As the role and impact of human resources continues to evolve, we have reached a critical crossroads, driven by the corporate mandate that HR become a more strategic business partner. This includes being strategic about hiring. The trouble is that finding top talent continues to be a challenge for organizations around the world, and talent acquisition professionals are feeling the heat. It’s understandably tempting under such conditions to turn to “new” methods and technologies to meet this challenge. The fact is, though, that what recruiters need to do now is what recruiters have always needed to do, regardless of method: attract talent by getting their jobs (“message”) in front of the right candidates (“audience”) at the right time.
In the race to adopt new recruiting tactics, some might be surprised to learn that job boards remain among the top sources for candidates. Despite what many pundits claim, job boards aren’t dead. It’s important not get stuck on the phrase “job board” and therefore decide it isn’t relevant to today’s recruiting. Job boards are evolving, and they continue to be important channels for job seekers, as recent statistics demonstrate:
- Job boards account for 1 in 6 external hires
- Job boards are proliferating, with over 40,000 niche boards and microsites
- Two-thirds of active job seekers use job boards in their search
As HR organizations more readily embrace recruitment marketing as a key to effective talent acquisition, they’ll see that it requires strategic thought to determine what sources deliver the highest volume of quality candidates for their specific opportunities. This means that all recruitment marketers will employ a mix of several different sources, using everything at their disposal to achieve their objectives. As the infographic shows, that mix continues to include job boards.
