According to Statista, the global job board market size was valued at $22.3 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $31.5 billion by 2026.
Even with those staggering numbers, job seekers still struggle to find opportunities that match their skills and experience, especially if the roles being sought are freelance roles or fall within a certain industry or niche.
The issues are not just limited to jobseekers. Employers face difficult challenges in filling open positions and can struggle to find qualified or experienced candidates. To close the gap, niche job boards can successfully connect employers and job seekers with a highly targeted platform that specialises in specific areas of employment.
What is a niche job board?
A niche job board is a platform that focuses solely on a particular industry, profession, or geographic location. By targeting a specific niche, job boards can provide more relevant job listings for job seekers and attract highly qualified candidates for employers.
Starting a job board can be a lucrative business opportunity for entrepreneurs who are passionate about a particular industry or profession. With almost unlimited opportunities for niche job board ideas, there is plenty of room in the market for new niche board owners.
What are the benefits of a niche job board?
Starting a niche job board offers several advantages over traditional, more generalised job boards. Focusing on a specific industry or profession means that a niche job board attracts a targeted audience of job seekers and employers.
This targeted audience is more likely to find job listings and opportunities that are relevant to their particular field or area of expertise, leading to higher user engagement and better job placement rates.
Employee referrals are the biggest source of candidate placement and the big, well-known job boards like Indeed and Linkedin are close behind, making it difficult for broad employment sites to gain any traction in a head-to-head competition.
A niche job board, with its streamlined focus, can sidestep this direct competition and gain a foothold in the market more easily. As it is dedicated to a specific area, a niche board can develop valuable expertise in its industry or targeted profession. This expertise can be leveraged in the form of advice, coaching, or blogs to provide better services to job seekers and employers, such as career advice or the latest industry news.
Along with offering different services a niche job board provides a better user experience, incorporating tools like customisable search filters and industry-specific job categories, making it easier for users to find relevant listings.
For those who launch a job board, there are plenty of opportunities to make money. Niche job boards can charge higher fees for job listings and other services because they provide specialised services and attract a highly engaged audience. This supports higher revenue and earning potential with good value offered to both employer and job seeker.
How to start your own niche job board
Set up your niche job board website by buying a domain, and choosing a name. There are also plenty of free job-related themes available to use. However, there are some other things that will need to be taken into account before you launch.
Depending on your technical ability you may need someone to help you build your new niche job site and you will need to consider things like how to pull in job listings using a job aggregators, or what kind of payment gateway you will use to charge for posted jobs.
If your site is to be a membership or subscription-based service then you will need to manage recurring payments and cancellations. Fortunately, there are tools available on the market to help you handle job posting and member management.
Try services like -
- WP Job Manager
- Go Fetch Jobs
- MemberPress
- Membership Works
Your new job website should be user-friendly and easy to navigate for both job seekers and employers. Choose a website platform that is easy to use and has features that are designed to support to job boards. Your design should be professional, user-friendly, and reflect the branding of the niche.
Make sure that your site is easy to navigate and that job seekers are able to filter job listings by keywords, location, or other relevant criteria. Employers should be able to easily find the listing page and add their open positions easily. Features like resume posting, an employee directory, and job alerts all add to the experience.
Consider offering different pricing plans based on the number of job listings or length of time that jobs are advertised for, and for job seekers, monthly, annual, or lifetime subscriptions can be offered.
Market Research
It's important to choose a job niche that is in high demand and has a substantial number of job seekers and employers. The niche should also address any specific skills or qualifications that employers are seeking.
Research industries or professions that are growing or have a high demand for jobs. Research the job market within your chosen niche to get a better understanding of the current demand for jobs and the types of positions that are available.
Open job positions by industry
Identify the needs of employers and job seekers. Conduct surveys or interviews with employers and job seekers to identify their needs and pain points. Look at other niche job boards within the industry and identify their strengths and weaknesses. Find ways to differentiate your job board and attract your audience.
Marketing and Promotion
Once you have built your shiny new niche job board website, the next step is to market and promote it to attract job seekers and employers. You will need to get traffic to your site if it is to generate revenue so you will need to develop a marketing strategy to attract site visitors.
You can advertise your site in a number of ways including social media, email marketing, and search engine optimization. If you have a budget to work with then consider using some low-cost targeted ads to get your job board in front of your target audience.
Promote your job board to job seekers and employers with attention-grabbing posts, relevant hashtags, and post engaging blog content related to your niche to attract followers. Search engine optimization including on-page and technical SEO will help your site to rank higher in search results pages.
With niche sites being so narrowly focused, you can benefit from partnering with industry associations and organizations in your niche to promote the job board to their members and you can always sweeten the deal with a discount or exclusive offer.
Revenue Channels
For most entrepreneurs, the whole point of building a niche job board is to monetise it and generate revenue. A niche job board is really versatile in the ways that it can generate income and developing multiple streams is entirely possible.
With job board software predicting year-over-year growth until 2030, it is clear that job board ownership is a viable business model.
Channels that niche job boards can use to make revenue include -
- Subscription fees
A monthly or annual subscription fee to post job listings on the job board.
- Featured job listings
An option to feature their job listings at the top of search results for an additional fee.
- Job seeker services
Charge a fee for resume writing, career counseling, or interview preparation
- Advertising
Display ads placed on the job listings and website pages
Legal Considerations
Starting a niche job board is a lot of fun, and it can be financially rewarding, but it also comes with some legal considerations that site owners will need to keep in mind.
Data privacy and security
With laws and legal requirements getting tighter around data and data protection you will need to ensure that your niche job board complies with data privacy and security regulations. This could include regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
Terms of service and privacy policy
To protect yourself and users of the job board terms of service and privacy policy will both be needed. Outline the terms and conditions for job seekers and employers using the website and explain how their data is collected and used. This may also include information about your complaints procedure.
Key takeaways
If you are interested or have experience in a particular industry or profession you can earn money by providing a platform that meets the needs of job seekers and employers. Niche job boards offer a valuable service to the job market and serve the needs of those looking for work and companies sourcing candidates.
- Niche job boards can provide higher-quality applications for employers.
- Job seekers prefer to use niche job boards to find job opportunities.
- Niche job boards can charge higher fees for targeted job listings.
- Multiple monetization channels are available
- The number of online job boards is predicted to increase through 2030