Job board advertising for employers Job board advertising offers employers one of the most cost effective ways to recruit. Compared with recruitment agencies that can charge up to 20% of first year salary, and newspapers ads that can run to many thousands of pounds and Euros, job board advertising costs a fraction of this.

But the price you pay for job board advertising doesn't change what you are trying to do. You are recruiting. You are trying to find the best person for your company. To do that you have to run the best recruitment campaign you can. Many employers make the mistake of thinking that because job board advertising is cheap, they can be casual about it.

The cost of the job board doesn't change what you are doing. Recruiting the best person means putting in the effort. Thankfully, it's not rocket science. There are a number of things that you can do to ensure that you find the right person for your vacancy.

1: Know what job you are filling.

You'd be amazed how many employers begin recruiting without really knowing what job they are trying to fill. An account manager in one company can be very different to an account manager in another. What you want your office manager to do could be utterly different to what another company expects.

The easiest way to be clear about what you want your new employee to do is to sit down and write a job specification. Writing a job specification will help you define the tasks, duties and responsibilities of the job. Writing a job specification will help you decide what skills and qualifications are absolutely necessary to do the job and those that, while not necessary, you'd like your new employee to have. Writing a job specification will also help you get a feel for the kind of person you are looking for. You want to find someone who'll "fit" in your company. Read our article 'First things first: write a job spec' for more details. Or download our handy 'Job Specification Template.'

2: Choose the best job board.

Well, this is what whatjobsite aims to help you with. You can use our search engine to find job boards. But you may find job boards in other ways. You may have used one before, or someone may have recommended one. Whatever way you go about finding job boards, be sure that you are using the best one for your vacancy.

This means finding the job board with the best audience for your vacancy. And this involves a little bit of work. For example, you really have to talk to a job board to find about the people using it. And you'll have to talk to a few to get an idea of comparison. It's not a lot of work, but it's worth doing if you want to fill that job. Read our article 'How to choose a job board' for more details.

3: Writing a job ad.

The purpose of job board advertising is to fill your vacancy. But to do this you have to ensure that job seekers find your job and that they apply for it. How you write your job ad can determine success. You'll need to think about keywords and key phrases so that job seekers actually find it. And you'll need to think about what you write to make the best people want apply for it. Writing job ads for job boards is not hard, it's just a little different. But again, recruiting the best for your company deserves a bit of effort. Read our article 'Writing job ads for job sites' more details.

Of course, once your job is being advertised, do check that it is working. If it isn't, talk you your job board and ask for help. They should have some ideas. And, most important of all, be sure to respond to candidates promptly. It'd be shame to go through all this effort and then blow it by not responding to applicants.

Article Updated November 2007

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