Online Job Board Business

I search for online jobs almost daily and one thing I noticed is the large number of job boards online. There are the usual recruitment sites and freelancing sites as well as boutique sites that offer specialised jobs like sites dedicated entirely to writing jobs. You can also offer this service in full or in part in your own website.

Just Who are Your Clients?

You mainly have two (2) sets of clients for your job board. The first one is the Employer. They are the individuals and companies who require a new employee and if you are lucky in your business would financially reward you for your participation in finding them one. The second one is the Job Applicant.

They are the one who needs the job being posted by the employer and again if you are lucky in your business they would financially reward you for finding them a job. Notice that I am directly saying you might not get financial rewards from these two sets of clients but may get your financial rewards from somewhere else. For example you can instead earn also from ads in your website.

The last and could be a major part of your income could be from revenues from support companies involved in the recruitment industries. These companies might be resume making companies, career coaching companies, recruitment companies and so on. You could earn from advertising for them, forming business partnerships with them and so on.

Do You Have the Time to Find Employers?

Obviously the big draw in this business would be jobs and who gives the jobs? The employers of course. So the first thing you need to assess is whether you have the resources and time to find employers. You do not need much resources. All you need is a website and you can start listing employers in your website.

Time would likely be your most problem. I am assuming you are a one person business and would have to do all the jobs in your business. The first thing you would have to do is build a list of websites from where you can get posted jobs. These jobs could be recruitment and freelancing websites as well as specialist job websites.

After you have made a list it is not just a matter of copying the advertised jobs from these websites to make your own list. If your website is a dedicated job board you should have no problem with this as this is your main intent in the first place. However if a job listing is not your main focus in your website your job hunting activities might suffer.

This would affect the integrity of your job list which also affects your website. So the first thing you need to establish is: “Do you have time to maintain your job list?”. Perhaps the best way to start if you are unsure is not make a job list but a website list. This website list should be a list of recruitment and freelancing websites and specialised job websites.

As you become more efficient your website list becomes better and slowly you can integrate actual job postings. Who knows maybe by this time you could already hire another person to do the job for you but this is still in the future. It is important that you make sure that you can still offer job board services even if a time comes when you have to do it all on your own.

Creating a Professional Job Board

Now that you have determined that you have the time and resources to maintain a job listing you could go all out and make a professional job board. If you are well versed with website softwares and programming languages you could create a professional job board site from scratch or use website plugins for less time and headache.

Many websites today are created and run with WordPress and this website software has numerous plugins which include job board plugins. This article would not delve into how to create a job board from Wordpress since the topic is very large and can be complicated. It enough to say that job board plugins of many kinds exist and you could select from anyone of them.

These Wordpress job board plugins can be as simple as basic job boards to sophisticated ones which has resume saving and viewing features among others. If you are not that technically familiar with Wordpress and its many plugins there are exhaustive references online and YouTube itself.

If your site is not made out of Wordpress or similar website softwares you can still create a professional job board. For example in the case of PHP, JavaScript and similar programming languages there are also prebuilt job board plugins being sold for them.

You can for example Google the search keywords “PHP job board plugin” or “JavaScript job board plugin” and a listing of online software markets would appear. Of course if you do not want to pay for prebuilt plugins you could do it yourself or hire a programmer to do it for you. YouTube programming tutorials are also a valuable resource.

You could also use the services of SAAS providers. For those who are unaware SAAS stands for “Software as a Service”. SAAS companies provide software services on a subscription basis. If you want more information about such software services you can for example Google the search keywords “SAAS job board”.

Could It Be Profitable?

We have gone a fairly long way in the article but I guess one important question needs to be answered. The question is: “Is an online job board profitable?” The short answer is “Yes”. For example the owner of the Australian job board Seek.com.au is a billionaire. So there is your specific example.

However let us look for a much smaller example. Perhaps you and many bloggers are aware of the ProBlogger website. The owner himself became a millionaire by offering services associated with blogging and writing as well as by owning other digital media businesses. But we are not here to talk about the owner of the website.

We are here to talk about the site’s job board. If you go to the site you would notice that there is not much jobs posted in the site’s job board. However the price of listing a job in the website is around $75. This means that if the website just gets 20 paying job posters per month the site would earn $1,500 every month.

This might not be a lot of money for many people in first world countries but for this amount of money people from developing countries can afford to live like kings. We should also note that if this site doubles its client to 40 a month this could easily be a regular source of monthly income for people even in first world countries.

However do not think that you can easily duplicate the earning potential of this site’s job board. The site has been around for such a long time that the site has a brand that is famous with bloggers. It is advised that you build a reputation first and strive for your site to become a hub for the subject you are concentrating on.

For example a website called Reedsy became a hub for book writing and charges above average even expensive fees for book creation services. Their annual revenue as of the time of this reference date (2020) is in excess of $21 million. So concentrate on developing a brand and reputation for your job board.

Freelancing jobs are also getting more and more popular. This means that many employers of freelancers would regularly post repeat jobs. This in turn means more income for job boards especially freelancing websites. This is especially helpful if you have made a list of repeat job posters. You should develop this database early on even if you are just starting your job board.

Offer Allied Services

Just like all businesses you need to diversify at some point to improve your income and attract more employers and job applicants. If you stay too long as a mere job board you put yourself in danger of being just another job board online and your competitors may get your clients by offering other services which your clients may also need. Some allied services you can offer are:

Industry Analysis Reports
This benefits both employers and job applicants. Job applicants for example would get a feel of the state of the industry and how it could affect their employment prospects. Employers meanwhile could become aware of their competitors and for example could become aware that they need more marketers and researchers in their company.

You could offer the information as a paid product for both job applicants and employers or you could simply post it in your website and get online income for example through ads or affiliate marketing. The big job boards are already offering a certain level of this kind of information. In the future this could also be a major income source for job boards.

Company Analysis Reports
Many websites which may or may not at all be connected to job board websites are already offering this service. One well known website is Glassdoor which not only offers job board services but also company review information. People can post their comments on the companies they have experience with.

You can go about earning this way by two (3) means. The first one is by monetising the online posts of people regarding the companies they have experience with. The second one is by conducting your own review of the company and monetising this information. The third is to be the advertising agency for the company. This way you earn from both online revenue sources and from the company itself.

Offer Recruitment Services
This especially helps people working or involved in the recruitment industry. The information from the job board is a valuable source of information for the job industry. You can earn from job seekers, employers and from the service companies involved in the recruitment industry. You can offer job seekers job hunting services and career development services.

This could include assisting or polishing a job applicant’s resume and interview skills as well as career development services. With respect to employers you can offer job applicant screening both during the resume review and actual interview process. With respect to service companies you could serve as a marketing agency for them.

This is especially true now because even the job applicant testing and interview process is fast moving online. I know of people who applied online, took a job qualifying test online, got interviewed online and lastly got informed that they were hired for the job online. This may be a big step from a simple job board service but this clearly enumerates how your small business can scale big by offering allied services.

These are just a few of the recruitment services you can offer online besides your job board. Just keep remembering that the main product is Jobs. Jobs mainly come from employers. However jobs can also come from job applicants and service companies in recruitment. Your website can be a hub for all things related to jobs.

Conclusion

Providing a job board service can be a profitable way for you to make money online. There are in fact people who make good money from it and have become billionaires in the process. However just like any businesses once people become aware of it many would do the same thing and you can expect tough competition to follow.

However even with a small job board you can still earn good money. You can start out small by creating recruitment and freelance website lists and then when you have determined that you can manage a job board go all out and offer the service in a full capacity. Also you do not only have to concentrate on job boards. You can also offer industry & company as well as recruitment services.