Last updated on March 30th, 2023 at 07:34 pm
Monster.com is estimated to generate $116 Million in revenue annually.
Glassdoor is estimated to make $276 Million.
And, Indeed is believed to be at $3.2 Billion.
With the amount of traffic they get and the revenue numbers they generate, you may believe that the market is cornered and the opportunities for your own job search website have evaporated.
You’d be wrong.
As far as side hustles go, building a site for jobs online could be an interesting and extremely lucrative opportunity. Let’s get started.
Job Board: What’s the opportunity?
Previous generations used to stick to the mantra of “find a good job and stick with it”. There was the belief that if you were employed by a large company that provided a steady paycheck, then you had “security”.
This is no longer the case.
Workers today have entered the job market in the Great Recession of 2008 and a global pandemic in 2020. The expectation for “security” is no longer a reality and this has shaped the employment habits for the next generation.
According to CareerBuilder, we’re seeing the rise of job hopping with the average millennial staying in a job for just under 3 years and the average Gen Z employee staying on for just over two years.
And, with the Great Resignation and the rise of the gig economy, an increasing number of people are eschewing the traditional workforce altogether in favor of short-term contracts and freelance work.
These trends are here for the foreseeable future. And, employers are beginning to answer the call of a new breed of worker, creating jobs that align with the desire to be a part of a company that features the benefits of work-life balance and more fulfillment in the workplace.
The Department of Labor listed that there were more than 11M job openings in the US as of Q2 of last year. They would lead you to believe that there’s a worker shortage, but job searches are up 9% compared to previous periods. This says people are looking for jobs, but they want to work with companies that provide wages that keep up with the rising cost of living while simultaneously offering purpose and fulfillment.
This is where you step in and create a job board that may not rival Indeed, but can help people in their job search and you on your way to 6-, 7-, and 8-figures.
The opportunity lies in creating a niche job board. I’ll repeat it for those in the back.
Create a niche job board.
The unbundling of Craigslist led to the rise of dozens of new, smaller sites that eventually became bigger sites because they were better equipped to handle specific categories like general labor (TaskRabbit), housing (Airbnb), cars (Carvana), and more.
The same is happening in the world of online job boards.
There are massive generalists like Indeed and Monster that are being unbundled by the likes of websites like The Muse (for creative jobs) and Hired (for tech jobs).
The opportunity for you is to create a job board that’s focused on a specific industry, location, or type of worker.
When you create a niche job board, you have the ability to tap into a passionate audience who will use your site on a regular basis because it’s the best and only option for them.
This focus will also help you create better relationships with the employers who are looking to hire in your niche as they’ll see you as an expert in that field which will, in turn, lead to more job postings and revenue for your site.
For example, serial entrepreneur, Pieter Levels, founded RemoteOK when he wanted to push the growing trend in remote hiring… and it’s taking off.
According to Ahrefs, RemoteOK receives more than 181K+ site visits every month.
And Levels builds in public. According to his numbers, he is able to generate more than $1M/yr. in revenue with a super sexy 93% gross margin (77% net margin).
But, this isn’t the only example of niche job boards. There are countless more (i.e. AllRetailJobs for retail job seekers and Construction Jobs for construction job seekers) and countless more to be made.
How to create a job board website?
Great question.
We want to make building your online job board as easy as possible. You know RemoteOK above? It’s a no code website that uses Airtable → Webflow. We’re going to do the same thing.
That’s right, no web development. In just a few steps, you’ll have your own job board up and running in no time.
#1 – Identify your target audience
Before digging into the technical aspect, you’ll want to identify your target audience. In order to create a job board that resonates, you need to know who your end user will be.
Ask yourself where you see an opportunity. Where is there an abundance of job seekers, but not enough job listings? Do you want to build a site for people in the restaurant industry? Or perhaps it’s a job board specifically for college students seeking internships?
Niche down. There are riches in the niches.
Now that you have your job seekers in mind, you’ll want to build your niche job board website.
#2 – Set up your base on Airtable
Airtable is a great way to create a job board because it’s relatively easy to use and you don’t need to be a coder to set it up. You can create all sorts of custom fields for your job postings, which makes it really flexible.
To get started, create a new base (or project)
In the first column, create a “Company” field. This is where you’ll input the name of the company that’s hiring.
In the first column, create a “Logo” field. This is where you’ll input the logo of the company that’s hiring.
In the third column, create a “Position” field. This is where you’ll input the title of the position that’s being hired for.
In the fourth column, add “Location”. This is where you’ll input the location of the position that’s being hired for.
And in the fifth column, create a “Link” field. This is where you’ll input the link to the job listing (note: you’ll likely want to use a link tracking platform like bitly in order to determine how much traffic you’re sending from your MVP)
You can add as many or as few fields as you want, but these are the bare minimum that you’ll need to create a functioning MVP (‘minimum viable product’) job board.
#3 – Identify your data source
Now that you’ve set up your Airtable base, it’s time to identify your data sources and populating your Airtable. For simplicity, I started with Linkedin.
Let’s assume we’re building for college students who are looking for internships. Searching the job title “intern” with the location set to ‘United States’ in ‘Jobs’ on Linkedin returned more than 37K+ results.
We can simply copy and paste at this stage, but the primary goal is to know where you’re going to get your initial data to begin building from.
#4 – Set up your Webflow page
Creating a job board with Webflow is relatively simple. I recommend that you use Webflow’s job board templates as a starting point. Personally, I prefer the “Jobs” template by Brix.
#5 – Map Airtable to Webflow
Think of both platforms as a CMS (‘content management system’). If you’re collecting a data set, then you’ll have headers for each column (see step #2 above).
In order to have this work appropriately, you’ll want to ensure that the headers in both platforms align. Note, this needs to be exact. However, mapping the two platforms is as simple as that. (in-depth tutorials from Webflow can be found here)
#6 – Sync the two platforms
In order to transfer data from your website (Webflow) to your data (Airtable), you’ll need to use something like Zapier which transfers data seamlessly. Zapier can be a bit more complex, so if you’d like a simpler method, you can use a tool like Whalesync which allows for two-way syncing between the two platforms quickly and easily.
#7 – Market to your job seekers
Field of Dreams doesn’t exist in the land of side hustles and startups. Just because you build it doesn’t mean they’ll come. This is why you have to cast your line where the fish are (or ensure your job posting is where the job seekers are).
The more eyeballs you can attract > the more feedback you get > the more improvements you make > the more money you earn.
Using the goal of posting jobs on an internship only job board. Ask yourself where your audience hangs out. Knowing that Ivy League schools have ample intern opportunities, could you partner with business programs at the top 50 public colleges? Could you get college students to be brand ambassadors and pay them a commission for every job booked?
#8 – Earn your first 7-figures
You’ve built the site. You’ve marketed appropriately. You’re well on the way. Congratulations!
FAQ
What are the top job boards?
According to US News the top 15 job sites are:
- Indeed.
- LinkedIn.
- Glassdoor.
- Google for Jobs.
- CareerBuilder.
- Monster.
- U.S. News job search site.
- FlexJobs.
- LinkUp.
- SimplyHired.
- ZipRecruiter.
Do job boards make money?
Is a job board profitable? Most job boards require a fee for posting a job advertisement. For example, Monster charges employers $285 to post a full-time position and $200 to post part-time jobs. It is then a responsibility to pay the provider 10% of the total salary paid.
Conclusion
Building a job board can be a great way to make money serious money while helping people find their dream job. Make sure that you niche down and focus on your end user, build your site in a lightweight manner (think MVP), and effectively market to your ideal customer and you have a winner on your hands.