Whether you’re considering starting an association career center for the first time or want to switch to a more capable job board software, this is for you.
Download the summarized checklist here.
When advocating for new technology, it’s important to understand your association’s objectives and challenges. And then communicating how your new career center solution can address and solve these problems.
#1 Job board = member benefit with minimal investment of time or budget
Job opportunities and career development are among the most crucial benefits to members. Hence, job boards are powerful tools to increase member acquisition, retention and engagement, with little upfront investment.
Highlight any conversations from members requesting career advancement resources. You could also do a quick google search for keywords such as [your association’s niche] + jobs. Likely, generic job aggregators like Indeed are dominating the search results. This presents an incredible opportunity for your association to capitalize on this search traffic by having your own career site. Present statistics like search volume, quality of search results, and target keywords to your board as an actionable plan to increase traffic to your association’s site, hence attracting more potential members.
It would be even better if you can present clear goals for the improvement of member retention and acquisition that the job board can help achieve, such as:
- The job board will help us acquire x new paying members within the first quarter of operation.
- We aim at generating x in non-dues revenue through selling job postings to employers within one year.
- We estimate member retention rate to increase by x% through the career center offering.
#2 Highlight revenue potential
Your board will be highly focused on budget and the return of investment (ROI) of any new solution they implement. So if you can prove that with the budget needed to create and maintain the new job board, you can positively impact the association’s bottom line, you will easily convince your board.
And the good news is: job boards are a wonderful way to boost non-dues revenue. As an association, you have an engaged audience of professionals in a specific niche (= your members). Employers will pay to have access to your membership base, via job postings or direct access to a resume database.
To increase revenue further, offering upsells is possible: premium job placement, ads or talent pool access.
#3 Outline marketing strategies to achieve these goals
While you don’t want to get into the minute details of driving revenue and membership metrics, outlining some general strategies to achieve your goals will make your case that much stronger. This will help your board visualize not only the WHY, but also the HOW; building more trust in the solution you’re proposing.
Here are some ideas:
- Content marketing for improved SEO and organic traffic on a career center blogpost, providing resume and interview advice for job seekers.
- Collect job seeker (and potential member) email addresses through a job alerts form on the job board. You will not only own a valuable email list for further marketing, but can also sell advertising spots in your job newsletter.
- Advertise your job board and give regular job updates on your association’s social media platforms. This is a sure way to reach a targeted audience and drive more traffic to your board. If you have a large social media following, employers might be willing to pay you a premium to post their roles on your social media in addition to listing them on your board.
- Leverage job seeker success for your content marketing. Whether it’s encouraging members to share their success stories with your job board, or you writing a blogpost about their journey, this will highlight the value of your association and your commitment to professional growth.
#4 Propose the right job board software
Now it's time to outline which functionalities you need to achieve these goals and apply the marketing strategies mentioned before.
If you are switching from an existing solution, point out the inefficiencies in your current software. If you are proposing a completely new career center, discuss which features are non-negotiable and which are of lower priority. Ideally, you already have a shortlist of software providers with functionalities and pricing ready for easy comparison.
Some crucial features to look for are:
- Customizable appearance to match your brand and domain: it’s important to create a consistent and professional image that seamlessly integrates with your website.
- Job sourcing options: especially when starting out, you might not have enough employers to posting jobs which is where backfill or XML import come in. These allow you to pull jobs from other sites.
- Mobile friendliness: did you know that over 50% of applications are made on a mobile device? You want job seekers and employers be able to go through a whole workflow not only on desktop computer, but also on a phone.
- Payment facilitation for employers: these are your customers, so being able to offer different pricing plans plus upsells and a reliable way to pay on site is key to your success.
- SEO optimizations: organic traffic will be one of your main ways to acquire new job seekers and prospective members. Software that automatically optimizes for SEO will help you reach your traffic goals.
Niceboard is the leading association job board software with modern features—built for increasing your revenue:
- Automated job alerts via email
- Collect email addresses of job seekers for further marketing, including job seeker accounts
- Flexible pricing for employers, from one-time payments to month/yearly subscription, talent pool functionality and employer accounts
- Advanced analytics to report to your board
- Mobile support for a seamless job-seeking experience
Our software is trusted by associations and non-profits across industries, such as AIA Colorado, United Way, and AICAD.
Ready to pitch to your board?