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CareerXroads is out with their annual sources of hire study. Job boards represent 20% of all hires last year.

Once again we see the value job boards provide. Hoo-waa!

Check out their slideshare about the study.

Last week I got an invite from Joe Stubblebine, co-founder and CEO of Jobcircle to come down for a visit and check out their operations. Jobcircle started back in 1998 just a year before I launched my first job board so we have a lot of common history. Their major market is the mid-atlantic region around Philly, MD, NJ, Del while my AllCountyJobs sweet spot is the Northeast/New England areas. So although we do overlap in certain territories like NY we are friendly competitors.

I’ve known Joe for many years having first met him at one of the recruiting conferences. He is the one who gave me the nickname “mad scientist of online recruiting“. But it turns out he is a bit of a mad scientist also. Like me he has created new stuff like Jobnet (which he raised VC money for) and he even codes. While I was there he dove into his homepage code to make a few changes. Like any good job board CEO he wears multiple hats.

Chris Russell with JobCircle's CEO, Joe Stubblebine

Jobcircle’s offices sit just inside an alley in the main part of West Chester, PA. Its a college town with a cool vibe and lots of old buildings from the 1800s. In addition to Joe, there’s a small team of sales, customer service, and tech staff that backs him up.

Jobcircle has a pricing model that few in the industry can match. The majority of their sales come from subscriptions both quarterly and yearly. They get to do that because they are such an established player in the market with a large candidate database at their disposal. I think Joe said something around 1.4 million candidates if I remember correctly.

They have a lot of cool products too. A few years ago they launched “audio resumes” which to my knowledge no job board has ever done. And they have some cool add on services like RezRocket, their own resume blast service. They also offer employers something called VoiceBlast, a service I was highly jealous of. Voiceblast sends out 30 second audio messages to pre-selected candidates in an area code. For instance if you were looking to promote a career fair for nurses in the Philly region you can use voiceblast to automatically call candidates within a certain mileage limit of your target location. Its pretty cool.

So for those of you looking for additional ways to monetize your job seekers and employer clients, take a page from the folks at JobCircle.com.

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Glassdoor is now letting its users connect with social networks like facebook. ERE has a writeup on it. They join a growing number of businesses trying to open up your job search in order to uncover connections at companies you may want to work for such as Branchout, Beknown, Jibe, Gethired, etc.

SimplyHired has been providing integration with Linkedin for many years so all these site have got me thinking about the future. It appears the trend is moving towards uncovering connections…whether most job seekers care about this is still up in the air.

I think it is a good trend for the overall job market. But in my experience I have found most job seekers are embarrassed about telling the world they are looking for a new job. No doubt some of them are too shy about approaching strangers, even if they have some kind of connection. So I wonder what the true value is for seeing people on facebook who work at a certain company. If I dont know them, it wont help much.

There will always be aggressive, more savvy seekers who will love these new features so it makes sense to add them to your job board. Even if the majority of them wont really use it.

So its a good bet to add these features. At least you’ll be prepared for the future.

PS….If I were a job board software company I’d also be thinking of ways to tap facebook/twitter/linkedin for those job seekers. Better get on it folks!

I keep a close eye on the online recruiting space. There are obvious ways to do that such as google alerts for “new job boards“, but here is a list of sites that I visit each week to make sure I’m on top of this ever changing industry.

1. JobBoarders (I founded this site in 2007)
2. Recruitingblogs.com
3. Recruiter.com
4. ERE.net
5. IAEWS (employmentwebsites.org)
6. AimGroup.com (Classified Intelligence)
7. Onrec.com
8. Recruitingtrends.com
9. TLNT.com
10. Interbiznet
11. HRexaminer
12. Jobboarddoctor
13. TalentHQ.com

And of course you should read JobBoardSecrets.com!

Did I miss anything? leave a comment and let me know…(I do long for the days when cheezhead.com ruled the industry!)

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I stumbled across worktree.com the other day. Its one of the original job board directories that actually charges users. I remember seeing this site over 10 years ago. Its a remarkable feat that they are still in business. They must have a nice revenue stream of paying users to still be around.

Anyway you can submit your site to be included on their directory here.

http://worktree.com/Jobsite/JobSiteSubmission.cfm

GOOGLE+

With Google now making Google+ profiles into regular web results its probably a good idea to setup a page for your job board. You can do it here.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/pages/create

Keep an eye on this. One day these profile pages might be the top result in a search.

Here’s a page I found for PTjobs.com

After 13 years in the job board business, I think its time I explore selling AllCountyJobs.com LLC. Here’s a link to the Sell Sheet for interested buyers with some of the basic details.

UPDATE: my video interview with Online Recruiting News

I started my first job board in 1999 and haven’t looked back since. During that span, I have created dozens of sites. Some failed, some made it big. It’s been an awesome ride to say the least. I work from home, have no employees and I’ve probably built the most efficient job board operation in history.

But I’m bored.

I’ve gotten ACJ to a point where its pretty much all automated. The sites run themselves thanks to the various technologies I’ve plugged into them. I can run the business with only a few hours of human input per day. So lately I’ve been dreaming of other things I could do in the online recruiting space.

Make no mistake, I am NOT giving up on job boards. On the contrary. I still believe greatly in the niche and local sites that provide tremendous value everyday to employers. (And if I do sell I’ll probably buy more of them)… It’s just…I’ve been there done that…if you know what I mean. Its too much of a routine for me and I’m looking for a bigger player who wants to add a nice cash cow.

What excites me these days is the mobile recruiting space. I have tons of ideas for job search and recruiting apps that will help connect job seekers and employers. I’ve built a few already like JobSpeek and the Hidden Jobs app. But I need the capital to build such a business. Thus, I want to sell.

However I want prospective buyers to know that is is no firesale. AllCountyJobs.com is growing at 20% per year since the job market lows of 2009. And I expect 2012 to bring much of the same. Last year I expanded into new markets and put a great deal of sweat equity into building the brand name through PR, getting backlinks, writing articles, etc.

13 year old job board businesses like this don’t come along very often. Especially ones with thousands of backlinks, a cadre of loyal customers and a six figure revenue stream built by one man. I expect to get a fair value for it, given the fact its become an annuity at this point.

All this makes me think now is the time to sell. The growth is there. Plus the job market is coming back which makes me more confident in their future. The timing seems right.

So if your company want to add to its jobs portfolio or you’re just someone with a big check who wants to get into the job board game, read the Sell Sheet and give me a call.

(serious inquiries only please)

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