How to get the most out of your job board

When hiring, it’s important to maximise the tools that are available to you. Many companies will use job boards to source great candidates and advertise their roles; but how can you actually ensure that you’re getting the most out of the platform you’re using?

The job market is constantly changing and new trends are emerging year in, year out. For this reason, it’s important to understand how you can stand out from the crowd and ensure that you’re hiring the right people for your vacancies.

In this guide, we draw upon our expertise to provide some top tips on how to get the most out of your job board.

Get the basics right with your job adverts

Candidates will search for jobs with strict criteria in mind. Even in the current market where more people are looking for work than ever before. Professionals know what they want and will be looking for a role that ticks all the boxes.

In fact, our data shows that 91.6% of candidates say that, when scanning job descriptions, there are certain factors that they look out for. The most popular aspects include location (81.4%), salary (77.6%), job title (43.8%), working hours (41.7%) and flexible working (22.5%).

What’s more, we found that 51.7% of people will not apply for a job if it doesn’t mention any of these aspects. So, it’s crucial that you get the basics right by including a common job title, accurate location and, if possible, the salary.

Further analysis of job postings on our site shows that job adverts that display a salary receive 28.5% more applications than average. Plus, candidates are more likely to apply for a job with a shorter and easy-to-read job title; with titles under 20 characters attracting 40% more applications than those with over 30 characters.

Finally, we found that job adverts that display a postcode, town and county will attract 47% more applications than ones that don’t.

All job boards will give you the option to display these factors; plus, sites like CV-Library will offer tips to help improve your adverts when you upload your job to the job posting form. This includes advice on the length of your job title, the benefits of displaying a salary, and the optimum length of a job advert.

Boost your adverts with additional features

In some cases, you may benefit from investing in more premium products to boost your adverts even further. This is particularly useful if you want to showcase your employer brand when hiring.

Using eye-catching imagery in your job adverts, as well as interesting video content, can help to engage candidates; especially if it provides insights on the job role and what the company is like to work for.

Plus, our analysis tells us that 43% of candidates are more likely to apply to a job with video content. Most job boards will have an option for you to embed your videos into your adverts.

It’s worth looking into other features that can help to push your adverts further. For example, targeted email campaigns ensure that your job postings reach the most relevant candidates; and site-wide advertising can promote your jobs throughout the candidate’s journey on the job board.

Search smartly when sourcing candidates

One of the other main benefits of using a job board is that you can access millions of candidate details via their CV Databases. However, we know that a lot of hiring professionals struggle with CV search as it can be time-consuming; plus, it’s difficult to get to grips with the Boolean method of searching.

Fortunately, more job boards are recognising this and are developing their CV Search technology to make it even easier to find relevant candidates. At CV-Library for example, we’ve introduced a Search Builder which helps users to build effective search strings.

With this tool, Boolean operators are automatically added to searches, and can easily be changed, users can add related terms and synonyms which appear as they type; plus, the tool will add brackets in the right places. You can even view CV matches in real-time to see how effective your search is.

It’s not always easy to think of different variations of the job title you’re hiring for; but it’s important to use a range of different keywords and search terms as this can help you to yield even better results.

Integrate your job board with other recruitment tools

It’s understandable that most companies will use several different platforms to manage their hiring process. But, being able to link them all together can help to make your recruitment efforts much more streamlined.

Fortunately, more job boards are integrating with recruitment software providers to help users get the most out of their platforms. At CV-Library for example, we work with companies like idibu to give its users access to our unrivalled CV Database, directly through their CRM.

Within idibu, all users need to do is select the CV-Library trial board, along with their existing CV sources, when entering their search criteria. Complete any additional options to fine tune their search, and then click ‘Search selected CV databases’. That’s it!

Existing CV-Library clients can log-in and download CVs directly from idibu, while non-existing clients will only be able to view a redacted version of the CV until they become a customer.

Get the most out of your job board

Overall, these are just some of the ways that you can get the most out of your job board. Aside from Job Posting and CV Search, there are many additional tools and features that can help with your hiring efforts; depending on what platform you’re using.

Plus, don’t forget to see if you can integrate your job board with any other recruitment software you’re using to help streamline your hiring process.