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Job boards are essentially a form of ad arbitrage, they buy traffic and resell it at a higher price. Because job boards can amortize the cost of buying traffic
by ig1 16y ago
Job boards are essentially a form of ad arbitrage, they buy traffic and resell it at a higher price. Because job boards can amortize the cost of buying traffic across multiple job adverts, they can afford to buy an audience which an individual company can't.
Because people only look for a new job rarely, it's very hard to build a brand for a job site. Hence job sites have to advertise continuously to sustain traffic levels.
A job site which offered free job adverts couldn't buy traffic and hence would be mostly useless to companies looking to hire.
- WillyF 16y agoYes, the larger job boards buy a ton of traffic, but they also spend a lot on branding. Just watch the Super Bowl. There are also many successful niche job boards that don't buy traffic. I find that most of them rely heavily on organic SEO along with strategic partnernships and even some brand building. Yes, arbitrage is big in the job board industry (which is why Indeed does so well), but I think that you're overstating its importance.
- ig1 16y agoEven for the big branded job boards the majority of traffic is driven through short term advertising and not long term branding. Monster, etc spend a lot on Super Bowl advertising and most of the effect from that comes within a couple of weeks after the advert. Especially if you're talking about professional jobs, generally most talented professional are rarely actively looking for a new job, so it doesn't matter how powerful your brand is, you still need to be actively pushing them to look for a new job. There are very few niche players who succeed on organic SEO, certainly in the tech sector, most of the successful non-ad-buying job boards are run by sites which already have targeted organic traffic.