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This morning I received a call from employment website CareerOne who was trying to sell me its new “revamped” job board. As a recruiter, I was interested in hearing what the guy had to say.
He told me it’s been recently developed, and is now focused on growing your brand as an employer. I asked if he knew much about my business – he didn’t. He knew I was a recruiter and that was all.
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It really got me thinking about job boards – more so, their future. It’s no secret that I don’t use Seek.
Not so long ago, job boards changed the game. It was marketed to the masses – it was the place to go for anyone looking for a job. But that’s just it – anyone.
Just like television advertising, billboards and newspapers, it gave companies the chance to get in front of a huge audience, which was revolutionary and deemed a requirement. However, times change. It’s relatively easy to see trends and how marketing is changing – every market starts off general and with time moves to become more targeted and niche. I think job boards are going the same way, or at least they need to.
Why? Social media, data analytics – marketing and the ability to know, understand and target an audience today is far more sophisticated.
Anyone looking for a new role, be it a part-time barista, a forklift driver, a marketing executive or UX designer, is essentially heading to the same space to find opportunities. But the market is now slowly moving to a more targeted approach and a niche job board is viewed more successful for many reasons.
Primarily, it allows employers to get resumes and responses from relevant candidates at a more economical price. The fee structure of a large-scale job boards is based on their audience and their reach, but if you post a job for a mortgage broker, 95 per cent of the audience is irrelevant.
The key to success, however, does remain similar to that of the large-scale job board, and that is to be the dominant player in the market. This is a strategy applied in developing my own job board, specifically targeting the mortgage broking industry, finance brokers and loan processors.
To be the dominant player in my niche, I first focused on my presence in the industry and ensured I was equipped to play this role and influence such change. This includes creating and sharing expertise through my blogs on both The Adviser and Mortgage Business, my articles via LinkedIn and growing a network within the industry. As a result, I am now frequently approached by people looking to make a move.
Everything I do is focused on one narrow niche – mortgage brokers and loan processors. My job board is targeted, which means attracting more qualified candidates and a convenient hub of relevant roles for those looking to move. They come to my job board because they know they’ll find exactly what they are looking for: an opportunity within the industry.
Added to which, it serves as both reactive and proactive, with the capability to share amongst my LinkedIn connections, your LinkedIn connections and groups that are relevant to the industry such as BDM and broker broadcasts.
I’m seeing a lot of groups looking to grow, and the capacity of work as a recruiter is increasing. So, I’ve created a solution that doesn’t see the recruitment process handed over completely, but provides the tools to help enhance your own recruitment process in allowing access to my job board. It’s a targeted point for broker groups and the like to post their jobs and leverage off my network, marketing and presence to generate candidates.
If you’re looking to grow your team at the moment and aren’t having much luck with your Seek advert, let’s have a chat about the ways in which a job advert through my job board could impact your response rates.
Zak Wilford, recruitment specialist
Zak Wilford is a specialist recruiter that works alongside mortgage brokers in growing their business through hiring great people. He first stepped into the mortgage industry in 2013, aggressively targeting aggregators and headhunting their brokers and groups to join the then start-up aggregator Finsure and 1300Homeloan. After a year with Finsure, he joined recruitment agency Drake International, and a year later he stepped out on his own to fill a gap in the market – to start a recruitment agency specialising in working with finance brokers. Leveraging his network and experience, Zak now works with both commercial and residential finance brokers, sub-aggregators and other groups to help them grow through hiring great people. For more information, visit www.zakwilford.com.
