Here are some job boards in the news along with some commentary by yours truly…

* FlexJobs buys T-Jobs (read article): I have admired FlexJobs for a long time, its a great niche and the founder Sarah Fell has done a great job marketing in this sought after niche. Flexjobs is one of the few job sites that get seekers to pay to acces jobs.

* Bright.com launched this week as another “matching” site for job seekers (read article). They join a long list of startups who have attempted matching seekers to jobs but this is a feature that has not taken off. Sadly, i dont think it ever will. To me, job matching algorithms just aren’t necessary to find a job online. All you have to do is enter the right keyword and press submit. People think that an “eHarmony for jobs” is a natural business but dont be fooled. Although job hunting is like dating, its too human a process to codify.

* Congrats to SimplyHired who recently crossed the 30 million users per month mark (read PR). All job boards who use aggregators should root for SH since Indeed is getting all too powerful. They need a strong challenger to offset their pervasive presence. (just like the web needs Bing to keep Google in check)

* Branchout flameout: looks like the facebook app that wants to be ‘linkedin on FB’ is experiencing dramatic declines (read article). This app had a lot of hype in the beginning but seemed to mainly annoy users who were forced to promote it to their friends feed in order to sign up. While that worked for a short time it just didnt have the staying power. Plus the fact that most people dont use facebook to job hunt.

If you run a job board or plan on starting one here some things you should or shouldn’t be doing.

• Dont get caught up in video resumes…up to now they have been just a fad. Recruiters are skittish about them for fear of discrimination and they dont really have the time to watch them. Its much easier to flip through a resume.
• Create products and services that save EMPLOYERS time in recruiting. Time is most valuable to them.
• Start blogging. Get some career coaches to write career advice articles in exchange for letting them promote themselves. Its an easy way to get free content. Content equals free search engine traffic.
• Help employers write better job ads. Get in the habit of checking what people are posting on your site and offer them suggestions to improve. Better job ads equal better candidates.
• Want more sales? increase your lead generation efforts…email/fax/direct mail…leave no stone unturned.

I sold my local job board network last week. Thus ends my involvement in the local space. In this video I explain some ways to ensure your job board(s) are attractive to another buyer. (my new project)

The answer is pretty simple, people are aggressively looking for a part time job.

According to Google they search for that term more than 2 million times each month.

And there really isnt a good site to search for just part-time gigs. Yes there is Snagajob, but they really only cater to big brands. I think there is room for a second player in this space.

Thus far I am seeing some decent “long tail” traffic to my site so I am optimistic it can gain traction. I built it off Jobamatic so it costs me nothing to run it. That means I can keep it going for a long time which will pay off in the long run.

http://www.parttimehires.com/

Ok so I had a long weekend away where I wasnt thinking much about job boards. Sitting here this morning I am wondering whats on your mind that I can answer about starting/building a job board.

Contact me with a query and I’ll answer with a blog post.

I was recently contacted by RealMatch a provider of job board software with matching capabilities. They are looking for niche sites to power with their technology. I asked them to explain what they offer:

What is the setup process like? There is minimal work needed on the end of our partners. In the example I gave you for each section you see i.e. search, Featured Jobs etc. we provide a few lines of code that they insert on to their pages. We also have the ability to host sites when needed.

As for the technology, yes that is all ours. They chose to keep their site very clean and simple. We do our best to work within the look and feel of each partners site and/or vision. The taxonomy you see, matching etc. is all part of our platform. Some partners put 100% of their ads onto the network to ensure a great response and to drive as much traffic as possible back to their site. Because remember we invest in SEO/SEM campaigns for each individual posting. This is a key ingredient in our Network Distribution and the reason we are able to drive so much traffic to our partners sites.

How can job boards make money? Job Boards have multiple ways to make additional revenue. We have a Pay For Performance Model or a more traditional Pay For Posting Model. Some sites may choose to offer the Total Talent Reach (TTR) posting as an upgrade. Others build the cost into their price and include it on every posting. We require that partners charge a minimum of $99 for each TTR posting. This revenue is shared by the network and allows our affiliates to see significant revenue through candidate monetization. We also receive a small portion of that $99 in which we fund the SEO/SEM campaigns. Clients can charge whatever they’d like for the postings. Everything above the $99 is theirs to keep.

Lastly we have an Affiliate Development team which works closely with the partners though our onboarding process and beyond. We provide marketing material and leads for our partners. We check in frequently to ensure the sales staff is comfortable with the features and benefits of TTR. Remember our goal is to build the brand and market share for each of our partners. Because we don’t charge licensing fees or set up fees our success lies in their hands. There is no risk to the sites that join the network.

You can also visit our site: http://www.realmatch.com/en/solutions_job_boards

Is their a setup fee? No

Is there a site live now where I can see the tech in action? Owhjobs.com is a recent relaunch utilizing all “widgets”…

I was reminded recently of the importance of trademarking. A friend of mine launched a new business last year only to have a large company send him a cease and desist because part of his company’s name matched theirs and both companies played in the same industry (food). So he had to change the name and begin the re-branding process all over again.

The issue of trademarks also came up during my negotiations to sell my local job sites. Its important for prospective buyers to know that the site/domain they are buying wont infringe on another company’s name. So do yourself a favor and trademark your job board.

I searched the government database for trademarks and found over 1,200 names with the word ‘jobs’ in it. It was interesting to scroll through the list. I found a lot of familiar names and plenty more you’ve never heard of.

To get a trademark there is a great service called Trademarkia.com you can use.

Every job board should constantly be seeking backlinks. The best sources for them come from job related blogs, college career services pages and of course, other job boards.

But there is such a thing as bad backlinks. A new article on Search Engine Watch offers some good guidelines on how Google’s recent algorithm changes see these links and tell you which to avoid. Read it.

* If the majority of a website’s backlinks are low quality or spammy looking (e.g., sponsored links, links in the footers, links from directories, links from link exchange pages, links from low quality blog networks).

* If majority of a website’s backlinks are from unrelated websites.

* If too many links are pointing back to a website with exact match keywords in the anchor texts

Well, finally some good news on the job board front.

6FigureJobs, the first ever $100k job board has been acquired by California based Callidus Software for an unknown sum. According to my sources, 6FigureJobs was in decline but still has a huge database of candidates that seems to be very valuable to Callidus. Read the press release about the acquisition.

RealMatch is hiring and moving to NYC. An article in Crains says that the company is moving to new offices in the Financial District, has 25 employees and plans to hire 10 more this year.

I think you can go in two directions with job boards today. It really depends what your end goal is.

Do you want to build a business? or is your goal just to monetize the domain name?

1. Build a ‘business’ based around community and jobs. (that’s what Rigzone did)

Obviously this takes the most time & resources…requires long term time horizon.

or

2. Go with a simple monetization strategy.

Build a straight job board on the domain and focus on postings, resumes, ads and backfill revenue. Put effort into SEO and let them collect data and revenue.

Both options take time but #1 has the most potential value. A vibrant community with jobs is usually more valuable than just a job site.

Just a few words of wisdom for your monday morning…