How to Acquire and Retain Association Members

You might realize your association needs a job board for members, but you may not realize all the benefits an online career center can offer. Not only does it help your members find jobs and develop their careers, but it also helps your association attract and retain members. 

How can an online career center help an association acquire and retain members?

Based on studies conducted by Community Brands over the years, we know that offering an online career center can help associations recruit and retain members. Why?

Career development is one of the most important reasons members join associations. An online career center helps members and job seekers gain access to: 

• Jobs in your industry 
• Career planning tools and resources 
• Higher recognition with employers
   

Plus, an online career center can help members in every career stage. This creates a formula for better member engagement, which in turn makes for loyal members who will continue to renew their memberships and encourage their colleagues to join as well. 

A top-notch career center can help you attract new members with engaging content and jobs, better engage and retain current members, and position you as the top career resource in your industry. 

As a bonus, a career center can also be one of your biggest sources of non-dues income. Through it, you can give employers exclusive access to your members, increased brand recognition, and unmatched recruitment resources. You can also provide valuable sponsorship opportunities and ad sales to employers that will drive non-dues revenue for your association. 

YM Careers by Community Brands offers job board software for associations. It helps you build a robust online career center so that members can easily search and apply for relevant opportunities and access career development resources to grow their careers.  

How do you acquire and retain members using your career center?

There are multiple ways to acquire and retain members using your career center. Here are some ideas:

• Capture non-members – Not only do your members use your job board to look for jobs or career resources, but so do other professionals within your industry that you may not yet have acquired as members. Include membership sign-up content on your career center so that you can capture non-member information in your association management system (AMS) upon sign-up. You can then use the information in your AMS to drive member acquisition campaigns.

• Present job seekers with learning opportunities – As job seekers visit your online career center, present them with learning opportunities. That way, they will be more likely to visit your association’s education catalog and invest in their continuing education. In turn, this gives you another chance at getting them to become members. 
• Send members relevant job opportunities – Community Brands has found that members want new, relevant jobs delivered directly into their inboxes via a dedicated job email.   

• Send career resources to job seekers and members – Email job seekers regularly with tips, best practices, and jobs (or job posting) opportunities. Point them to resources based on their past activity with your association’s career center to provide them with added value and keep them coming back for more.
    

Learn more

With a robust online career center, your association can create a true career destination for your industry that attracts members to your organization and helps members achieve their professional goals – keeping them around for years to come.