How to scale my job boards?

[julia007]

Hi guys!


I currently have two job boards. One job board that I run on WordPress is absolutely free.
Anyone can post jobs and apply to these jobs. For these job board my target audience are studends and young professionals who look for internships or entry level jobs.

In the beginning I figured that students usually don't have much money and they will be less willing to pay for applying to jobs.
So, I decided not to charge anyone and let the job board "market" itself. Surprisingly, it did well and then I opened my second job board that has more powerful features that I can offer my customers. I want to target it for "IT project managers and other IT professionals".

Here comes the question, in your opinion whom should I charge - those who post IT jobs or those who want to apply to these jobs?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts

[Owen]

Hi guys!


I currently have two job boards. One job board that I run on WordPress is absolutely free.
Anyone can post jobs and apply to these jobs. For these job board my target audience are studends and young professionals who look for internships or entry level jobs.

In the beginning I figured that students usually don't have much money and they will be less willing to pay for applying to jobs.
So, I decided not to charge anyone and let the job board "market" itself. Surprisingly, it did well and then I opened my second job board that has more powerful features that I can offer my customers. I want to target it for "IT project managers and other IT professionals".

Here comes the question, in your opinion whom should I charge - those who post IT jobs or those who want to apply to these jobs?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts

I think you should back it up and actually pay for a custom script and infrastructure if your job board if it did 'so well'. Maybe you can put them together and just charge for specific types of jobs or something. Just my input.

[tallen]

Usually it is the employer who pays to list their opening -- but you would have to demonstrate that you have access to a pool of potential applicants, or that potential applicants will find the opening and apply for it via the listing on your site (i.e. that you have traffic and/or good SEO for the terms potential applicants are likely to use looking for those kinds of job openings).

There are some business models, though, where job seekers will pay -- but you would have to demonstrate that you have access to employers with the kinds of openings the job seekers are seeking, and that you can help them get those jobs. I don't think of job seekers as being willing to pay an application fee in order to apply for a particular job, but they may be willing to pay to gain access to job leads. Maybe, I could be wrong... perhaps you should survey people who are looking for work now?

[Harold Mansfield]

You charge the person listing the job. You are providing a service to them.

If you charge the applicants you shoot yourself on both fronts:
First applicants won't pay to apply for jobs because there's a 1000 job sites out there that are free to them.
2nd, once you stop getting applicants and traffic it's not worth it for an employer to list with you.