Online recruitment tools provide employers, job seekers and businesses with solutions that help them achieve the same goal — to post and fill job openings.
Job boards help candidates find new careers, give employers a leg up in identifying top talent and give job board businesses tools to create effective job board solutions.
These sites are often referred to as job boards, job search engines or job board software.
Companies looking to fill open positions regularly employ job boards or job search engines to help find qualified candidates. Employers and recruiters use job boards to post and advertise current openings for job seekers to easily find, based on factors such as title, keyword or job description.
Meanwhile, job search engines aggregate job listings from job boards, recruiter job description listings and company career sites, to name a few. Some online recruitment tools function as both job boards and job search engines.
Below is a general overview of the types of job boards available to businesses and job seekers:
If you are not certain how to choose which job boards to post your company’s open job positions to, start with a simple search. Check out similar job titles and choose the top-rated search results that other recruiting teams are using.
Review the job descriptions, industries and companies — determine if these job postings are for comparable jobs and sectors. Keep in mind that some job board solutions provide free trials or allow you to post job openings for free but charge to advertise the listings.
Research the cost of the top job boards and compare it to your budget. A general rule of thumb is to limit your total recruitment spend from 3 to 20 percent of the first year of salary for that role. This range is dependent upon whether you are posting job openings directly to job boards or are hiring a recruiter to help find a broader range of candidates. Post job openings, test job boards for quality and candidates and refine.
The terms “job board” and “job board software” are currently used interchangeably, and the most popular use of these solutions is to help connect employers with job seekers, but they also provide job board businesses with the requisite software. Whether businesses are looking to launch a job board or migrate their existing job board to a new platform — white-label job board software provides prebuilt job search engine solutions. These solutions are either hosted or installed and provide a range of features, including job and resume matching, applicant tracking system, social media integrations, SEO and multilingual options.
For products with G2 Crowd verified user reviews, we have included:
The G2 Crowd Grid® displays job boards with 10 or more verified user reviews. Brand logos appear in one of four quadrants: Leaders, High Performers, Contenders and Niche.
The placement within the quadrants is determined by a combination of user satisfaction and market presence scoring. We aggregate data from user reviews to determine the user satisfaction score and analyze company metrics, such as product scale and influence, to develop the market presence score.
These job board products alone have well over 450 validated user reviews on G2 Crowd as of October, 30 2018, and only represent a small portion of the 55-plus job board software offerings listed on our platform.
The products must have at least 10 reviews and are ranked by user satisfaction score, which is calculated by a proprietary algorithm that factors in real user satisfaction ratings from review data.
Product Name: Indeed
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars
User Satisfaction: 96 percent
Reviews: 147
Indeed hosts job openings, company reviews, salaries and resumes to help connect job seekers and employers. Companies can create an account, post jobs, write job descriptions, review applications, manage candidates and schedule interviews. Indeed provides companies with sponsored job options, resume subscriptions, mobile recruiting, featured employer options and company pages.
“As an HR department of one, the ease of posting, pausing, updating and managing an ad is a huge plus as well as the ability to use the system to track and log applicants. However, the biggest benefit is the knowledge that, when hiring managers post to Indeed directly, resumes are being logged and tracked by the system as a default.” — Indeed review by G2 Crowd user in consumer goods
“While the price is right and the no frills makes for an intuitive system — it's lacking in restricting access and reporting. Indeed has also become more popular for lesser-skilled positions. This means when it comes to filling higher-level roles, fewer of those qualified applicants are looking on Indeed. Great tool depending on the quantity of roles you have to fill and the type of employees you are looking for.” — Indeed review by G2 Crowd user in internet
“It's most important to ensure that Indeed services are compatible with your organization’s applicant tracking system. This was the real deal maker in my organization's relationship with Indeed. Also, when having jobs posted be sure to adjust working titles to commonly used titles (i.e., Registered Nurse vs. Clinical Nurse as my organization saw). As with all search engines common language and matching is key for seekers to locate your position, so abbreviated and less common language can backfire in how many views you get.” — Indeed review by John P.
Product Name: LinkedIn Job Search
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars
User Satisfaction: 79 percent
Reviews: 180
LinkedIn Job Search helps organizations post job openings and reach candidates. Features include targeted job promotion, recommended matches and candidate management.
