

Ask HN: Building a job board. Worth the time? - Omnipresent

As idea's are a dime a dozen and what really matters is the execution, I wanted to share mine and get opinion.
There are a lot of job boards out there but most charge big dime to post a job. Following are 30 day job posting costs:
Dice - $479
SO - $350
GitHub - $300
37Signals - $400<p>So when a small company wants to post a job, and for less money...they either start by reaching out to their network first and then end up posting jobs on craigslist ($25 for 30 days).<p>I want to get HN communities opinion on whether it would make sense to invest time in making a job board that concentrates only on small businesses, provides them features comparable to dice but still at the price of craigslist.  Also, the motto of "do no evil" aka "don't sell candidates to recruiters" would be utilized.<p>What's your opinion?
======
michael_dorfman
Two problems: the classic chicken-and-egg problem, coupled with trying to
differentiate yourself on price. Even for small businesses, $500 is a trivial
cost when compared to the benefit of making a good hire, and anyone not
willing to pay that is probably not going to be a very attractive employer.

~~~
Omnipresent
I understand the chicken-and-egg problem but I have some contacts that would
be willing to post jobs up there to begin with. You are correct that if an
employer is not willing to spend $500 to post a job then they are not
attractive. However, still everyday I see an increasing number of jobs being
posted (for IT field) on cragislist. There must be something attracting those
employers/employees?

~~~
michael_dorfman
Job listings on Craigslist are part of a general-purpose, locally targeted
system. That's different than a special-purpose, globally targeted system
(like Dice).

The question I'd be asking myself is: what "special sauce" do I have that is
going to help me attract more programmers looking for work than, say, the
StackOverflow job board.

If you can crack that nut, you don't really need to worry about pricing.

------
KoZeN
The success of a job board is based entirely on it's ability to attract
candidates. So you've designed a decent site, priced yourself competitively
now how are you going to attract a huge amount of candidates?

The other drawback of cheaper job boards is that more senior candidates tend
to avoid them due to the assumptive association that they are essentially
cattle marts for employers to find low quality talent.

 _don't sell candidates to recruiters_

Most job boards, particularly smaller job boards, rely on recruitment agencies
as their primary source of income. You would be missing out on a huge market
here.

~~~
Omnipresent
point well taken on sr. candidates not applying. not selling candidates to
recruiters was a way to attract candidates to post their CV's. This way they
would be safe from spam about jobs 600 miles away from them.

------
kingsidharth
It's worth the time if you are sure you can give it something special. But you
can't know for sure till you build it. So ship and see.

Even if it fails, it will add to your experience.

~~~
Omnipresent
I like that. Intend on doing this. thanks

