Nowhiring – Counting The Bucks

Last week, niche job site network Counting Jobs paid an undisclosed sum for the Now Hiring group of sites.

What this means, beside the fact that Now Hiring founder Brett Iredale can concentrate on his JobAdder business, is that this may kickstart the attack of the niche job boards on the top three players.

Now, I don’t have a doctorate in business, or anything scholarly like that, so shrug me off if I’m singing an overplayed song here (and don’t you just hate it when radio stations flog a song?), but it seems that, in their genesis, industries thrive because of broad-reaching, generalised competitors. But as that industry develops, niche players are required.

Indeed, the online recruitment industry will benefit from niche job boards in a few ways. Firstly, they offer the job-seeker more targeted content, and the converse is that advertisers and others who wish to disseminate information get themselves a specific audience.

Secondly, they’re more efficient to run – and to use. I’m a huge fan of not having to click around too much on a site to find what I’m after.

Sure, they attract a smaller amount of traffic, but if they’re well-marketed and reach the people who they need to reach, what does that really matter.

Thirdly, because they’re generally less expensive to run, they’re also less expensive for advertisers to use.

Whilst the major job-boards all have their niche catagories, there’s nothing like the experience of having experts in specific fields find candidates and some folks like to support independant players – it’s an ethical kinda decision, if you like.