“LinkedIn by far has the best talent available. Many high-level professionals actively use LinkedIn, and the options available to be found are incredible. The elaborate search function allows both hiring organizations and the candidate to find what they're looking for — be it jobs or potential talent. Not only does LinkedIn benefit the applicant and recruiting, but it also allows all professionals to grow their network and educate themselves with current news and business trends.” — LinkedIn Job Search review by John P.
“Sometimes applicants only apply with their profile and it's hard to share with non-users. A resume share would be easier to pass on with internal hiring managers. We had some trouble linking a job to a location and received a lot of applicants outside the areas [where] we were hiring, making weeding through applicants a little more time consuming.” — LinkedIn Job Search review by Alissa G.
“Great product. We were able to go into their office for a presentation and they actually went through examples of what we were doing in terms of sourcing and give suggestions and also how to better utilize the advanced search process.” — LinkedIn Job Search review by Colin M.
3. Glassdoor
Product Name: Glassdoor
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
User Satisfaction: 71 percent
Reviews: 27
Glassdoor helps employers find the best candidates for the job. Features include free job listings on Glassdoor and more than 100 job sites, employer accounts that host company reviews, photos and insights, response capabilities and sales team communication.
“I really enjoy being able to track the views and applications of each job posting. There are many useful ways to look at the numbers.” — Glassdoor review by Julie R.
“It is a bit clunky and could have a smoother delivery but overall a very informative tool.” — Glassdoor review by Rachel J.
“Your experience will really depend on your relationship with your account rep, so make sure you are vocal about your needs to them.” — Glassdoor review by G2 Crowd user in staffing and recruiting
Product Name: Handshake
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars
User Satisfaction: 58 percent
Reviews: 19
Handshake is a career network and recruiting platform that specializes in college and university recruitment. Features include multi-school job posting, applicant filtering, training and support, career fair management, direct messaging, and more.
“Handshake has really transformed the way our office functions. Prior to Handshake, we kept track of appointments, workshops, event attendance, and career fairs in a variety of places. Handshake has allowed us to streamlines our data collection and management of student applications." — Handshake review by administrator in higher education
“Learning the navigation from the administrator's side is a bit daunting, but once you've done it a few times, it becomes more intuitive." — Handshake review by user in music
“It is very easy and intuitive-- especially for those looking to hire fresh college grads." — Handshake review by user
Product Name: SimplyHired
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars
User Satisfaction: 40 percent
Reviews: 11
SimplyHired is an online recruitment platform that helps companies hire new employees by posting job listings to more than 100 job boards. Features include comprehensive search engine, location-based job posting, salary estimator tool and mobile app for Android and iOS.
“I found the quality of candidate to be extremely good and I had no problem finding a reliable worker for the job I posted. In addition, it only took one week from post to hire.” — SimplyHired review administrator in market research
“Despite setting up specific search criteria, the daily emails can often send over jobs that aren't a great match. Though it tends to be more accurate than some of the other similar sites that I've used.” — SimplyHired review by user in commercial real estate
“Check analytics and other similar sites before committing.” — SimplyHired review by G2 Crowd user in marketing and advertising
Product Name: ZipRecruiter
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 3.7 out of 5 stars
User Satisfaction: 39 percent
Reviews: 54
ZipRecruiter provides employers, recruiters and staffing agencies with customizable job description templates and the option to post prescreen interview questions. ZipRecruiter posts all job listings to more than 100 job search engines and provides candidate information in a candidate dashboard for candidate assessment. Features include reusable job slots, social network posting and mobile access.
“With one posting, you can get your jobs out on over a hundred job boards, including SimplyHired, Glassdoor and the ZipRecruiter job board (which is becoming a decent board itself). To be fair, many of the 100-plus job boards ZipRecruiter touts are small, niche and you've probably never heard of them, but the few big boards make it worth the price of admission. The resume database is a great tool as well, allowing you to instantly view resumes and contact information for candidates (though the new search functionality makes it a bit annoying for Boolean users). The backend and administration are intuitive and it takes no time to get up and running. Another one of our favorite features is the Job Widget. The Job Widget allows you to just copy and paste a snippet of code on to your website to display all of your ZipRecruiter positions, if you're looking for a quick and easy way to get your job listings on your website, it doesn't get any quicker or easier than the Job Widget.” — ZipRecruiter review by administrator in staffing and recruiting
“When posting the position, I was asked a few times to post the salary range. My company does not post our salary ranges online, it’s just our practice, but I was told over and over that I probably would not get good candidates unless I posted the salary range. It was a little discouraging.” — ZipRecruiter review Julie M.
