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The problem is this is still only in development stages. And while im going along im think to my self. How will i get employers to post jobs (for a fee) the first time, expecially if they are one on the first on it?
Im going to create other pages (of interest) and general job info, just to get it up in the search engines.
Im also going to link it from another directory we are developing and offer a free entry to anyone who joins this other business directory.
What do you all suggest.
Not to charge for a while and just to get employers using it. Target a certain area of the country or make it available worldwide?
What happens when i start to charge a fee, will they all dissapear.
Any advice will be appreciated
Also this is a very competitive market, so be sure to have visited all the other "big" sites, and find why they should chose your site.
Also have you targeted a specific sector or is just any sector?
In other words, it's a buyers market. The demand is on the job seeker side.
No employer that I know of would actually pay to post for a job. I've heard complaints about monster, for two years now, that the respondents are a deluge of unqualified resume spammers who haven't even looked at the job requirements.
Have you tried looking for a job? It's murder out there. When you think it through, charging employers doesn't really make sense, not when they already do so well posting jobs for free.
The new focus (on skilled/hourly workers) comes as the online job boards struggle to generate business in an economy notable for its lack of new jobs.“Last quarter, Monster’s revenue was down almost 30 percent, year over year,” said Matthew Litfin, an analyst with William Blair & Co. “Who can blame a company for trying to stem a decline of that magnitude?”
The Associated Press
January 24, 2003
Im tyring to make a steady income (not millions).
So how do these other job websites earn their money, or do they just do it for fun?
[edited by: martinibuster at 3:22 pm (utc) on Jan. 29, 2003]
Works the other way for the jobseeker too - a lot of agencies offering ghost jobs to candidates in order to bulk up their own databases.
Its also very difficult market to break into.
Firstly you have the big players:
1. Monster. 45million UV's per month (lots and lots of subdomains. Partnered with AOL, MSN, Netscape. Owned by TMP - one of the largest advertising agencies in the world).
2. Hotjobs. Just partnered / bought by Yahoo I believe. Is the largest recruitment site in the world (or second largest to Monster - cant remember).
Then you have all the recruitment agencies (the brick and mortar ones) - Reed.co.uk offer free job postings on their site for example.
Then there all the niche market agencies (these ones have more chance of being able to make money - a more unique selling point).
Then there are all the freebies. Newspapers / Media, Colleges and Universities, General Interest sites that offer free or cheap job postings.
If your directory is a local regional directory, then you would have a good chance to target local employers and make a buck or two.
However, if its a global directory, you're looking to compete with MSN/Monster or Hotjobs/Yahoo.... ;)
Definitely go niche!
Offer free postings for a while, but state up front that you are bringing in charges and perhaps offer job posters a long term discount for taking advantage of your free offer.
But, be warned that you will have to establish a lot of regular and reliable traffic for your service to be appealing to employers.
To put it in context, I run an advice site for the industry and Im just bringing in 9000 uniques a month after 4 months of business. I wouldnt even consider trying to post jobs on the site just now.
Feel free to sticky me if you'd like any specific help (got a regional directory too!). :)
MG
Marketing_Guy, i'll take you up on the sticky-mail. I'll give you my ideas later
Andy
doesn't matter if it's forums, banner ads or whatever, nobody wants to be the first to post. don't know if it's shyness or "nobody else is using it so it'll be a waste of my time" type thing. the only solution (and this is proven to work) is to seed the site. make it look used. if it's forums, post loads of messages and discussions using dozens of different user names. if it's banner ads, carry affiliate banners. if it's job vacancies, post fake vacancies on a daily basis.
but before you go into it much further, spend a bit more time in planning. i've developed 3 sites like this (for agencies), and (like others have said) employers simply don't pay to advertise vacancies. they'll pay to join the job agency and have their vacancies listed online for free as part of the membership, but not simply to have them listed online. there are too many sites offering free advertising to make it pay.
developing a portal / community site is good. keep it open, keep it free. when you've built it up, build it up some more. when it's big, make it bigger. get the traffic, make the site a "household name" for that industry. consider carrying banners (either affiliate or paid ads) to get some money coming in. if you need to start charging fees, look at small fees for "premium listings" (ie, bold and very noticable) while keeping free submission option for normal listings or maybe have a membership fee of certain parts of the community.
