It might be time to give your online career center more attention. A recent Community Brands study shows that help with career advancement is among the top most important benefits to members of professional associations. Interestingly, the same study suggests that those who work at associations do not always think career advancement benefits are as important to members as members themselves do.
There are multiple ways you can take your online career center beyond job postings to offer your members a wealth of career advancement opportunities. These include resume reviews, job seeker articles, networking, and virtual career fairs.
Delivering career insights is one way your association can become the ultimate career destination for your members.
Your members will need to be able to dig deeper to understand more about their chosen paths within your specific industry. By giving them access to data about their potential careers, your career center can help them gain the insights they need to move forward or change direction.
Career insights
Here is some key career information to provide in your career center:
- Career descriptions
- Statistics of typical education levels of people in each role
- Occupational outlooks
- Activities performed by people in each role
- Salary benchmarks
- Comparison of employment statistics using local, state, and nationwide averages
- “Day in the life” videos
- Unemployment data
- Related occupations
Providing this type of information helps your members understand:
- Where they are in their careers compared with projected growth
- What opportunities exist around a particular career path
- What related occupations could be next steps in their career paths
- Considerations related to a potential career or location move
The Community Brands 2022 Association Trends Study shows that some member priorities differ based on career stage. In 2021, training was the number one priority for those in early and mid-careerists. However, in 2022, this group’s focus shifted from professional benefits (such as advocacy and raising awareness of the industry) to more interest in personal benefits (such as help with career advancement and job opportunities). Those late in their careers placed new emphasis on industry-specific information and more highly valued targeted, valuable content.
Furthermore, lapsed members’ priorities are slightly different from those of current members. They place significantly higher value on job opportunities and help with career advancement, yet association professionals continue to undervalue these areas as member benefits. The data tells us that career insights are of high importance, now more than ever. Give your members more of the value they seek along the member journey by making sure you’re investing in your online career center.
Take your career center even further.
What if you could also offer your members online tools to truly plan out their careers? What if these tools allowed your members to:
- Learn details about various careers specific to your association’s industry, including:
- Career descriptions
- Activities performed by someone in this role
- Education and experience requirements
- Employment statistics such as wages and forecasts
- Map out their career path based on their career goals – with a well-defined path to get there
- View available jobs based on where they are in their career path
- Access resources to help them land their target job
Go beyond the job board.
Resources available on the Career Planning Portal by YM Careers benefit members in every stage of their career, from entry-level to retirement. Give your members those resources in one easy to access location and solidify your association’s value with current members and prospects while becoming a destination for industry professionals looking for data on position titles, career outlooks, and salary insights for the industry you represent.
Connect active and passive job seekers with their dream job.
Leading job board technology expertly matches top industry jobs with your talented professional members, providing individuals looking for employment opportunities with jobs posted by leading industry employers.
Recruiters interested in reaching your qualified members pay for that exclusive access, thus providing your association with another stream of non-dues revenue.
- Job Seeker Benefits: Easy job search, job matching emails, and job recommendations based on prior searches.
- Employer Benefits: Easy job postings, candidate screening and management, and high ROI products — such as job alerts, banner ads, and search engine promotions — to maximize exposure of job postings.
- Staff Benefits: Advanced reporting and analytics for deep insights into job board sales, performance, and user behavior.
Deliver powerful career resources and advice.
Give your members the career advancement benefits they need to land the jobs they want to have. Include resources with your job board for all stages of professional growth —place resume writing tips, interview advice, networking ideas, and more at your members’ fingertips. Offer these resources through Career Planning Portal:
- Job seeker articles, tips, and recommendations
-  Résumé review
- Career coaching
- Networking through LinkedIn integration
- Professional education recommendations.
- Mentoring
Offer a look at potential careers with a sophisticated career pathing tool.
Deliver an interactive online tool for your association members visualize their future career paths. By providing a platform for goal-oriented professionals to see different career paths to reach their overarching career goals, and the educations, skills and certification they need to achieve them, you can will become an invaluable career development resource your members turn to time and time again.
And with data on virtually unlimited careers at every professional level, you will serve your members valuable career data from early careerist to senior executives.
Becoming a one-stop professional resource center has never been easier. Provide a successful career planning portal for your members and attract leads interested in accessing professional insights, and set your organization up for growth and higher member retention year-round.
