Job Boards: Types, Ranges, and Alternatives

A job board, also known as the employment website, is a website used by companies to promote their job vacancies. Job seekers can search online job boards to apply for a job in their field and profession. Most of the job boards come free for job seekers. 

Job boards are just another part of the advertising industry, generating a revenue of $5.9 billion for LinkedIn in 2018. Job advertising used to be simple for those who were hiring: you would place an announcement in the local newspaper or post a sign in the window. 

With online media growth, sourcing qualified candidates became somewhat complicated. Companies specify the required skills and personality attributes during the initial recruitment phase. This specification contains information that will attract appropriate individuals. Once you have a candidate persona profile ready, all you have to do is advertise your job ad.

No idea what we’re talking about? Learn all about Candidate Persona.

This is where it gets tricky. With hundreds of job boards, it’s hard to choose an appropriate one, so focus on two things: Job Board Type and Job Board Range. 

Job Board Types 

A type of Job Board determines whether the job board is specialized for a particular industry, professionals of a certain seniority, or maybe the type of employment. Job Board Types are:

• General Job Boards
• Niche Job Boards 
• Resume Databases 
• Employer Reputation Job Boards
• Recruitment Agency Job Boards

General Job Boards 

General Job Boards are not niche, position, or industry oriented. These job boards will host job ads for all kinds of jobs across different sectors. Some of the most popular general job boards are: 

• LinkedIn is more than a job board, it’s a social media platform that connects different professionals. It allows companies and job seekers to connect, share resumes, and advertise positions. 
• Indeed has been around since 2004, and it is no wonder it has the highest ranking traffic among job boards. It’s not a simple job board, but a job aggregator, meaning it works like a search engine for jobs. 
• Monster and Indeed are probably the most significant players in the job advertising industry. The most apparent difference between these job boards is that Monster presents fewer applicants without a college education and more with degrees than Indeed. 

Niche Job Boards  

There is an infinite number of specialized job boards tailored to particular jobs. If you find General Job Boards dry or you are interested in more specific job boards, you should hunt for one that services your industry. Here are several examples of niche job boards:

• Behance and Dribble host portfolios of designers and web professionals, but also provide job posting services for the companies hiring these professionals. 
• GrowthHackers is one of the largest communities of growth, marketing, and product talent. 
• LawJobs is a job board specialized in the advertisement of legal professions such as paralegals or attorneys. 

Resume Databases 

Recruiters can actively search for employees and contact talent fit to the criteria. In most cases, experienced professionals are not currently looking for a job, and they might not see your job ad at all. With the resume database, recruiters can proactively reach out to qualified candidates. According to Google, the most relevant resume database website is ZipRecruiter, and who are we to judge Google. 

Employer Reputation Job Boards 

Some job boards, such as LinkedIn allow employers to promote their own company page on the website. Companies can showcase their vision and culture to attract talent who would be an excellent cultural fit. Job seekers get to study working conditions and salaries in different companies. Also, they can apply to positions advertised at those companies. The most popular Employer Reputation website is Glassdoor. 

Recruitment Agency Job Board 

Every recruitment and staffing agency needs to have a job board, and sometimes they are a true gem. Submitting a job ad to a recruitment agency job board is free, but hiring candidates who apply comes with a placement fee up to 25% of the annual salary. 

Job Board Range

Job Board Range defines traffic reach in some geographic regions, or for specific keywords that describe the place of employment. If you are hiring candidates exclusively from the UK, it’s probably best if you stick to the most popular UK job boards. Job Board Ranges are: 

• Local – operating on a local level
• National – hosting job ads on a national level 
• International – job ads across different countries, and 
• Remote 

Remote Job Boards 

There are so many remote job boards that we will have to write a whole other article about it. There is a joke that you can’t call yourself a serial entrepreneur if you never built a remote job board and launched it on ProductHunt. These websites are also niche because they target the talent interested in working remotely. While it is evident that the best talent is all around the globe, some of the remote job boards are limited to local markets. Go figure. 

Job Boards vs. Job Aggregator

A job aggregator or a metasearch engine is a website that aggregates job ads from many sources such as job boards, companies’ career pages, online classifieds, and communities’ websites. These websites crawl thousands of other websites to find job ads using an algorithm to determine which job ad is going to appear first. On the other hand, job boards don’t go looking for a job ad to post but facilitate the job ads of companies that come to them. Knowing the real differences between job boards and job aggregators is vital for executing against a well-developed recruitment strategy. 

Have you noticed Google for Jobs? 

Google added job search features in 2017, enabling job seekers to search the biggest search engine for job ads. Users can search the job ads by searching the position or field of work, and the search engine will give you a curated list of available jobs. That makes it the most relevant job aggregator.