Job Site Products and Services

This article aims to give an introduction to the more popular vacancy advertising products offered by job sites. We also outline some non-vacancy advertising products and services.

Vacancy Advertising

Job Listings

Job Listings are the basic job site advertising product. Job Listings usually consists of a text description which allows you to detail your vacancy. Job Listings typically run on a job site from one week to 60 days (and sometimes more.) For all intents and purposes, Job Listings are like classified ads in a newspaper.
Jobs-by-email
Most job sites include a jobs-by-email service as part of their basic Job Listing product. Every day candidates are sent a list of new jobs to their personal inboxes. Candidates have usually specified what jobs they want to receive and, if your vacancy matches their requirements, it will be on the list of jobs. In general, Job Listings are emailed to candidates only once during the advertising period.
Pricing
Most job sites charge a standard one-off fee per Job Listing. For example, a site could charge €250 for a four-week job listing. Other job sites use an “advertising week” or “advertising slot” pricing structure. In this case, you purchase advertising time. For example, for €250 you get a four-week “advertising slot.” You can use this slot to advertise one job for four weeks, two jobs for two weeks each, or four jobs for one week each.

Job Listing Enhancements

Branded Job Listing
Branded Job Listings are similar to standard Job Listings except that they also include some kind of graphic (usually your company logo.) Nowadays, most job sites offer the Branded Job Listing as the basic vacancy advertising product for employers.

Display or Semi-Display Job Ads
Display or Semi-Display ads are more “graphical” than both the standard and Branded Job Listing. Display or Semi-Display ads include the standard text description but in a more designed or formatted layout that can be tailored to match your corporate brand. For all intents and purposes, Display or Semi-Display ads are like display ads in newspapers.

Targeted Emails
Many job sites offer you the opportunity to sponsor their daily candidate email. Options can include putting your job or message at the top of the email to all candidates or only putting it on the email of specifically targeted candidates. Alternatively, some job sites allow you to send your job ad on its own to only certain specified candidates.
Premium Positioning and Keyword Sponsorship
When a candidate searches for a job on the job site, the job site returns a list of matches. With some job sites, you can pay to have your job appear in a premium top of the list position in that list. Other sites allow you to sponsor certain popular search terms. Every time that keyword is used by a job seeker, your job appears in a premium position or top of the list position in the search results.

Branding Options

Banners
Banners are animated graphical advertising that appear at the top of a web page (top banners), the side of the page (side banners or buttons) or on the home page (home page buttons.) They can be run-of-site banners (banners that are shown randomly throughout a job site) or keyword-related banners (banners that only appear when a user searches for particular jobs, locations or industry sectors.) When a user clicks on your banner, they are usually taken to your job listing.
Employer Profile Pages
Also called Corporate Profile Pages or Brochure Pages, these are effectively a careers mini website on the job site. They often act as an “About us” page on the job board where you can talk about your company etc. Candidates can usually search your live vacancies from this page.

Other job site Products and Services

CV Databases

Many job sites allow candidates to create CV profiles or online CVs and upload these to the job site database. For a fee, you can view these CVs and contact the candidates for interview. This service is particularly popular amongst recruitment consultancies.
CV Database Monitoring
Some sites allow you to set up alerts to notify you when particular candidates upload their CV or CV profiles to the job site. For example, if you were looking for a Web designer with Ajax skills, when a candidate who had Ajax skills added his or her profile to the site you would get an email notification.

Candidate Management Tools

Whether as part of the standard job advertising product or as an additional service, many job sites provide employers with an online candidate or applicant management tool. Typically this involves having an online account from where you can manage all of your jobs and candidates. For example, you can see how many applicants have applied for your job, you can view these applicants' CVs, make notes, score and rank candidates and, with some more advanced systems, you can send standard replies to candidates.

Filtering and Screening Tools

Many sites allow you to screen or filter candidates to avoid having to deal with unsuitable applications. For example, you may want to establish the visa status of candidates. As the candidates applies for your position, he or she will be asked questions about their visa status. They can be rejected or simply tagged. In some more advanced systems, you can score your applicants based on how they answer your questions and some systems allow you to conduct aptitude and psychometric tests.

This is not an exhaustive list of job site vacancy advertising products and services. There are many more. It is a competitive market and job sites are always coming up with new advertisng options, so it's worth talking to them to find out what's available.

Article updated: July 2007

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