Use a Niche Job Board and Cut Recruitment Time in Half
Employers who only post their openings to generalist job boards are missing out on a rich source of qualified candidates from hundreds of niche job boards. Indeed.com, ZipRecruiter, Monster, and other job board aggregators attract millions of job seekers each day, so it would seem to make sense to post openings there. But if that’s the extent of your recruiting campaign, you need to know why you should be posting to niche job boards, too.
Unlike generalist sites that have every kind of job, niche sites are specialists. They list jobs only in a specific field or industry or geography, or that target certain communities or societies. Instead of getting the 5 or 10 million visitors a day that Indeed gets, niche sites might get a few hundred to several thousand job seekers a month.
That’s a good thing, as it eliminates the curious and unqualified, but hopeful candidates and others attracted purely by the salary or the benefits. Even with sophisticated search tools, you can guess what the odds are that the candidate you want will find your job among the 2 or 3 or 4 million listings on a generalist job board.
5 Reasons to Use Niche Job Boards
If that’s not reason enough why you should be posting to niche job boards, here are five more:
Because of the specialization of niche job boards, you are much more likely to find just the candidates with the skills and experience you want than on a general job board. Candidates coming to a niche site are looking only for the kind of jobs the site offers.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, “Niche job boards are particularly useful for cutting through the clutter and finding talent for hard-to-fill roles, specialized positions, specific industries — or to tap into unique candidate audiences, such as military veterans.”
Niche job boards tend to attract only those candidates who are professionals in the field with the specialized skills and relevant background employers are seeking. They’re attracted by the type of work, and the career opportunity, and they tend to be more knowledgeable about companies and culture because of their networking than job seekers on generalist job boards.
The best niche boards offer far more than just a collection of job openings. Many, especially those of professional and trade associations, began as a source of news and information about their industry. They built a specialized community of engaged individuals committed to staying abreast of developments in their field and improving their skills and helping with career advancement. They may not be actively looking for a job but could be interested if the right opportunity were to come along.
Instead of being one employer and one job on a generalist site with over a million jobs and thousands of employers, a niche site gives your job far higher visibility. Since most niche sites sell listings on a duration basis (a week, a month, or longer), your job is going to show up in a search based on how well it fits, rather than how much you paid for a top position.
Just posting to a niche site sets you apart from your competitors and shows job seekers you know where the “real” talent goes. Many niche job boards also offer companies opportunities to reach out to their members directly, sponsor webinars and continuing learning credits, and post news of their organization.
According to a recent iHire study, overall job board usage is up. 58.9% of employers said they increased their reliance on job boards and online recruiting platforms in the past year. Further, 49.6% said they do most of their recruiting through job boards, and 23.4% said they do all their recruiting through job boards.
Just remember that niche job boards do not have the traffic of the major job sites, but they do offer better quality, particularly in specialized positions and industries. So, it is more about quality than quantity. The YM Careers Network has been built on partnership for over 20 years, creating niche job boards and opportunities for recruiting hard-to-fill roles.
