lots of jobs on their site (usually advertised for free) and thus have the appearance of being a real job board. In reality, it is an illusion. If it weren't for the free advertising, these job boards would have no jobs at all.

 

Challenges for the recruiter

Obviously, 1,200 job boards, job sites and online recruitment websites offers a significant challenge for recruiters. How are they to choose from amongst them? Unlike job boards on whatjobsite.com — which are required to meet certain criteria of quality before being included in our search results — search engines and other job board directory websites do not offer any guarantee of quality.

Again, the Zombie job boards make matters more complicated and frustrating. How many Zombie job boards must a recruiter wade through before they find a real live and living job board?

As for niche sites — and SEO Job Board niches in particular — they offer their own worrying problems. It is common for niche and specialist job boards to charge more for job posting than generalist sites. Niche job boards can often justify this price by claiming a better and more targeted audience. The rights and wrongs of this is not within the remit of this study. However, we would question job board operators that charge a higher price for the niche 'SEO Job Board' compared to its parent site. The issue here is that if a recruiter advertised the job on the parent site they would pay one price whereas if they approached the niche site they could be charged a higher "niche" price — in spite of the fact that the job ad will be advertised in exactly the same way on both sites.

 

Caveat emptor

While recruitment consultants, advertising agencies and large corporates have all invested time and money in researching job sites to find out which ones work, most non-expert recruiters simply do not have the resources to do such research. While Google & Yahoo and other search engines are excellent tools for job board research, the position of a job board in the search results does not indicate the quality of a job board as a recruitment resource. One of the best ways of establishing the quality of a job board is to contact it directly and find out about it. Don't rely on search engines or job board directories — unless, of course, the latter is whatjobsite.com.

Published December 2007

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