Yesterday, I talked about why I blog so today let's talk about why you should blog if you run a job board.

Competition is heating up geometrically. Transparency is being forced on us all as secrets become evermore difficult to keep. The winners will be boards that build credibility and authenticity.  You can have high credibility without a blog but if you want authenticity, start blogging.

Blogging may attract special people who are passionate about your product like our Sandra Bavasso. She worked for us for five years and had a big impact on the company starting our job fair business and launching many new features like job agents.

When I first met Allen, he was fairly new to the job board industry but talked about its similarities with the newspaper digitization industry which he pioneered beginning in the early 80s.  Launching in 2005 his company onTargetJobs.com has built a substantial portfolio of niche job boards. His most recent acquisition of RegionalHelpWanted.com valued near $100 million was onTargetJob’s largest to date.   I had been planning to interview Allen for some time and with the changes in management at onTarget, this seemed like the right moment. Don't miss reading Allen's bio and resume while listening to techno music.

The 2008 Top 100 US Job Board Niches report lists the 100 most searched for job categories. For each of these employment categories it lists the top ranked job boards according to Google but excludes the following:

Here is why I am so fascinated by the free classifieds concept and in particular free job boards -- they create more value than they capture. I came across this thinking in a post by Aaron Wall today and realized that it perfectly illustrates a serious flaw in the typical job board business model. Generally speaking and within reason, we capture as much value as we can. And that makes us vulnerable, inspires competition and limits our growth. The quote that grabbed me comes from Tim O'Reilly's blog:

I love the job board business but could never have imagined the roller coaster ride that it is... sometimes talking to other job board people is just good therapy, because many of these things or some variation on them will happen to everyone sooner or later. This morning, I started this list in frustration after a database server crash.

Competition

The free classifieds and free job boards have fascinated me for years, perhaps because back when I was starting LatPro, the hottest thing around was headhunter.net. It was growing like wildfire and was perfectly free. Times have changed a lot since then and there is a whole new crop of free job boards -- here's the list:

To my knowledge Don Firth runs the largest family of profitable independently owned and self-financed job boards. His boards have a utilitarian look and are designed with the single purpose of helping candidates find jobs in a specific industry. But considering their performance, I wonder if my own company hasn't paid too much attention to polish and content. JobsInLogistics.com, AllRetailJobs.com, JobsInTrucks.com, JobsInManufacturing.com, and TopUSAJobs.com have a combined monthly traffic of almost 3 million visitors.

Eric: For my money Don, you’re the most successful job board entrepreneur I know of. I should say the most successful job board family because it is a family business. What accounts for your success? Do you have a formula? How do you choose new categories?

A job widget is a tool used by a job board to display its jobs or search box on other web sites. It's basically a banner, button or skyscraper with customized content which is of course job ads. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, look to the right for the LatPro widget and below for a really good example of a jobs widget from jobtonic.com. For more about them have a look at Born's widget reviews. Here's a list of job widgets: