Every December and January, as the calendar flips to the next year, companies’ costs on the job boards increases. They swallow hard. They bite their tongues. But they accept it and move on, adjusting that budget because it’s a necessary cost of doing business.
But is it?
Let’s dig into an action plan of what your company should do when your job board costs increase and even when they stay consistent.
Let’s Talk Job Slots
This job board tactic is the easiest to evaluate, and it’s the easiest place to see a price increase. The first step is to understand your cost per application with job slots because it’s usually not front and center.
Let’s walk through an example:
- Staffing Company ABC has a $2,000 monthly agreement for 20 job slots. In the last 3 months, the company averaged 500 applications. Doing the math, $6,000 in spend and 1,500 applications results in a $4/CPA.
- The 25% increase raises the monthly cost to $2,500. Collecting 500 applications per month leads to a new CPA of $5!
Now – is your company OK with those results? Is the increase in cost still delivering enough ROI?
Action Plan: Understand your CPA on job slots. Evaluate their effectiveness. Consider moving to a cost per click (CPC) model.
Evaluate Job Titles, Application Process, Salary, Job Description
Every dollar continues to be more vital in this economic climate, so it’s important to maximize conversions when candidates find your open jobs. There are a number of areas to evaluate on your job postings to make sure you land the right candidates.
- Job Titles – Do your jobs feature the title that candidates are searching? Leverage Indeed Hiring Insights to see what people are searching in your geographic area. Change your titles to what your candidates are searching. (also look at your competitors’ titles)
- Application Process – What does your candidate need to do to fill out an initial application? Walk through that process on desktop and mobile. Think about what your candidates have at their disposal when searching for jobs on a mobile device. You don’t want to increase friction – you want to make it easier!
- Salary – First, you should be including salary in every post. Data shows more candidates apply to jobs with salary compared to jobs without. Second – make sure your salary is competitive in your market. Benchmark on Indeed / LinkedIn with competitors. Do research in databases. Look at your own results and find trends on application behavior.
- Job Description – Always think WIIFM (what’s in it for me) for the job candidate. With so many open jobs, candidates have option. If all you are posting is a boring job description, it’s not going to be engaging. If you can make the post engaging and show why it stands out from other jobs, then you will find the right candidates for your openings.
Action Plan: Evaluate each part of your job posting and application process. Reduce friction as much as possible for someone to apply. Make it easy to find your jobs. Share the salary.
Did the Budget Really Have to Increase?
Here’s a story I can share. We have clients that hear from job boards where their job board rep literally called and said, “You have to increase your budget by $1,000.” The company feels pressured. Why? They know active candidates are vital to placements in the staffing industry. The company doesn’t fully understand their options, so they have to accept the increase.
Let’s break it down.
Some job boards say it’s an increase to keep your service at a certain level. It could be placement of your sponsored jobs on the actual results. It could be service from the company and their representatives. It has nothing to do with the actual cost per click and cost per application. At Haley Marketing, we’ve been managing job spend for more than four years and have never told a client they were mandated to increase their job board spend.
Understanding how the budgets work at job boards is really important. You always control your budget. No one else controls your budget. Work with people you can trust and who understand your industry. They will help you make the best decisions.
Talk to the Team at Haley Marketing
The recruitment marketing team at Haley Marketing evaluates job board data and provides honest feedback on what’s in the spreadsheets. We’d love to do that for you!
Contact our team today and let us know if you would like our recruitment marketing experts to look at your data and provide feedback on what’s working and what needs to be improved.
