Mike Dauncey, MD of TipTopJobs ’The role of the job boards in the recruitment process.’

ëOver the past 5 years, the role of the Job Board has replaced most of the Job advertising in the trade papers and some of the National papers. The advantage of the Job Boards is the costs and the pro-active approach to getting response. You do not have to take the chance of someone actually getting the paper let alone opening the page where your advertisement appears and then making it attractive to beat other advertisements for the same Job. Often it is a lottery as to where on the page the advertisement will appear ñ left or right, top, bottom or middle, and then someone needs to get in contact with an individual that is not available.

The Job board approach is targeted advertising which is made available to the people normally with the skill, in the location required, and it is sent based on the Candidate actively saying ñ 1. I want a new job, 2. I want a Job in this market and this Job position, 3. I want a job in this sort of location.

The Candidate can store their current CV on the database of most Job boards and send an application letter when applying for a Job. Details of to whom, date sent and other tracking features are available on the more premium Job Boards. As the Job Boards improve their facilities, more Job filtering will be introduced to cut down the responses from Candidates that are not appropriate.

Another advantage is the International flavour of some of the sites where the job market is becoming more global. If people want a job somewhere else in the world then a few Job Boards can provide access to Jobs elsewhere.

For the Candidate, all the above services are free. There are some Job Boards that will, or a partner site will, provide CV writing and translation services, which are chargeable.

The Job Boards get their revenue generally from advertising ñ Jobs; Banner advertising; CV database access; and Sponsorship. With hundreds of sites being available just in the UK, a number will fall by the wayside over the coming few years. The serious players will be the Companies that get accreditation from the Recruitment and Advertising industries, namely, REC (Recruitment & Employment Confederation; www.rec.uk.com ); AOLR (Association of Online Recruiters: www.aolr.org ) ; NORAS (National Online Recruitment Audience Survey: www.enhancemedia.co.uk/noras/ ); and ABC Electronic (www.abc.org.uk