How Can You Build and Monetize a Job Aggregator? 7 Business Models Beyond PPC

The market for job search tools and recruitment software is plagued by choice. From job boards to job search websites to social networks to employer branding and sourcing tools, there are tons of solutions for filling jobs. In our previous article, we talked about how to create a job board. Today, we’ll talk about job aggregator development.

Job aggregators aren’t cutting-edge technology. But they’re widely used in the recruitment industry. Job aggregators appeared in the mid-2000s to substitute online job boards. Today, 77% of job boards use aggregators to distribute their jobs, according to Smartjobboard.

SOURCE: SMARTJOBBOARD

Building a job aggregator makes good business sense. But for it to be profitable, you need to pick out a competitive business model.

We’ll discuss seven possible business models for a job aggregator. But first, let’s figure out how job aggregators work and what their weakest spot is.

How do job aggregators work?

Similar to Google, a job aggregator is a search engine. It pulls together jobs posted on various job boards. The core values of any aggregator are data and advanced search functionality.

To get data for your job aggregator, you can copy jobs from career pages and job boards to your database. Some job posting websites provide XML feeds that make it faster to publish jobs to aggregators.

To build a search engine, SteelKiwi recommends Elasticsearch and Algolia. Elasticsearch is an open source solution for implementing search operations on different types of data structures. It’s a great choice if you want to avoid extra costs. Algolia is a cloud-based service with pricing starting at $35 per month.

The problem of job aggregators sites

The main purpose of job aggregators – and other job search tools – is to match the right people with the right jobs. But this isn’t what job aggregators are good at. While they bring a lot of candidates to employers, the number of actual hires thanks to job aggregators isn’t that large.

Job aggregators show job listings to millions of people who are looking for career opportunities. And this leads to many unqualified candidates applying for jobs.

Getting the wrong candidates is one challenge that vendors of job aggregator sites struggle with. The other one is lack of functionality that appeals to job seekers.

Many aggregators make money using a pay-per-click model where companies pay to advertise their jobs. In other words, job aggregators are optimized to serve the needs of employers. But what about the needs of job seekers?

People who are looking for a job often feel overwhelmed with the number of vacancies across job boards, aggregators, and social networks. There are so many opportunities, but job seekers don’t necessarily benefit from the quantity.

How to create a job aggregator website that brings value to both job seekers and employers?

Discovery is one of the major challenges in the recruiting industry. If you want to build a successful job aggregator, you need to ease the discovery process for employers and job seekers.

A good business model needs to answer three questions: What does the customer value? How will you make money? How will you deliver value to customers at an appropriate cost?

Let’s discuss seven possible business models for job aggregators.

Read more - How to create a job aggregator website