One of the biggest challenges employers face in finding niche talent for their hard-to-fill roles is the expense. They want to get the best return on their recruitment dollars. Between marketing efforts, job board postings, and career fairs, it’s expensive and time-consuming to find the perfect candidates, so employers are careful to make sure every dollar is well spent.
As an association leader, you have an advantage in helping employers find niche talent. You’ve got a highly qualified, targeted pool of niche candidates at your fingertips – your members. Your association is in a great position to capitalize on the recruitment budgets of employers looking for top talent if you can make your niche job board stand out.
How to earn more revenue through your niche job board
Here are four ways to generate revenue through your association’s online job board:
1. Offer competitive pricing.
The standard pricing for job boards is subscription, cost per click (CPC), or paid duration ads. Annual subscriptions are more convenient for employers with a bigger recruitment budget and many jobs to post. They require consistent communications with employers, including service calls, results reporting, and technology maintenance.
Cost per click is a model in which employers pay when people click on their job ads. This model can get costly, and employers are not guaranteed qualified applicants from the people clicking their ads. The most common niche job board pricing model is paid duration ads. Employers can usually estimate the time it takes to attract candidates to either 30, 60, or 90 days. This is the pricing model most associations rely on for non-dues revenue. Be sure to select a pricing model and price point that reflects the value employers are getting for the product they’re buying. Remember: Your members are highly qualified potential candidates in your industry or profession, and your pricing should reflect that.
2. Promote member demographics.
The easiest way for employers to justify their hiring budgets is to see that your job board is an easy and obvious pick. Let employers know more about your members. Don’t be shy about sharing member demographics, regional details, or career titles to show recruiters that your niche job board is the best place to find top talent. Also, highlight the number of registered job seekers, job views, and current job postings on your job board to demonstrate its effectiveness.
3. Offer billable “extras”.
You can drive more revenue by offering employers additional ways to promote their job opportunities on and off your job board. Popular examples of revenue-generating recruitment resources include:
- Career fair booths (virtual or onsite)
- Job alert emails to members and registered job seekers
- Banner ads on your job board
- Sharing job ads on your association’s social media feeds
- Ad space in your monthly e-newsletter
- Recruitment guide ads for your annual conference
4. Provide sponsorship opportunities.
Working with employers to promote their job opportunities through your online career center has another advantage besides the direct sale of job postings and enhancements. Once you have established a relationship with employers, it gives you the opportunity to ask those companies to become sponsors and advertisers with your association.
For example, invite them to sponsor your association’s career events. You can offer them multiple levels of sponsorships that includes things like:
- Branding opportunities in which the sponsor can display their logo to event attendees on signage, the event website, emails, and more.
- Lead opportunities in which sponsors can collect leads through exhibitor booths and product/services demos.
- Networking opportunities in which sponsors can attend a member event or sponsor a networking event so that they can meet and greet attendees.
- Another possibility: Invite employers to become annual association sponsors, offering them packages that include things like advertising in your association’s website and publications, the opportunity to provide sponsored discounts or benefits to your members, and/or the ability to sponsor your association’s content, such as a paper or research study.
Learn more ways to drive revenue from your association’s online career center.
With the right approaches, your online career center can increase non-dues revenue for your association. Learn more about how YM Careers can help your association create a robust online career center that helps you drive new sources of revenue: Request a demo
