Job Boards Aren’t Working

Why Aren’t Job Boards Working?

• too many results that aren’t a good fit
• keyword searching provides inaccurate, irrelevant matches
• finding a match is too time consuming
• limited ability to pre-screen online

Anyone have any more ideas why job boards aren’t working online right now? Lets get some conversations going.

Job Boards and Sites as a Source of Hire – Growth since 2001

Job Boards / Sites have been growing on a steady clip in the last 5 years — I’ve been putting together some of the numbers from CareerXRoads – who seem to be one of the only sites online that compile year to year statistics of Job Source of Hire statistics (anyone know any other statistic sources?). Very interesting – over the last 5 years, not much has really changed in terms of the distribution of where jobs are sourced from.

Source of Hire (External Hires)	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001
Referalls	25.6	27.1	31.7	28.5	26.6
Company Website	20.7	12.2	15.8	20.6	15.5	12.76
Job Boards	12.3	12.6	15.8	10.3	11.5	7.7
Print/Media	6.9	4.6	5.5	3.8	4.8
Direct Sourcing	6.4	7.4	6	2.6
Re-hires	5.2
3rd Party Agencies	4.8	5.2	3.2	1.2
College	3.8	8	5.6	2.4
Career Fairs	2.7	5.2	3.2	2.8	3.2
Temp-To-Hire	2.3	3.2
Search Engine Advertising	2
Walk-ins	0.5	4.2
Other	7	10.5	15.2	26.9	38.4
total	100.2	100.2	102	99.1	100

I think what will really push the needle (for job boards to become a bigger player) is to build a tool that will connect and match recruiters and employers to higher quality job seekers. Ideally a computer agent that sorts through the marketplace of jobs and job seekers and brings together the relevent parties. We’re hoping to do this by connecting compatible job seekers and employers.