Are job boards dying…or evolving?
There are an endless number of articles predicting the imminent death of job boards. Yet this one caught my eye – it was thorough and it was re-Tweeted a number of times. (In the author’s defense, it was aimed at job seekers – and despite the provocative title, was fairly balanced. Nonetheless, CB took issue!)
But I (as you might guess) beg to differ. I think we’re asking the wrong question. The real question is: how will job boards adapt to a changing technical and employment environment?
First of all, job boards can’t assume that their mere existence guarantees their survival. Back in the day, almost anyone could launch a job board and make a few bucks. No more. User expectations on the part of both job seekers and employers are much higher – and that’s a good thing.
The article states that “job boards will be gone in 10 years or less.” If you read on, however, you’ll see a more accurate statement from Peter Weddle: “We are now coming to the end of the reign of first-generation job boards.” I’ll buy that!
So what will second-generation job boards look like? They’ll certainly keep the basic job posting and resume database features, of course. But they’ll include – and integrate – useful social features for job seekers such as forums or social networking, targeted and well-written career advice and tools, the ability to enhance resumes with work samples, videos, and other media, and better tools for refining job searches to produce meaningful results.
On the employer side, job boards 2.0 would provide ‘plug n play’ integration with major ATSs, better reporting, integration with company career sites, and better candidate matching tools.
Do these features sound, well, familiar? They should – many are already available. However, even a few minutes with most job boards will convince you that these features could be better implemented and less painful to use.
Are job boards the sole solution to an employer’s recruitment problems? No. Are they one of the solutions? Yes.
So let’s focus on the next generation of job boards and quit worrying about their imminent demise. Ok? Ok.
This post has 4 comments
August 11th, 2009
As the Co-Founder of JobShouts.com, a job board that is currently free to employers and job seekers that has been integrated with social media from day 1, I agree!
As a user of job boards for more than 15 years, the evolution necessary was evident to me. Frustrated by the lack of quality results and options (not to mention large expense) of the bigger job boards, I eventually quit using them – resorting to my Google-fu instead. That’s what lead me to the decision to do something new and truly useful.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out. JobShouts.com is gaining rapid national attention for its innovation. We’ve been featured in newspapers all over the country, countless blogs and on FOX news (nationally).
August 12th, 2009
No doubts, they are evolving.
August 16th, 2009
I may be biased here, but I’m going to go with “evolving.” Or at least the job boards that will make it are evolving. When the world was ruled by CB and Monster, those two behemoths basically represented the market. Now, perhaps because employers and job seekers are calling for them, or perhaps because it’s the best way to chip away at the big boards’ market share, job boards are getting more “niche” oriented. Dice is a good example of a vertical in the IT space, and more and more job boards in specific industries or geographic regions (or both) are, collectively, creating a sort of paradigm shift in the job board “space.”
December 18th, 2009
Hey, that’s wild that I never saw this response to my article until months later (nor did I know my article got significantly re-tweeted). I based my provocative headline on what recruiting experts said at conferences. Our QuintCareers annual reports are based on secondary research; they are a compilation and synthesis of reporting from other sources. In essence, I merely reported what others were saying about job boards. You make good points.
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