You are likely already familiar with common revenue stream models for career sites. Their revenue usually comes from:
- Job Postings – Selling digital job advertisements on their board.
- Candidate Database – Monetizing the job board’s database of registered job seekers by providing employers and recruiters access to resumes/profiles and search for passive candidates.
- Advertising – Selling visual space on a website has been the go-to way to make money on the Internet since its early days, and it’s still a source revenue for sites with good levels of traffic and advertising that properly targets its audience.
Job boards must juggle two types of customers—the job seeker, and the employer. Each has different needs, and job boards can provide them different services.
JOB SEEKERS:
- Resume Writing – Help job seekers re-write their resumes and online profiles to best reflect their skills, experience, and goals.
- Career Coaching – A lot of job seekers don’t really know what they’re looking for, or they’re going about it the wrong way. Help them to clarify their goals, plan out steps to achieve them, and use the tools your job board offers them.
- Personal Career Concierge – Be an advocate for the job seeker and recruit their next employer! Select and research employers and open positions for your job seeker, and help them through the process of getting in touch, getting the interview, and getting hired! In the recruitment industry, this is sometimes referred to as “Candidate Marketing”, and usually deals with top-tier candidates looking to get to the next level in their career. In employment services, this role is sometimes called a “Job Developer”.
- 3rd Party Referrals – You might know of other businesses, like resume writers, career coaches, etc, who will pay you for customer referrals from your job board. Set up a partnership with them for mutual benefit.
EMPLOYERS:
- Featured Jobs – Provide more visibility for job posts by featuring them prominently on your board’s home page.
- Featured Employers – Create an upsell product for employers. Have a prominent homepage section that lists featured employers and links to their profile and/or open job listings.
- Job Post Writing – Help employers write the best advertisement possible to attract the most appropriate candidates. Sometimes hiring managers can get bogged down in focusing on what they need, and forget to think about what candidates want. You can put your expertise to work by helping them craft the right post for the job, and help employers market themselves to the right people.
- Recruiting Services – Work with an employer to evaluate and short-list their job applicants, find and connect with passive candidates, and help them make their hire.
- Network Posting – If you run more than one job board, or participate in a network of boards, selling posting access to other sites as an add-on to a job post can help employers gain more exposure for their jobs.
There are more options out there, but these are a few to get your thought-process going when it comes to diversifying how you serve your job seekers and employers.
Whatever your revenue model works out to be, concentrate on answering these two questions:
- What are the problems of employers and job seekers?
- How can I help solve those problems?
Concentrate on what problems you can solve, and strive to make it easy and effective for everyone involved. Job search, recruiting, and hiring can be complicated and costly. The money that your customers spend should help make those processes smoother and more enjoyable. Your job board revenue streams should align with those needs as much as possible.