Hey job boards, dont hide your pricing information! The owner of carjobsearch.com recently emailed me and when I went to his site I saw this;

I like how they put the phone number front and center. I hate all that white space wasted at the top. They should use it as a call to action for employers to post.

Now its a french site (for Quebec, CA) so perhaps the image on the right side says it but i dont see any pricing info on the homepage. I think this is a mistake. I believe its important for a potential employer to get an idea of the cost of a job posting right up front. You just dont want to make them guess. You dont have to spell out your entire pricing packages but give them a look at what your basic job posting price is right on the homepage.

Taking this a step farther I clicked on the Post a Job link and saw this;

Never make your employers register in order to see pricing.

I hate it when job boards dont have a nice, easy to read job pricing page that lists all their packages in a handy layout. And even if its free to post you should say that in big letters;

“Post a Job for Free for 30 Days”

As for the design of the site, its just ok. I have seen worse but i have seen better. Their logo is kind of basic and could use some kind of automotive icon integrated into it. My other advice would be to make it a US & Canada site. The bigger the market, the more potential employers to market to.

Looking to make more revenue for your job board? Well ZipRecruiter, a company that has a job distribution network is looking to team up with job boards on a new hosted email job alert system. Basically they will take over your email alerts and help you monetize them. Here are the details;

ZipRecruiter Now Providing Hosted Job Alerts for Job Boards, Publishers, Niche Media, etc.

Email Job Alerts are driving growth for our partners in our ever evolving job board industry. ZipRecruiter has been perfecting the science of emailology and we are now offering our hosted solution to a few new partners. The beauty of this program is that better than being free – it makes you money. It’s like backfill for job alerts – but better!

The ZipRecruiter Job Alerts Program

• Completely hosted solution – we do everything
– Custom branded alerts sent to your Job Seekers
– CAN-SPAM compliance
– Advanced matching algorithm ensuring job seekers get the right jobs at the right time
– Mobile optimized – 48% of our job alerts are viewed on a mobile device!
– Emailology – we know the art and science of email – from subject line to content to delivery times. With constant A/B testing our yield has increased 30% in under a year.
– Massive supplemental job content which insures your valuable job seekers get the best jobs – even when you don’t have them on your site.
– Data integrity – TrustE certified – these are your emails, coming from you.
• Monetize something you already do
– Pulling from many sources and earning the highest rates, our supplemental job content earns you money – it’s like backfill for job alerts; but on steroids.
– Paid on CPC basis – you’ll likely earn between $5 and $10/thousand emails sent out.

There are some qualifications for participation (like quantity of Alerts you send, quality of traffic, etc.) If this sounds like a program you’d like to participate in, please get in touch sooner than later.

Ethan Bloomfield
SVP of Business Development
ethan@ziprecruiter.com
413-842-6165

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanbloomfield

This is just kind of a random post with a little of this and that.

* What hot in niche job boards? Trucking jobs. Yeah thats right. Companies cant hire truckers fast enough to ship our stuff across the country. So naturally, niche sites have popped up to serve this need. The latest is US CDL JOBS. (http://www.uscdljobs.com/). But do a search for trucking jobs and you’ll find a lot more of them.

* And speaking of niche…when you are thinking about creating a new niche board as a subset of an industry, be careful about not including the bigger sites as competitors. For example if you are creating a site for ‘mechanincal engineering’ jobs and there are only 1-2 sites that serve that niche you still have to compete with bigger sites like engineeringjobs.com.

* There is a fascinating story taking place about Craigslist postings and whether or not they constitute “public data”. A company called 3taps is being sued by CL (four indexing Craig’s data) and they just filed a countersuit against Craigslist. This is a story about jobs/rentals/car classifieds so pay close attention to what happens. I recommend watching the latest episode of TWIST to see the founder of 3taps explain it all.

3taps was running a site called Craiggers that is at heart of the lawsuit.

* Have you seen my “alternative job board“? Its a little project Ive been working on for a year. Coming out with a new version of the app for iOS next week.

* Check out Joel Cheesman’s post about Why the Indeed Deal is Bad for Monster…he says Recruit Co was thinking about buying Monster vs Indeed. Guess who won?

Location is always an important part of a job seekers search. I’m starting to see more job boards recognize this by adding maps to their sites to aid candidates. This “visual cue” is a great feature to have in a world which is becoming more visual.

