Can you build a job board from scratch?
Yes.
Should you build a job board from scratch?
Uh, probably not.
There are many job board owners out there capable of building their own job board from scratch, but sometimes it’s not the best decision for their business. But job boards are awesome and deceptively complicated.
Established job boards have many advantages in the marketplace – a solid brand, a customer base, job seekers, and insight into their niche about the problems that need solving and what does – and doesn’t – sell. With all that going for them, it’s easy to understand why job board owners who have been around for a number of years might be apprehensive about updating their job board solution. If it ain’t broke, don’t fit it, right?
The trouble is that many older job boards have custom-built solutions that have begun to visibly age or are no longer meeting the expectations of job seekers and employers. And even though they might see their profits shrinking as they struggle to keep up with shifting expectations and changing technology, it can be difficult to make a big change when you’ve become accustomed to your current solution or business model. Reasons for updating your job board tech may vary, but regardless of what you do want to change, you really don’t want to risk losing what is working for you.
So how can job board owners reduce the risk involved in making a big change to their technology? I’ve outlined four steps below that can help you prepare and plan for updating or switching your job board solution.
You’ve likely already heard the news that job aggregator Simply Hired is shutting down on June 26th. A letter was sent to their customers and publishing partners, informing them of the shutdown.
The Simply Hired shutdown will impact those whose job sites are hosted by Simply Hired, and anyone using Simply Hired’s job widgets, API, and data feeds. Simply Hired staff also “face an uncertain future”, and many assume they will be laid off. It has since been reported through “a trusted source” that Recruit (Indeed’s parent company) has acquired Simply Hired.
Customer Relationship Management. Two years ago I’d never heard of CRMs and today I don’t know how any business operates without one.
A CRM tool, system, or software, is one that manages customer contacts and their information, like a phone book or a rolodex (yeah, yeah, even a Millennial like me knows what those are–I saw them on Mad Men). Usually they come with other features to help you organize and funnel those contacts, track them over time, and keep notes.
Some CRMs combine themselves with marketing, analytics, and VOIP/telephony tools, so that you can tie all your outreach and communications with clients together under one metaphorical roof.
Recruiters use CRMs, too, but in this industry they usually take the form of the ATS, or applicant tracking system, with which so many have a love/hate relationship. And as with a CRM, the ATS often comes with features that elevate it beyond a digital phone book with notes. I’ve sometimes seen ATSs referred to as “recruitment CRMs”, which just confirms their similarity of concept.
If you’re a job board or a recruitment company, you potentially have two or three use-cases for CRMs and their equivalents.
No corporation seems to be safe these days. Target, Home Depot, Sony, and most, recently Ashley Madison are just some of the billion-dollar brands that have suffered lapses in digital information security. Literally, just a couple days ago, we received a phone call from a job board owner who had been victim of a data breach.
The Careerleaf team is currently prepping to launch exciting new software in the coming months. In this effort, our updated FAQ features a question about approach to data security. However, given the level of attention currently being devoted to the topic (Ashley Madison specifically), we felt it prudent to delve deeper with an entire blog post.
If you’ve taken data security for granted, this blog post is dedicated to you! Ask yourself, when was the last time you considered:
Super-obvious, statement-of-fact, spoiler-alert for off-the-grid lifestylers: mobile devices are the most popular way users access the Internet, growing almost 400% over the last four years.
While riding the city bus, I noticed just how many of the passengers were using a device to send a message, play a game, watch a video, etc. Seeing someone using a smartphone is something I take for granted, but once I took a moment to focus on what my fellow passengers were doing, I experienced a split second of amazement – these mobile devices are everywhere!
Given the mobile revolution, we are often asked, “Why don’t you offer a job board app”?
Who are you? What do you want? What are you looking for?
No, I’m not trying to send you into an existential tailspin, I just want to understand the business problems that your technology needs to solve.
In recent years, we’ve seen a lot of overlap and blurring of lines between what had previously been distinct needs, functions, and uses. Terms like “recruitment”, “applicant tracking” and “job board” are now—sometimes confusingly—used interchangeably. There’s good reason for this, however, what with all the blurring and overlapping going on. But their nuanced differences can still be very important, and can affect the core of what your organization’s business and technology needs are or may become.
So let’s first separate these out, and see where that blurring and overlapping is happening!
The most important thing about a job board is that it introduces candidates to employers, and vice versa. If that function is not working, then you do not have a job board.
The basics of how this process works usually goes something like this:
This blog post is the fourth in a series that will examine the pros and cons of different methods of creating and running a job board as the focus or part of a business. There are many reasons for creating a job board–it can be the centre of your business, a way to pipeline talent for your recruitment firm or staffing agency, or a way to help monetize your already traffic-heavy news/media website. This is the fourth installment of our series, and covers the ins-and-outs of installing software to run your job board’s technology. Also see: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.
You’ve ruled out building your job board entirely from scratch, you want something more powerful than WordPress themes and plugins, and you don’t want to outsource a custom build. So how is that job board of yours getting built? (Or re-built, as the case may be.)
There are a lot of choices in Job Board Software out there, and although there are many ways one could categorize them, one very practical way to sort them out is those that are hosted or SaaS (Software-as-a-Service, like Careerleaf), and those that require the software to be installed and/or self-hosted.
So, what does installed job board software mean?
This blog post is the third in a series that will examine the pros and cons of different methods of creating and running a job board as the focus or part of a business. There are many reasons for creating a job board–it can be the centre of your business, a way to pipeline talent for your recruitment firm or staffing agency, or a way to help monetizeyour already traffic-heavy news/media website. This is the third installment of ourseries, and covers the ins-and-outs of outsourcing the work of building your job board. Also see: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.
We’ve already covered what it takes to build a snowman job board from scratch as a Do-It-Yourself project, and what’s involved with building a job board entirely with WordPress.
Now let’s say you want the final product to be similar–something customized, something where you get the final say in every detail–but you either can’t or don’t want to do the building of it first-hand. So, you want to explore the option of paying someone else to do that work for you.
If you just need someone to build a WordPress job board for you, you’re looking at hiring a web designer on a short freelance contact. As discussed, the barriers-to-entry of creating a WordPress job board is comparatively low, but at the same time, hiring a designer who knows WordPress well can be money well-spent if that kind of work is not your personal forté.
If, however, you’re looking to create something more ambitious as far as the design and technology of your job board goes, outsourcing the development will become more involved. So what are the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing the building of your job board?