Jack of all trades, master of none? Well, the often-used phrase can swing either way. Gone are the days where donning multiple feathers in your skill cap was considered attractive. If you have to distinguish yourself from the herd, you’ve to be specifically great at something. Now if the candidates are keeping up, can job boards be left behind? The answer: a resounding no. JobsPikr takes a look at what exactly is an exclusive job board, in this blog.
There is a palpable paradigm shift taking place in the job board market. Job seekers want to land a perfect job indicative of their skills and economic opportunity thereof. Job givers, fortunately, want the same thing too. A high niche candidate for each role to propel their company to the very zenith.
It is a general physician versus ophthalmologist situation. If your eye itches, you’d intrinsically go to somebody who is trained for eyes only. Welcome to the beautiful world of niche and exclusive job boards and markets.
Andreesen Horowitz, the founder of a California-based venture capital firm, says, “a vertical job market platform focuses on one industry, role, candidate type, or demographic. It focuses on one thing, and one thing only.”
Because why settle at average when you can be a sure shot match made in heaven?
But what really is an Exclusive Job Board?
As opposed to generic job boards, these are industry-specific and caters to a specialized class of employees and employers. Time is saved. The effort is saved. The best part? The success rate is a lot higher. For the generic job seekers and jack-of-all-trades job boards of the world, things move glacially. But we are in an HR tech world where things are moving at warp speed. Potential candidates are willing to take the onus and create a tactile impact. On the flip side, employers want to hire the best. Good, just does not cut it anymore. Niche Job Boards are here to bridge the very gap.
Do we Really Need a Niche and Exclusive Job Board?
Empirically, all you got to do is look around. In the current economic climate, niche industries are going to boom. It really is the one true way to ensure a long-lasting employee-employer relationship.
Addressing the biggest elephant in the room, the pandemic. Even before the pandemic hit, there has been a consistent trend of job seekers searching for the flexibility to work remotely. According to Buffer, “If they could, 99% of people would choose to work remotely, at least part-time, for the rest of their careers.” This further reduces the need for hiring one person who dabbles in multiple roles. If you are going to be working in a non-office congregated space, you have to be great at just that one thing.
In the wake of the Great Rehiring, these niche job boards will play a pivotal role in getting people back to work as soon as possible, in the best jobs possible.
Who has to keep up? That’s right. Niche job boards.
Think about your consumers at either end of the spectrum: job seekers and job givers.
Understand their passion, needs, and how they fit into the current economic scheme of things. And if there’s data to prove it. Distilled to the core, stay focused on why the niche job market matters and always build for the person behind the screen.
Now that we’ve established that Exclusive job boards are just what the doctor ordered; how do we build one?
- Select and Study a niche: Before taking the plunge, find out which industry sings to you. And make sure that the industry generates enough demand (and supply)
- Competitor Analysis: Find your clutter breaker. Find that one gap you only you can plug. Research, research, and research.
- Build a Community: What good is your job board if you don’t attract visitors? Start building your community from day 1
- Software: You are spoilt for choice here based on your technical skills and expertise. You can choose between SaaS or open-source software.
- Revenue Channels: Figuring out how to monetize it is the next big decision. You can sell ad spaces (looking at you, Google AdSense) part from obviously charging for posting an open job. The options are truly limitless and we are only bound by our own mind.
- Job Scraping: This is a tried and tested method of getting the ball rolling. You don’t want to attract visitors to an empty job board.
- Marketing: Because what really are we, without the right marketing tools?
Conclusion
Job boards have to evolve constantly to keep up with the minutest shift. In this uncertain era of reduced budgets, open-ended hiring freezes, and a remote workforce of career changers, relocators, and solopreneurs, the concept of a generic job board seems comically antiquated. This archaic system plays a huge part in the current job crisis, as millions of talented, hardworking people are in jobs (or, worse, without jobs) that leave them underutilized, under-engaged, and uncompensated.
We need to do better. It can be done better. We just need to keep up. And Conquer.
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