Written by

Frank Aneke

Cons of Job Boards:

Brief Overview: In today’s competitive market, securing top talent is critical to driving growth and maintaining a competitive edge. To recruit top talents, many employers resort to advertising on job boards while others outsource their hiring to recruitment agencies. In this series 2, we will review cons of advertising on job boards. The idea behind the topic is to give us clear view of pros and cons of these two recruiting options.

Here are 20 cons of advertising on job boards:

1. Jobs boards generate interest mostly from active candidates and may not be helpful when an employer require special skills or industry-experienced talent to fill a position.
2. Sifting through many applications generated from job boards could be time-consuming and could sometimes pose significant challenge for employers if they are not using premium services.
3. Recruiting for high-level positions on job boards can be difficult as many C-Level talents rarely surf job boards to submit applications for new positions.
4. Employers who use job boards are obliged to pre-screen all applicants on their own.
5. With job boards, employers are most likely to spend time and resources to negotiate all aspects of the employment offer, including salary, relocation, benefits, and much more.
6. With so many job seekers applying for the same positions, it can be difficult for top-tier talents to stand out from the crowd.
7. Many Job boards do not update their listings quickly when positions are filled which can be frustrating for job seekers who spend time applying for jobs that are already taken.
8. Some employers deliberately use job boards as means to collect resumes from unsuspecting candidates by posting vacancies that do not exist in their business.
9. Most job board advertisements do not have Give and Get job description that include realities of the role and attributes of the workplace culture. These can make it difficult for candidates to know if a particular job is truly a good fit.
10. One of the key downsides of job boards is that employers do not have control over who can apply for the posted positions, which most times generate an army of improbable candidates.
11. Most advertised positions on job boards with screening questions on quick apply methods are often manipulated by savvy candidates.
12. A number of job boards allow employers to post openings for free, but then charge per month, per resume download, and/or per application.
13. Some jobs board offer robust plans with multiple postings on several sites with ample user seats for a full team which could inadvertently become more expensive than hiring a recruitment firm.
14. With job boards, employers are expected to write compelling job descriptions to attract right candidates and these can take significant time and copy-writing skills.
15. Most resumes generated from job boards are mostly tailored to search based on AI with no opportunity for an industry-specialised recruiter to handpick the best among the rest.
16. Another limiting factor is that employers get active candidates who are looking for a change. This means that employers could post on job board and pray that a top-tier talent could have a bad day and apply, or attract applications from candidates who serially job hop.
17. Job boards traditionally provide the mechanism for posting job openings and the ability to filter applications based on set criteria. There is no intermediary to appropriately promote employers’ offers and workplace culture in the right way to target talents.
18. Most employers who use job boards are expected to have their own internal hiring team or dedicated manager(s) who constantly review, screen, and interview applicants.
19. Many employers do not get their job post right from start.  If the post is written too broadly, employers will attract more candidates without the needed level of skills and experience.
20. Majority of the job boards now have company review section which enable candidates to anonymously review employers. These reviews are mostly reputation damaging experience by applicants and former employees.  

Despite the cons of advertising on job boards, many employers in Australia successfully hire their employees from advertising their vacancies on job boards. Having said that, seeking to attract industry-experienced talents via advertising on job boards is usually a case of hit and miss. Employers can never be sure of the quality of talent that will respond to their job advert at any given time. This blog edition concludes the review of advertising on job boards. Thanks for reading my blog.

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In the next edition, we will highlight the Pros of Recruitment Agencies: Watch this space!!