What is one of the first few things a candidate does whilst looking for a job?

He checks if he has the latest version of his CV ready! Once the CV looks ready and good to share, candidates log into one of the many job boards that are available online and within seconds get access to a list of all the relevant job postings. And in a matter of a few minutes, the candidate is already seen applying to jobs that fall in his area of interest. Convenient right? Absolutely! But this convenience wasn’t always around. It’s only about two decades old.

Before the entry of mainstream and popular job boards, the most common source for job search was newspaper ads. Classifieds, word of mouth, personal network, and hard copy resumes were other popular means of job search. The job search was a stressful, time-consuming, and frustrating experience, and we can quite imagine why. Forward to today, many things have drastically changed in the recruitment space. Neither recruiters nor candidates follow the traditional process. The recruitment landscape has revolutionized for both of them.

Today, technology is shaping the landscape in every field. Recruitment is no exception! With new-age technologies coming into play, people have become quite demanding and need more in less time. Keeping this in mind, businesses are redefining their strategies to offer those services within seconds that once took them days (at best) and months (at worse) to deliver. Speaking of the recruitment industry, one of the most path-breaking introductions has been the job boards and, quite recently, job wrapping automation. And both these innovations have enhanced the experience of recruiters and candidates as they move through the recruitment cycle.

The first job board, Usenet, allowed recruiters only to post their messages (job postings) to servers. Comparing job boards from the past with those that we see today, it’s glaringly evident that the current job boards and their features are far more sophisticated, advanced, and capable at their job.

But have all job boards evolved? That’s the real question. Even though job boards are the primary platform for all job search and talent acquisition pursuits, not all of them have evolved with time. While the networking job sites have 50% effectiveness rate, job boards only have 2-4% effectiveness rate. Given that we’ve talked so much about how job boards have improved over the years, their low effectiveness rate comes is shocking, right?

Are job boards really evolving?

The problem with most job boards still is that they display tons of job results, but always a mix of relevant and irrelevant ones. Determining which ones are the most-relevant and most-suited can sometimes be time-consuming and, at other times, annoying. Additionally, recruiters don’t have enough time to scrutinize all the job applications that reach them via job boards. On an average, out of 400 applications that reach a recruiter, only the top 10-20 resumes are reviewed, if the sources are to be believed. This means, even though powered with advanced technologies like AI and ML, job boards fail to offer unparalleled services to the clients (read, candidates and recruiters).

But there lies an interesting observation too! Some job boards are still a million-dollar strong organization, right? What does this mean then? It means that there’s something that these high-performing job boards are doing right which their competitors aren’t. So, some job boards are definitely evolving!

Do job boards need a makeover? 

The recruitment industry is going through a revolution due to digitally disruptive technologies making their way into it. Recruiters and candidates are in no mood to compromise, and rightly so. With umpteen products and services out there in the market, vying for attention, a job board needs to really serve some purpose in a recruiter or candidate’s life to be taken seriously.

Analytics is gaining a lot of momentum with recruiters in finding the most promising bunch of candidates. By entering simple inputs like ‘skills required’ and ‘years of experience,’ recruiters can get a list of candidates who perfectly fit their requirements.

Technology is on its way to eliminating gender bias too. Then there are the chatbots, helping recruiters focus on core recruitment activities. Acting as a personal assistant, a chatbot answers for candidates any vacancy-related queries analyzes whether a candidate is relevant for a position, and qualifies the right candidates to the next level. Candidates, on the other hand, need not wait for a response from recruiters.

All such developments in the field of recruitment technology have risen the level of expectations on part of recruiters and candidates. Job boards must offer holistic support to its users with minimum manual intervention and negligible load on the participants of this platform. So, any job board that’s not in a place to do so, needs a makeover.

What does it take to become an ‘evolved’ job board?

Here’s what it takes for a job board to meet the expectations of the changing times and stay relevant in a competitively charged job board market. A job board should be able to, among other things,

• gauge candidate behavior and recruiter requirements proactively
• improve job board visibility with high-quality job postings
• automate the entire job wrapping process
• update job feeds in real-time

Developing a job board that is agile, customized, and comprehensive demands a team of highly experienced professionals. Right from job crawling to job spidering to job postings to job feed categorization, everything should be automated by a job board. Developing such a job board is easier said than done. But, if you wish to not see your job board on its deathbed, then get ready to change your game plan now!

Outsourcing to the right vendor that leverages the power of state-of-the-art technologies to provide an end-to-end solution, constant product innovation, and high customer satisfaction is the need of the hour. For example, the premium job aggregation and job data automation provider, Propellum, offer sophisticated and cutting-edge services like:

• tailored job wrapping services to best suit a job board’s strategic goals,
• 24*7 customer support to all its clients,
• zero implementation costs,
• no overheads,
• maximum job data integrity
• customized job data delivery methods
  • direct to job board through API access
  • secure FTP server uploads
• seamless compatibility with all major recruitment technologies and ATS

Choose a holistic job wrapping platform that will help your job board undergo a revolution, instead of devolution. To make your job board stand out as revolutionary, choose vendors that do the heavy lifting, involve you less, customize services for you, require you to maintain minimal manpower, and allow you to focus on core business competencies.