Today, we are going to focus on providing you as a job board owner/operator with 5 steps to presenting value to your employers and addressing the fundamental problem for employers; finding quality applicants.

The outlined steps will give great insight into the best practices to consider for your own job board and help your sales team to present value to paying employers and thus building your revenue. As stated in the 2015 Job Board Survey Results from over 197 job board owners worldwide, over 80% view the quality of applicants as critical for their employers.

By focusing on delivering quality applicants to your employers as priority number 1, your job board will establish a differentiator to your paying employers. With the help of research, patience and open communication with your employers the return on investment will far exceed your efforts.

Let’s incorporate a real-life example for a niche job board focused on Engineering with a specialization of mechanical engineering. A employer has recently registered on your job board for the first time, what steps should I take?

Step #1 – Preparation

1a). Research the employer’s website and Careers page

• Look for any recent articles discussing upcoming projects, in which, they may need to hire new employees
• Articles centered around expansion into a new market
• Upon reviewing the Careers page, browse the current job openings on the site – does your job board specialize on their current needs? If so, great!

1b). Review the registered employer account on your job board

• Name
• Title
• Location
• Upon reviewing this information, find their LinkedIn profile and gather any identifiable information pertaining to their recruitment desires. When you reach out to the contact at the company, personalizing the information will vastly improve your chances of making an impact

1c). Review your candidate/resume database – Now, we have researched the employer and starting to understand their potential needs, let’s take the time to see if we may offer a solution

• Use your candidate/resume database to find how many candidates are currently registered on your site that may meet their current needs
• Example, the employer has 30 mechanical engineering jobs posted on their website. Conduct a quick search for any candidate with mechanical engineering listed in their profile/resume
• Look for other examples on your job board, such as the performance for similar job postings. Review how previous job postings have performed on your site with the focus on mechanical engineering
• You as the job board, hold onto the keys of information that will assist the recruiter in their quest to finding the right talent. Let’s use it help everyone!

1d). Compile a list of potential solutions for the employer

• Resume database – Find out how many candidates on your site match their current needs. Example: our job board has 1,000 candidates with a focus in mechanical engineering
• Job Postings – what return on investment could the employer expect. Example – the 5 previous jobs postings in mechanical engineering averaged 50 applications – if you may speak about hires, even better!
• Short list candidates – Great potential to significantly increase your revenue. Inform the employer you may provide a short list of candidates based on their specific requirements. Recommendations to refine the search include segmenting by; Location, Experience, Desired Salary Range, Availability, etc.
• Deploy a target email campaign on behalf of the employer (again, come with your homework done on who you may target and when)
• Deploy a segmented and targeted SMS text message campaign on behalf of the employer

Important note to consider – the more specific with the metrics the better.

Step #2 – Contact the employer

Leverage the research you conducted during step #1 to present value to the employer. Your goal is to present a solution to their current need in an effective manner.

2a). Email the contact

• Personalize the email to the contact – “Personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%” Source: Aberdeen Group
• Keep it short ant sweet – use the information gathered in step 1 to speak to your findings on their site and potential resolutions provided by job board
• Include when and how you will follow up

2b). Upon speaking with the contact, it is essential to gather information on their specific needs. Your research will help you tremendously, but it is important to hear what they desire. As such, find out as much valuable information as possible, including:

• What are your current recruitment needs?
• May you describe your ideal candidate? Hint: this will help you begin to discover how they determine quality

Those two questions, will help you open up the line of communication and shed light into their current desires and if they match your existing research.

2c). Present your options – By discovering the current needs of the employer, you may use your research and previous recommendations (if are still aligned with their needs) or provide additional recommendations on how the job board may assist in their quest.

Step #3 – Deploy campaign for employer 

Based on your recommendations and hopefully meeting the needs for the employer, the next step is for the employer to use your services. Great tip from our experience is to provide insight or best practices such as uploading their company logo to boost job posting performance will enhance the experience for the employer. Remember, this is your specialty and helpful tips for the employer succeed will help.

Step #4 – Follow the performance

Let’s say the employer elected to post a 30-day job posting on the board, as such, routinely check the performance of the job postings each week. If possible, implementing value added solutions such as upgrading to a featured job or employer to help the job posting performance. Notice the trend, anything to boost quality and performance.

Step #5 – Re-engage with the employer (Really important!)

Firstly, let’s get an essential point covered before expanding on step #5; reach out to the employer if they have only a few applications or hundreds (it’s easy to fall in the trap of looking at the data and only seeing 5 applications and viewing the campaign as a failure). Fortunately, it only takes one quality applicant, resulting in a hire to establish your tremendous value as a recruitment source. And, the only way to find out is speaking directly to the employer.

Therefore, when re-engaging with the employer it is important to cover the following;

• What resulted from the job posting?
• Which candidates fit the best and why?
• Provide potential recommendations for ways to improve for next time – maybe try one of our other services; short list, email and/or SMS campaign, etc.

These 5 steps will help your job board establish credibility with your employers and present a key differentiator in the market for assisting them in the quest of finding the most important recruitment needs; finding quality hires.