“Compare pricing with other recruiting websites that are more popular. You might have to pay more but it may be worth it in the long run to have an account with sites that are more well known.” — ZipRecruiter review by Katrina R.
Product Name: Monster
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 3.4 out of 5 stars
User Satisfaction: 32 percent
Reviews: 36
Monster provides businesses with job posting and candidate engagement solutions for small, mid-market and enterprise businesses, as well as staffing and government sectors. Features include job listing advertising, resume search, employer branding, analytics and more.
“I like that it allows me to reach a larger amount of candidates than posting just to my careers page. It also allows me to search through their candidate base, and has filters that are easy to use to help narrow your search. They also will rate the candidates you source on a 1–10 scale as to how closely they match the job description.” — Monster review by Amanda I.
“Utilizing Monster.com is not as simple as utilizing the Monster-US portal within Bullhorn. However, in Bullhorn there is no way to do a bulk import of candidates sourced from Monster into Bullhorn without adding them to a job. During the sourcing portion of our workflow, we do not connect candidates to a job right away. It would also be much more convenient to be able to save search criteria, compare resumes to each other, and be able to add candidates to Bullhorn tearsheets in bulk.” — Monster review by G2 Crowd user in staffing and recruiting
“I think it really depends on what talent pool you are looking to connect with. I find that a more skilled labor force tends to put their resumes on Monster.” — Monster review by G2 Crowd user in hospital and health care
Product Name: CareerBuilder Job Board
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
User Satisfaction: 18 percent
Reviews: 27
CareerBuilder Job Board is powered by Google AI and machine learning software. Features include job-to-candidate matching technology, candidate management, mobile optimization, unlimited job posting edits and new candidate applicant alerts.
“I like that you can pull a report to show you what people of a particular background are titling themselves so you can create a sourcing strategy that will capture the most amount of possible candidates. I do like that the site will scrape jobs from our website, which makes it easier to post to their site. Our account management team is relatively helpful; they check in often, and even offer to assist with sourcing if we have found that we are having difficulty filling a role. I really enjoy that their search capabilities can use Boolean searching.” — CareerBuilder Job Board review by G2 Crowd user in computer software
“I find that the caliber of candidates varies — I could get an awesomely qualified candidate and I could get someone who clearly did not read the posting. Either way, it brings more traffic and I am happy with that. Same goes for sourcing — if I am lucky, a great candidate who is ready to be contacted is on the site but sometimes there are resumes months to years old.” — CareerBuilder Job Board review by G2 Crowd user in hospital and health care
“It is great for finding applicants that fit the position you are hiring for. You will receive an email and the candidate’s application when they choose to apply for your position.” — CareerBuilder Job Board review by Alisa Z.
Many companies employ additional solutions to help them find the best talent. Some choose to hire recruiters to help them broaden their candidate search while others employ additional recruiting software.
Recruiting automation software simplifies the recruiting process by identifying passive talent, building talent pools and tracking candidate engagement.
Alternatively, recruitment marketing platforms will help you optimize your company’s brand, streamline all job postings and track all candidates. All of these systems are commonly integrated with applicant tracking system (ATS) software and onboarding software.
Visit G2 Crowd’s HR software categories for thousands of verified user reviews to find the best solution to fit your company’s needs. Check out the job boards category where you can compare products, view specific ratings, discover available features and read user reviews.
Reviews can be tailored to view company sizes, user roles and industries, specific ratings and categories to help determine which product will work best for your unique business.
Please note: Reviews have been edited for spelling and grammar.
Courtney is a former G2 senior research analyst for HR technologies, whose coverage areas include recruiting, employee engagement, and talent management. Her comprehensive research on employee engagement and HR trends has been quoted in TechRepublic, among other publications.
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