What are the Pros and Cons of Job Boards?
Every recruiter has used job boards. So it makes sense that as a recruiter for your company, you would use them too, but what are the pros & cons of using them?
There is an advantage as well as a disadvantage for everything including job boards that come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and some don’t even call themselves “job board”. There are small, independent job board businesses, there are large-scale platforms that generate revenue through selling job posts in addition to other services (think Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, and LinkedIn), and there are the career pages of corporate websites and the job postings that tie into Applicant Tracking Systems(ATS) of recruitment company websites for their hiring purposes.
Recruiters, regardless of their own in-house tech, use job boards as a part of their recruitment marketing. Recruitment marketing, by the way, encompasses all that recruiters do to reach, attract, and engage with candidates. Read further to understand what are the advantages and disadvantages of using a job board.
The Pros
1. You can reach a large audience
Job Boards attract thousands of candidates every month, so advertising your job online makes sense in many aspects. By taking the time to enter your criteria and job description on a job listing site, you are reaching a much broader spectrum of professionals and will find that more of your candidates match up to your high standards.
2. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
The World Wide Web is accessible 24/7, meaning you can search for potential employees anytime, anywhere, and candidates can apply anytime, anywhere.
3. Many generalist & specialist boards to choose from
Meaning you can advertise lower-level positions on the more generalist boards & more specialist roles on niche boards to ensure you get the right level of candidates you’re looking for.
4. Making life easier for potential employees
They can register with a job site & then make multiple applications without having to repeatedly upload the same information each time on multiple boards in just one click using specialized ATS.
5. Create an Online Employer Brand
Job posts and company profiles allow recruiters to showcase their brand as an employer, and provide more information to the job seeker. Job boards also provide candidate/resume search, also, letting recruiters discover and contact passive candidates that fit their job requirements which most of the time don’t happen. Some job boards also deliver tools for managing candidates and job applications.
6. Job Posts
Job boards serve multiple purposes for recruitment marketing. A popular use of job boards for recruiters is that they provide a platform for advertising jobs, where they will be seen by the candidates they are targeting. However, an ATS will frequently offer more to recruiters in the form of tools, talent, and advertising opportunities not just one but multiple job boards in a single click.
7. Simplify The Recruitment Process
Skilled entry-level employees do exist, but trying to discover them requires a lot of time and investment, which isn’t feasible. If you are hiring for multiple positions this problem can be worse.
The upgraded and specialized job board cuts down the number of unfit candidates who apply for the role and makes it easier to scan through CVs. By using an ATS which has pre-integrated into job-boards helps to shorten the recruitment process and you save yourself a lot of unnecessary work and manpower.
The Cons
1. Prepare yourself to receive a LOT of applications
As recruiters we see applications come in from candidates from all over the world, and while this can be useful it often means sifting through piles of CVs from people who don’t have the right to work in the country you’re recruiting in, making it a time-consuming exercise.
2. Unqualified candidates
Another issue can be the number of applicants that apply for positions for which they are not qualified. Some people treat the process as a numbers game and make as many applications as possible, which can be frustrating if you are already swamped with applications.
3. No guarantee you will find your ideal candidate
The downside of the global nature of the internet is that you may find lots of people that fit your skills requirements, but they don’t fit location-wise.
4. Missing out on passive candidates
Solely using job boards means you may miss out on people who are not actively applying for roles, people possibly perfect for your business but they are tantalizingly out of reach. Just because they are not applying doesn’t mean they are not open to the idea of moving for the right job.
How Job Boards Can Help Recruiters
Job boards can make it easier for the recruiter clients by offering different options for receiving and managing applications, such as connecting with an ATS, receiving applications by email, or distributing jobs to other boards, aggregators, and networks.
Some companies may not have a dedicated ATS or candidate management system, and may instead use a job board as their default recruiting platform. This becomes an opportunity for ATS vendors to do its best to help recruiters make the most out of their platform.
Why Job Boards won’t go out of fashion…for now
The death of the job board has been predicted for a long time now. Almost as soon as the old school classified adverts moved online, there were people who said it wouldn’t work. With each new technology leap, we were supposed to be abandoning the lowly job board.
If you believe the naysayers right now, I think we’re supposed to be submitting video resumes via blockchain… but we aren’t. The job board is still there, ever-present and doing what it’s always done, recruitment’s guilty secret — where people apply and get hired using job boards every day.
In short
There are other reasons why you should start paying more attention to the job board again by simply upgrading from the manual job posting to the automated job posting on multiple platforms. Amongst all the noise of terribly constructed inducements to apply, (lazily posted and out of date), there is hidden gold.
There are new generation ATS that provide a level-up to the old-fashioned job-board posts, where with a single click you can post on multiple job posting sites. As a recruiter in any company, there’s more to a job board than just posting jobs.
It is a place where you could examine your competitor’s salary and benefits offering, their tech stack, even get information about large new projects or changes in technical direction. The job board plus the integration with an ATS is that way.
