Rather than just focussing on the largest, general job boards, like LinkedIn or Indeed, you can strongly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your recruiting strategy by (also) using niche job boards. These specialised, industry-specific sites help you better target qualified candidates for your niche job openings.
In this short article, you’ll find out what niche job boards are and why you should include them in your hiring strategy. We also list a few examples of some of the best niche job boards out there.
- What are niche job boards?
- Why should you use industry-specific job boards?
- Examples of top niche job boards
What are niche job boards?
Niche job boards are focused on a specific industry, skillset, business type, or geographical location. These sites only host job ads that promote positions within the specified niche. As a result, the job seekers visiting these sites are specifically looking for jobs within that industry or field.
For example, specialised Tech job boards will only feature job ads for tech-related roles, like Front End Developers or Software Engineers. Similarly, a specialised job board like Deutsche Startups is only focused on job opportunities at startup companies in Germany.
Are niche job sites free to use?
This will depend on the niche job board you want to use. For example, the Deutsche Startups example we just gave only offers premium job ads. But many other specialised sites do also offer options to post jobs for free.
We’ll give a few examples further below.
How to post on niche job boards
How it works will depend on the job board you’re using, as each of the websites tends to have their own way of working. So getting your job ads published on multiple niche job boards at once can be a bit time-consuming as you have to figure out how each site works.
Instead, you can use JOIN’s multiposting tool to post your ads across different job boards with just one click. You create the ad once inside JOIN and easily distribute it across different platforms at the same time.
Why should you use industry-specific job boards?
So why is it important to focus your recruiting efforts on these types of job platforms? Here are the two main reasons why you should use niche job boards.
1. Candidates are preselected
The main benefit of niche job boards is that the candidates on these websites are already preselected and filtered.
Generalist platforms, like LinkedIn or Indeed, have hundreds of millions of job seekers visiting their sites every day. Candidates on these platforms can work in practically every type of industry imaginable.
The result is that when you post (and pay for) a job ad, chances are that a large proportion of the audience that sees your ad, is not a qualified candidate. This means you could be spending time and money on getting ads in front of the wrong people.
With industry-specific job boards, you know that the majority of the website’s visitors are indeed qualified candidates (or at least employees who work in the same industry). This increases the chances of you reaching qualified talent while spending less time and budget on posting and promoting your ads.
2. Grows the pool of potential candidates
Secondly, not all talent is active on generalist platforms.
For example, most people working in Marketing will probably have a LinkedIn profile and use this networking site when looking for a new job. But this might not be the case for someone working in a field like healthcare or hospitality.
And for some job profiles, specialised job boards are better tailored to the needs of these candidates. For example, you might find a Designer on StepStone, but they probably prefer using a platform like Dribbble where they can better showcase their visual skills.
So by using niche job boards, you increase your chances of quickly finding highly qualified talent that you otherwise would have never reached.
Examples of top niche job boards
The number of niche job boards is virtually endless, as there are dedicated platforms for practically any type of niche. Here are a few examples of specialised job boards that are great solutions to finding industry-specific talent.
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Platform 1 — Dribbble
As mentioned above, a first example would be Dribbble. It is one of the largest online communities for designers in the world and a great place to find graphic and design professionals from across the globe. |
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Platform 2 — Behance
This niche job board is part of the Adobe family and offers one of the largest global platforms for creative professionals. You can’t post job ads for free on the platform, but if you’re looking for creative talent, then investing in premium Behance ads is certainly worth the spend! |
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Platform 3 — Berlin Startup Jobs
An example of a highly specialised niche job board, concentrated on only startup jobs and only in the Berlin area. Due to the very precise focus, this platform actually offers employers some of the best ROI for their ads we’ve seen here at JOIN! |
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Platform 4 — Remotive.io
Remotive.io is a community-driven remote job site focused on start-ups and the tech industry. Founded in 2014, Remotive.io now has a large selection of candidates for you to benefit from who are all looking for a remote opportunity in the tech industry. |
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Platform 5 — Online Marketing Rockstars (OMR)
This is one of the largest platforms for digital and marketing jobs in Europe. It started as a marketing conference but now offers a job platform as well. |
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Platform 6 — Ictjob
Tech and IT job boards are incredibly popular right now as tech professionals are in high demand. Ictjob.de is an example of a specialised platform where employers have a better chance of finding qualified tech talent. |
Multiposting across niche job boards
The niche platforms mentioned above are just examples of the types of specialised job boards that are out there. And often, your talent acquisition strategy will include using more than one niche job board, as well as still using general platforms as well.
This means you have to post your job ad across a variety of different platforms to have the highest chance of finding that top talent. With JOIN’s multiposting tool, you only have to create your job ad once before easily multiposting the same ad across 100+ general and niche job boards.