Here’s a look at what Jobing does;

Google maps is a great place to start. Here’s a link to their API guidelines to get started.

NOTE: There is a sites called JobCompass.net which launched a few years ago based around the maps content.

In case you were out of the office yesterday, the online recruiting space got a huge jolt with the acquisition of the biggest job site in the world, Indeed.com. They announced the sale on their blog.

Terms of the sale weren’t announced but its a safe bet that it was around the billion dollar mark. I’m sure there are a lot of instant millionaires in Stamford and Austin right now. As a former client of Indeed, and one that was there in the beginning, I have watched them grow from a small start-up to the juggernaut they have become.

This acquisition is clearly about location, location, location. Indeed is strongest in North America. Recruit Co is strong in Asia. It gives both companies a foothold in each other’s markets.

Indeed is a giant sales machine which is mainly how they got here. They’ve got rows and rows of sales reps in their Stamford office doing nothing but cold calling employers, staffing firms and yes the occasional job board.

Job boards were their bread and butter in the early years but now they seem to be focusing exclusively on employers. Staffing firms and certain job boards just dont make the cut anymore. They want ‘original’ jobs that seekers cant find anywhere else. And now that Indeed has resumes, its ironic because they’re more like a job board than ever before.

But this is business and only the strong survive.

And speaking of survivors what does this mean for the #2 job search engine, SimplyHired? I have long thought that they would be a great pickup for Linkedin since they are both in silicon valley and both are all about the technology. Since there have been several big sales lately (SelectMinds, Kenexa, JobMagic, Indeed) there is definitely an appetite for recruitment technology. I expect to see more activity for the rest of the year.

Here’s a roundup of the articles about Indeed/Recruit Co;

http://www.sourcecon.com/news/2012/09/26/recruit-wants-to-be-a-global-recruitment-power/

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-indeed-recruit-20120925,0,4705954.story

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/japans-recruit-co-acquires-indeed-com-to-extend-jobs-reach-from-us-to-asia/

http://www.businessinsider.com/indeed-an-almost-entirely-bootstrapped-job-search-giant-gets-a-monster-exit-2012-9

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP11ef39899cd944d5993e3f33da795379.html

http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/25/recruit-co-buys-indeed/

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Local-job-search-website-Indeed-com-bought-by-3892808.php

There is no shortage of job site startups. Of that you can be assured. I recently discovered several that caught my eye.

GRADSPRING: hand picked jobs for college graduates that ONLY require 0-2 years of experience. Each job in their database is handpicked to assure this quality to help recent grads find the right gig. They got some press on huffpost.com. Whats more interesting is they are charging the job seekers a monthly subscription. If they can curate enough solid job leads for a user base it COULD get traction. But only time will tell if it catches on.

http://www.gradspring.com/

HIREDMYWAY: would you pay to get your resume seen by an employer? Well I wouldn’t but this startup thinks you will. Curiously I went to their website but they dont say how they actually guarantee this. It appears also to be some kind of marketplace for third party recruiters to also place talent. Venturebeat recently had a story on them.

http://hiredmyway.com/

JOBS FOR FRIENDS: this is a new social recruiting site out of Germany. The idea is to create a job, then invite coworkers and friends to share the job to their social networks. With all the social recruiting startups getting bought recently (see JobMagic, SelectMinds) they may have something here. Check out their story on TechCrunch.

http://www.jobs-for-friends.com/about-us

It remains to be seen if any of these guys will be around in a few years but I give them a lot of credit for coming up with interesting solutions to recruiters problems.

While at the Mobile Recruiting Camp event last week I ran into Alexey Gutin from Webscribble.com, the maker of Webjobs job board software. I asked him to give a quick interview about what they’re up to. In addition to job board software they provide employers software to power their career sites.

When sending out emails to prospective employers there is a trick to getting a better open rate.

Send it from a female name. In my experience it will get better open rates.

Even if you have to make up a name, it will do better than a mans name or ones like ‘sales@…’

I’m looking for developers to help me build out my new social recruiting platform CareerCloud.com

If you can code in ASP, PHP, JQUERY, OAUTH, search engine algorithms, API creation/integration I have multiple projects ready to be built.

Contact me today.

These are the 7 best (paid) ways to advertise your job board

NOTE: since the making of this screencast, Indeed and SimplyHired will no longer index you for free, you must have a minimum spend. 

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