From classifieds in newspapers to full-fledged digital platforms on the Internet, job boards have come a long way in serving the employment industry. With job boards loading candidates with job feed, searching and applying for a job is only a click away. But the real question is – is the process of landing yourself your dream job or company just a click away too?

A report by the United Nations labor agency predicted that although the overall global economy will depict a modest growth in 2018, the total number of unemployed people will likely remain high – at about 192 million. A major factor for the discrepancy between a growing economy and the high unemployment rate can be the unavailability of the ‘right’ job feed with the candidates.

Why the need for job boards that can read minds

Job boards are websites that collate millions of job openings on a single platform. They help in expanding a company’s reach to a wider audience. Until now, they focused only on the professional requirements of job assistance. They posted the job details acquired from the employers on their sites for candidates to evaluate and apply. However, with an expanding global network of companies looking for skilled labor, proficient in multiple domains of the corporate ecosystem, the process of finding a job has evolved to become a complicated proposal of skills, requirements, and demands from both, the candidate and the employer. Keeping the changing dynamics in mind, job feeds need to be more psychologically attuned, today, to do justice to the aspirations of candidates.

We all have been through the phase of job-hunting at least once in our lifetime. Starting from finding ourselves the right position in an industry by narrowing down a job title or position, to building a resume that reflects our skills, to the final step of collecting as many relevant listings on the feed, the entire process can be a little daunting. Candidates, amidst the anxiety to find the right job as soon as possible, look for job boards that can empathize with the urgency they’re experiencing. Therefore, making a job board’s interface simple, interactive, and ‘candidate-oriented’ by displaying job feeds that are most pertinent to a candidate’s interest will make a job board a ‘popular’ job board.

How a job board can optimize its job feed

To serve the needs of a candidate, the job board needs to think like one. While most job boards focus on smooth user experience, with an attractive user interface, they also need to look into the functionality of their site to provide candidates with efficient tools resulting in relevant job search results. Whether you are an inclusive job board that covers all domains of the economy or a niche job board specializing in a particular type of job feed, remember that a job search that starts well will end well. Optimizing job acquisitions with detailed descriptions, enabling flexibility for customization, and finally an easy and a quick application process are some ways in which a job board can best cater to a candidate’s needs.

Optimized job listings

A job seeker turns to a job board to look for the latest job openings available in the market. A job board must, therefore, make it a priority to offer optimized job openings to a candidate. Most job boards allow candidates to set up their profiles on the website. The job feed on a candidate’s dashboard is then optimized according to the interests on the candidate’s profile. By matching the keywords a candidate searches for, job boards can implement efficient algorithms to extrapolate similar results for their job hunt. What this does is that it eases the effort a candidate has to make to find appropriate jobs.

Another aspect that job boards can work on is the alerts feature. A candidate will keep coming back to you only if you offer a regular service that updates candidates whenever a new job posting is up on the website. Job boards can invest in a notification system to inform the candidates about the latest jobs in the market. Thus, a candidate can rely on such a job board that offers a well-curated, personalized job feed and a notification system that reduces the obsolescence of a job.

Detailed job description

Shakespeare might have questioned the significance of a name, but with job boards, the name says it all.

The first thing a candidate looks for in a job listing is the title of the post. So, keeping in mind the importance of first impressions, a job board should pay special attention to the titles of the job openings on its website. Candidates are more likely to choose listings that give them a clear idea of the job profile.

The descriptive factor extends to the job details. Mentioning details of the job like the location, tenure, contract specifications, roles and responsibilities, candidate pre-requisites, along with the key skills required, and most importantly, the date of the job posting optimizes a job listing while providing the candidate a complete insight into the position. While a lot of jobs offered on a job board come up in the search results, only the ones with a comprehensive description are more likely to be opted for by the candidates. An incomplete job listing would waste not only a job board’s resources in posting it but also a candidate’s time and effort in pursuing it.

Flexible job customization

A job seeker may have specific conditions in mind while looking for a job. The specifications may be regarding the type of job (freelance, full-time, or part-time), location and posting of the role, and the experience level. A job board should allow a candidate to tweak the search results around these filters to obtain fine-tuned job prospects. A skill-based filter is essential for a niche job board that deals with jobs from a particular domain of the industry.

Picking out a handful of such job listings that qualify a candidate’s requirements can lead to better results both, for the candidate and the job board. A job board should provide facilities that enable the candidate to narrow down the job feed to the most relevant ones that the candidate can apply for immediately.

Hassle-free job application

You may successfully generate a well-curated job list for a candidate that pertains to his skills and caters to his needs. However, the candidate doesn’t have hours to spend on each job application. He would love a smooth rolling mechanism that completes a job application with the minimum number of clicks required.

A job board can implement hassle-free job application forms, which do not require the candidates to answer too many questions. Most job boards provide their users with the facility to upload and save resumes for a quick retrieval as and when needed. This ensures a one-time detail entry by the candidate, which reduces hassle and minimizes the risk of error. Mobile applications for job boards can leverage the policy of ‘one-click application’ to ease the final step of the job hunt. Candidates may prefer applying to various profiles that may differ from one another. In such cases, an inbuilt system of resume database can allow the candidate to select and send an appropriate version of their resume to a company.

Some other ways in which a job board can tune its system to candidate needs include social media integration, SEO optimization of current job postings, and keeping up to date with the current industry trends to list relevant jobs in a candidate’s job feed. Such endeavors will not only boost a job board’s standing in the market but will also contribute to revenue by building a trustworthy environment that a candidate is willing to pay for. There is such software available that performs data automation to build reliable job feeds for the latest jobs in the market. Software like Propellum also helps balance the employer-candidate equation by narrowing down job listings for an applicant, which in turn helps an employer select the right candidate for their company.