lateral ideas for making money out of job boards in a tighter market

"It's not the strongest or most intelligent that survive; it’s those that are willing and able to adapt and change."

How many times are we now going to hear this quote now that we are so close to Darwin’s anniversary? Today I am going to appropriate it to use specifically in the context of Job Boards and how to increase revenues in this tightening market.

By the way, this is my first foray into blogging; those of you who know me know I love to put the world to rights (ideally in the pub), I am viewing this as a natural, viral extension to that process. Please know that there is no agenda, I want to open up the discussion and get feedback and constructive ideas. Feel free to link to me www.linkedin.com/in/stevemediafigures (well, OK a small agenda).

Simple fact is that with fewer jobs available, employers and recruiters are cutting back on recruitment and advertising. Yet most job boards are receiving and reporting record numbers of users, visits, time on sites and applications.

Here are my thoughts (online not in the pub for the first time) on how to help increase revenues without impacting on the integrity of the job board.

1. Lateral advertising opportunities – with more people spending time on your site what opportunities are there for NON job advertising? Why stop at job ads when you have such a relevant and captured audience who are open to suggestions? First of all I would look at relevant higher education training courses and other “employment” related opportunities. But why stop there? Become ‘demand led’, don’t think about what you are and can offer as a job board, turn it around and think about what else your audience wants or needs. By thinking laterally maybe you could open up both B2C and B2B opportunities (amazon.co.uk, lastminute.com, anyone?).
2. Brand affiliation – whether they are recruiting or not, why not create space for your current customers to sell their services. This is different from point 1 (which could be anything from training courses to Waitrose), here I mean your current employer clients who are not recruiting. If I have a construction job board and Balfour Beatty are not hiring, I would be looking at ways in which I could still incorporate their services onto my site (content, microsite, etc). This would help  drive their brand affiliation with their audience – your audience, who are not just job seekers, but also valuable & relevant customers, business partners or affiliates. You could educate your clients to this opportunity and provide a platform to do so.
3. Get paid when people leave your site – if your site is driving NIL results, why not get paid when the job seeker leaves your site. I am thinking of a “reverse aggregator”, i.e. in the www.workcircle.com mould, where a PPC model could be implemented. It’s scary, but if someone is leaving your site anyway, why not get paid for the privilege and help them with their journey? Another option is looking at what www.JobG8.com and map out more of the job board market.

Of course you can also look at online recruitment fairs, micro sites for campaigns, response management services, etc, but I want to focus on simple ideas that shouldn’t impact on your technology capabilities or cost yet could have a direct impact on your revenues.

I am sure that some you are already thinking in this way, but whether you are or not, I refer to good old Darwin’s quote, “it’s those that are willing and able to adapt and change…that will survive”.