What is a Job board?

Jun 17, 2008 - Published by Eric Shannon, has an 11 year old job board company LatPro Inc. is based in Weston, Florida...

"A reasonably sophisticated friend (working on his Ph.D.) admitted to me recently that he has never heard of Monster or CareerBuilder.com and that got me thinking about the word 'job board' -- how many people actually know it?

I've been working in the job board industry for 11 years and come to realize 'job board' is not in the dictionary nor in Wikipedia.

That's probably a good sign it's still early... not too late to create something big. So what would the Wikipedia page for 'job board' look like? Maybe something like this:

A job board is a website that publishes job ads and is dedicated to matching employers with job seekers.

History

The first job board was a nonprofit organization launched in August 1992, by Bill Warren and was called the Online Career Centre (OCC). OCC was sold to TMP Worldwide (now Monster Worldwide) in December 1995 when OCC was renamed Monster.com. Bill Warman also co-founded another very early job board called E-Span which was started in his basement as “Adnet”.

Jobseekers

Job boards are usually free for job seekers though there are some exceptions mostly in the realm of upper management and executive jobs.

Job ads can usually be found by browsing or through search on keywords, job type and location. Other services commonly offered by job boards for jobseekers include the following:

• job agents that alert jobseekers by e-mail to new job postings that match specified criteria
• career advice such as resume and interviewing tips through blogs, newsletters and articles
• resume editing
• job-search coaching
• virtual and real job fairs
• personality and vocational testing
• information about universities and degrees

Employers

Employers usually pay a fee to post job ads although exceptions include the upper management job boards which charge jobseekers. Most job boards also offer employers resume database access for searching out candidates that match specific criteria. Additional services offered by job boards to employers often include:

• job agents that alert recruiters by e-mail to newly published job seeker resumes that meet specific criteria
• virtual and physical job fairs
• brand building advertising with e-mail campaigns, banners, buttons and company profiles
• recruiting advice and tips through blogs, newsletters and articles

Types of Job Boards

Job boards are commonly broken down into the following categories:

Generalist Job Boards - attempts to serve everyone, "all things to all people", examples include:

• monster.com
• careerbuilder.com
• hotjobs.com

Niche Job Boards - targets job functions, industries, demographics, and geography, examples include:

• latpro.com (Hispanic and bilingual jobs)
• idealist.org (volunteer positions)
• recruitingnevada.com (Nevada jobs)

Vertical job search engines - jobs are scraped from employer websites and other job boards, "all jobs in one place", examples:

• indeed.com
• simplyhired.com
• diversityjobs.com

Free Job Boards - basic services are free for both candidates and jobseekers, examples:

• luckydogjobs.com
• postjobfree.com

SEO Job boards - focus on getting search engine rankings for employers, "we do SEO for you", examples:

• jobs2web.com
• linkup.com
• seo4jobs.com

Matching Job Boards - focus on profiling of positions and candidates for the right match, "eHarmony of jobs", examples:
climber.com

• climber.com
• itzbig.com
• jobfox.com
• trovix.com
• quietagent.com

Job Board Networks - companies that build lots of job boards, "domains are cool", examples:

• aboutjobs.com
• beyond.com
• dominionenterprises.com
• energyjobsites.com
• healthcarejobboards.com
• healthcarejobstore.com
• ihirejobnetwork.com
• jupitermedia.com
• nichejobs.com
• targetedjobsites.com
• thejobboardnetwork.com
• topechelonnetwork.com
• ustechonline.com

Social networking Job Boards - professionally oriented social media websites, "friends are for finding jobs", examples:

• linkedin.com
• wirelessjobs.com

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