Within this growing internet recruitment market a fascinating David vs Goliath battle has emerged, with a raft of sector-specific niche job sites pitted against the mass-market job boards. Whilst in most internet sectors it is the major brands that have come to dominate, in internet recruitment there are fundamental sales, marketing and retention issues that prevent mass-market sites from dominating as they do in areas such as online travel and shopping.

High candidate retention & referral rates drive the success of niche boards

Niche job boards thrive by building up a loyal readership of relevant candidates who return to that site of their own free will – and who go on to recommend that colleagues visit the site too. This combination of high repeat visit levels and word-of-mouth referral traffic means that niche sites can grow and prosper on a relatively modest advertising spend. The market rate for generating valuable candidate traffic is around $1 per visitor. So a niche job board whose site traffic is self-sustaining and runs at 50,000+ visitors a month enjoys a significant cost advantage over a major site that needs to pay to attract tens of thousands of visitors per month to each market segment they serve.

At WineAndHospitalityJobs.com, we now have over 100,000 people using the website each month and some major industry leaders have come to regard us as the number one site for attracting quality hospitality professionals. Just take a look at our "Featured Employer" list in this newsletter and on our website. Every one of these companies (and you'll recognize quite a few!) can attest to their success with WineAndHospitalityJobs.com - and these are just a few of the employers posting on our site each month. Readers return to our site on a regular basis because we provide market insights and content that is highly relevant to the industry. It would be hugely expensive for a mass-market site to provide such a tailored user experience to every sector they serve; yet the alternative for these mass-market sites is to spend tens of thousands of dollars in advertising so as to attract a comparable audience. Either way the niche site has a significant cost advantage.

Low cost is one notable advantage derived by niche firms from their traffic generation strategies; just as valuable, though, is the quality of candidates delivered to recruitment advertisers – which ultimately determines repeat business rates.

Job boards, by definition, attract only "active candidates" – candidates that are actively looking at new career opportunities with a view to changing job. Yet for the "hardest-to-fill" roles, recruiters often need to reach "passive candidates" – candidates who are perfect for the role but who are not actively looking for a new job. By providing content that appeals to all professionals – rather than just active candidates – niche sites can attract the more valuable passive candidates that generate successful hires for many of their advertisers. When repeat traffic translates into higher success rates for advertisers than they have ever achieved elsewhere, this establishes client loyalty that is then very hard for any competitor to undermine.

A wave of consolidation lies ahead?
Niche job boards have undoubtedly been one of the success stories of the dot-com boom. Those that have weathered the recruitment doldrums of 2002 and 2003 have in many cases emerged with more impressive client lists and stronger price points than their major job board competitors. This is a critical issue with the tightening labor market and having a sizable number of loyal candidates is a significant asset in the current market.

It is quite possible that major job boards now see the acquisition of a portfolio of niche sites as critical to their expansion plans. The upshot of all this is that internet recruitment appears to have thrown up one of the first examples of an internet industry that is best served by thousands of niche brands rather than a handful of giant mass-market sites. Whether the ownership of these brands will remain so fragmented is a matter for hot debate.

For us here at WineAndHospitalityJobs.com, the last 7 years have been amazing! 2008 is proving to be a strong year so far and is providing some great new opportunities. That being said, given the option to retire on a beach paradise in the morning, well.. we just might be tempted. For now however, we're keeping our fingers on the pulse of this exciting and ever-changing industry, making great friends and believers all the way!

Login or register now to begin posting, or call us at 707.933.0687 for a tour of the site or to hear about posting plan options. You can also go to WineAndHospitalityJobs.com and click on the "For Employers" button for further info and testimonials.

WineAndHospitalityJobs.com offers candidates the ability to hide their profile or make it confidential, to have job notifications delivered directly to their inbox on a daily basis, and provides job matching capabilities, making us the choice for both active and passive candidates.

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