For both employers and jobseekers, there are a wealth of options available for recruitment advertising or finding and applying for jobs. In almost all cases, there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution for either an employer looking to find the perfect candidate or a jobseeker looking for their dream job, and often it’s necessary to use a combination of methods to achieve a positive outcome.
One such method is to use niche job boards, which focus on more specific groups of job seekers and employers of those jobseekers than ‘all and sundry’ advertising methods, such as advertising on the likes of Indeed or similar platforms. In our case, we have five specialist job boards, two focussing on early talent and the remaining three on diverse talent attraction. The five sites and the jobseekers they are focussed on are:
Early Talent:
Employing an Apprentice – those looking for apprenticeships or traineeships
Developing a Student – students, graduates and interns looking for work
Diverse Talent:
Careers with Disabilities – individuals living with mental, physical or other disabilities
Refreshing a Career – older/returning workers, ex-military, ex-offenders, homeless jobseekers and career changers
Aspiring to Include – jobseekers that identify based on gender, race, religion and sexual orientation such as LGBTQ+, ethnic minorities, women, migrants and refugees
There are many reasons why jobseekers and employers both choose to use niche job boards such as the Embracing Future Potential Careers Network, but we’ve summarised the ten most common ones we hear about our network below, with five on why employers choose us, and five on why jobseekers do too.
Five reasons why employers choose us:
1. We complement and broaden existing talent attraction strategies
In a rapidly changing and competitive labour market, a broad, diverse and ever-evolving recruitment strategy is essential. Our careers network will be a vital part of any employer’s talent attraction plans, attracting a broad range of underrepresented candidates who may not be picked up on other career platforms. It also offers other ingredients to the strategy, such as the ability to enhance employer brand by associating with sites focusing on specific, often under-represented groups of people, and imparting a positive candidate experience will provide candidates with the ability to find the role on a site which aligns with their needs and values.
Every employer who works with us obtains a certificate and permission to use our logos as evidence of an organisation devoted to inclusivity in its recruitment practices, which has many benefits, including demonstrating competency to progress with certain accreditations and schemes such as the Disability Confident.
2. We offer fantastic value for money
With the average recruitment cost of filling a single vacancy using internal or external recruitment methods reckoned to be around £4,500 on average, our network offers phenomenal value for money, with premium job adverts coming in at £99 each or less with our generous bulk buying discounts. We are cheaper than virtually all other UK niche job boards, and with a large and growing user base, consisting of over 500,000 unique visitors, social media followers, e-shot subscribers, and registered jobseekers each year, as well as organically featuring on page one of Google for a whole array of valuable early and inclusive career related search terms, we offer the potential for a fantastic return on investment.
3. We make job posting and application management easy
We offer a variety of job vacancy posting options, including bulk uploading options, job scaping tools and integration with various applicant tracking software (ATS) and talent attraction platforms, such as Broadbean, and are always willing to look at bespoke solutions through API integration, RSS feeds or other means to make job advert posting and management as easy as possible.
In addition, we offer the ability to have candidates taken to the employer’s own careers page to complete the application process to ensure organisations can offer a consistent candidate experience and job screening process. Finally, each live job vacancy an employer posts is optimised to be picked up by as many job aggregators as possible, such as Google Jobs, to maximise its exposure to relevant jobseekers.
4. We offer much more than job adverts
Our services go beyond just job adverts and offer other ways to support employers’ recruitment strategies or employer brands. Organisations can have a dedicated company profile linked to all their live job vacancies, be included in or have their own an e-shot distributed to our subscriber list, be featured in social media posts across our social media channels, get an article written and published about them or a topic they’re passionate about. They can also access pay-per-click advertising to boost their roles, have their job adverts screened for inclusive language, or even become our platform’s main partner for a period of time and take pride of place in everything we publish!
Due to the wealth of resources our site creates for jobseekers, employers and others, we are featured on a whole host of partner sites that signpost their users to our sites when they’re looking for career support; such as Scope for our Careers with Disabilities site, which helps attract even more jobseekers to our sites.
5. We care, and never stop looking to improve what we do
We make more investment in our 2 early talent or 3 inclusive talent job boards than most other UK specialist job board providers, whether that’s changing the way we do things or adding new features, which is why our sites continue to grow month in, month out. But, most importantly of all, we genuinely care. We formed the business to enable employers to connect with talented people at risk of being left behind by traditional recruitment methods – which is why we always go the extra mile to make that connection happen!
Five reasons why jobseekers choose us:
6. We focus on each jobseeker as an individual
Our sites, and the resources and opportunities they provide, are targeted at supporting specific types of jobseekers, and are all about them and their unique needs as an individual – not just anyone. Jobseekers can use our sites with confidence, knowing that employers chose to promote their opportunities on our site because they are specifically looking for someone like them and want to provide opportunities for often-overlooked or under-appreciated candidates in the UK.
7. We offer a better chance of being hired
Applying for jobs can be fatiguing for jobseekers. We only work with employers who are looking to provide equal opportunities for all, and who can demonstrate inclusive recruitment practices. If a job or employer doesn’t align with what our site is about, they will not feature on our site. This gives jobseekers comfort that if they see an employer advertising a job on our site, not only is the job right for them, but the employer has taken the time to look for platforms which focus on the group of people the jobseeker identifies as, and that investing the time to apply for that job is worth the effort.
8. We don’t just advertise jobs; we educate and support
We don’t just advertise jobs; we educate and support candidates and really care about each jobseeker getting the right job for them. We have over a thousand pages of free resources, such as how-to guides, blogs, and other pages to help educate and support our users with finding a new job and opening up new career paths and opportunities. We are constantly updating our resources and publishing new content daily, and we proactively encourage jobseekers to read them through our regular social media posts, newsletters and e-shots.
9. We are accessible and inclusive, and don’t put up barriers
We don’t force sign-ups on candidates applying to vacancies on any of our job boards or pressure jobseekers into providing personal data to access the opportunities we promote. Each and every resource we produce for a jobseeker is and always will be completely free. We don’t spam jobseekers with marketing or unnecessary emails. We are committed to ensuring the information on our sites is accessible and inclusive to all, and as well as publishing new and updating existing content, we are always growing our partner network of like-minded organisations and charities who can spread the word about the great work we do to our shared demographic.
10. Our site is user-friendly
Our jobs board offers more filter options to tailor their job search than any other jobs board in the UK, allowing jobseekers to narrow down their search and find the most relevant vacancies for them. Registration is optional and free, with each jobseeker able to tailor their own job alerts and the frequency of them to keep them informed of new opportunities which align with their interests.
