HN Explorer

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

2 points by Omnipresent ↗ HN
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

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).

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.

What's your opinion?

7 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 15.1 ms ] thread
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