Hiring in 2021: Not All Job Boards are the Same
Why it’s important to compare job boards before investing in one for your hiring needs.
Those of us who live in the recruiting world are likely aware of the job board advertising war being waged right now. It seems like you can’t turn on the TV or radio without hearing an ad focused on finding either the perfect new job or the perfect applicant. Indeed is undoubtedly the 500-pound gorilla when it comes to advertising and volume of applicants. Zip Recruiter has traditionally focused advertising on employers, however, recently pivoted to attracting job seekers. Google doesn’t consider themselves a job board, but they play a huge role in job searches just by being Google. And lastly, Facebook is investing heavily in their job marketplace and is rumored to have advertising available by the end of 2021. Each job board has a distinct message and tactic, and as an agnostic third-party workflow management platform, we feel it’s important to help service contractors understand the landscape and compare job boards.
Indeed
Indeed is the main player in the job board world and acts accordingly. Their mission is very simple: They help people find jobs. Everything is built around the job seeker, and they have invested heavily in producing volume and making applying very easy. On the employer side, they integrate with most applicant tracking and HRIS systems, however, their strategy is designed to have employers work directly with their reps (and we encourage you to do so). Indeed is a must.
Zip Recruiter
Zip is more of an aggregator than a job board. Although they’re investing in traffic to their job board, they specialize in posting jobs to multiple sites and recruiting applicants to your job. Their recent advertising is subtly targeted at the job board leader: Other job boards give you a haystack, while Zip finds you the needle.
The job board on Facebook is buried in the marketplace portion of the app. If you’re reading this on your phone you probably just checked the Facebook app. It may be hard to find, but it’s grown to nearly 15% of our organic volume over the past year. With investment, we’re excited for Facebook jobs in the future.
Google doesn’t advertise job board plans, or much else for that matter. Those experienced in the Google marketing world know they change algorithms routinely and let the ‘market’ figure it out. Not much is different in the job search world. Over just the past few weeks, we noticed several changes in the advertising around jobs. Take our search for ‘Cleaning Jobs’ in Google:
Google now allows advertising above their ‘Jobs’ section. In fact, they now have two sections for advertising. The top ad section is for ’Google Guaranteed’ companies while the second section is traditional pay-per-click advertising. This may be an opportunity for you to use Google advertising to find employees.
What’s important as a recruiter is that you diversify your applicant search. We often find while one source may provide a ton of volume, the quality may be lower, or you may have the same repeat applicants. It’s important to compare job boards for your needs and expectations, and allocate your budget accordingly. Just like traditional advertising, it’s critical to be everywhere your job seekers are but to constantly evaluate your KPI’s to maximize the value for your job seeker advertising budget.