Niceboard makes building a profitable niche job board easy and quick. But once your job board is up and running, the real challenge begins–getting employers to post their jobs.
We’ll explore three effective strategies to help you secure those coveted first job postings on your niche job board to get the ball (& revenue) rolling.
Strategy #1: Populate niche jobs from other job platforms
If you don't have any employers posting jobs directly on your board just yet, you can still provide your job seekers with a steady stream of relevant job listings in their niche:
- With Niceboard’s Backfill feature, you can populate your board with filtered job postings from our partner networks such as Appcast, Talroo, Indeed and Ziprecruiter. The custom filtering by country, category and keywords ensures that the only job listings pulled are highly relevant to your niche.
- Imagine this scenario: a job seeker visits your job board for the first time. They are looking for a job as a graphic designer. With the backfill feature, you can provide them with a curated list of graphic designer jobs from trusted partners.
- For employers, a job board with active jobs demonstrates the potential reach and visibility their job listings can achieve on your platform. They can be confident that their job postings will be seen by a large and targeted audience, increasing the likelihood of attracting qualified candidates in their niche.
Strategy #2: Reach out to employers directly
While the backfill feature is a fantastic way to kickstart your job board, you should also actively reach out to employers to encourage them to post their jobs directly on your platform so you can start earning money.
- Cold (but personalized) outreach: start by identifying companies in your niche that are actively recruiting. Research their hiring needs and tailor your pitch accordingly.
Explain how posting their jobs on your board will give them access to a pool of highly qualified and niche-specific candidates (even better if you can negotiate on concrete numbers on the size of your community or traffic).
Tool tip: Use GetProspect to help you find email addresses once you have a contact's name or company. - If you don’t have an existing audience: consider offering free or discounted job postings to the first few employers who sign up. Having some initial employers and jobs will help you establish a reputation as a trusted job board.
- Collaborations and partnerships: look into local industry associations or chambers of commerce in your niche to create mutually beneficial partnerships. By joining forces, you can leverage their network to reach more employers and attract higher-quality job postings.
- Real life events: attend industry events and conferences in your niche to network with potential employers. Make an effort to understand their needs and showcase how your job board can fulfill them.
While building relationships with employers takes time and effort, it will pay off in the long run! Be patient, persistent, and proactive in your approach.
Strategy #3: Build a community and have employers come to you
In addition to reaching out to employers directly, it's helpful to build a niche community around your job board. A thriving and engaged community not only attracts employers but also keeps job seekers coming back, further increasing the value of your platform.
- Encourage job seekers to sign up for email alerts and create profiles on your job board, so they never miss out on new opportunities–both features are built into Niceboard. Offer resources and advice to help job seekers navigate the job search process in your specific niche on a blog.
- When it comes to approaching employers, you can emphasize the value of having direct access to your niche job seeker community. Highlight the benefits of targeting a specific audience, such as higher quality applicants and reduced time and effort in filtering irrelevant applications.
By building a niche community, you might even see employers reaching out to you, eager to tap into your pool of niche talent.