In April 2023, the US faced the highest unemployment rate (14,8%) over the past 70 years. In April 2024, it remained at 6,1%. While the candidates are looking for opportunities to land a job, companies are looking for ways to hire talents who will help them deal with modern challenges. A job board website like Glassdoor or Indeed may be a solution but if you think about the opportunities to start your own job board, there is no point in copying them.
Instead, you are better to find out the best approaches to creating a personal website for job search and think over a unique value proposition. Get started by reviewing our guide on how to create a website like Indeed or Glassdoor.
What is the Difference Between Indeed And Glassdoor?
Both Glassdoor and Indeed are leading job search and recruiting solutions in the US. In 2021, Indeed’s parent company bought Glassdoor and they have merged some of their features. Still, both platforms have separate websites and separate user profiles.
The main difference between Glassdoor and Indeed is the way they establish themselves on the job search market. Glassdoor is a website focused on building an employee brand, while Indeed is the solution to streamline the job search.
Glassdoor allows the companies to have extensive profiles with custom design and content, plus it encourages previous and current employees to share their feedback about their work experience and help the potential candidates make a better-informed choice. Glassdoor no longer has a job ad publishing feature – instead, the user will be redirected to Indeed. There is no resume search function on Glassdoor as well.
Both of the websites have one more distinctive advantage – they share and frequently update median salary data for different positions so that the candidates may better match their skills and experience with their salary expectations.
How Do Job Websites Make Money?
How to start a job board website? Get started by reviewing the business models utilized by popular solutions from this niche. As a rule, job boards are free or almost free for jobseekers but are paid for by companies and recruiters. Below are the main approaches to job board monetization.
Paid Listings and Promotions
In this case, a company is charged by placing their job ad. Additionally, a job portal may charge employers for placing their vacancies on the top search positions. As for potential candidates, building and publishing a resume is a free feature but promoting it to the top of the list may be paid as well.
Subscription
In this case, the company has to pay for the subscription to access the specific set of features. In most cases, the price for a subscription is tied to the number of job ads that the company may publish or the number of resumes they may access and consider.
Additional Products and Services
This is the strategy used by LinkedIn. In addition to Premium subscriptions, they also offer paid talent and recruiting solutions. You may also find out more about the ways LinkedIn makes money in our dedicated article on how to buid a website like LinkedIn.
Advertising
This business model implies providing both parties with a free set of features for the job search and hiring process but the website hosts relevant advertisements. In most cases, newly created startups use this strategy to attract users with free opportunities, and then expand their features to offer them at Freemium or Subscription basis.
Mixed Model
This approach implies combining some of the features of the models above. For example, this is how Indeed works – it charges a small fee each time a potential candidate views the job posting, hosts hiring events, employs banner ads, and offers subscription packages. Glassdoor also combines job listings (that will be published on Indeed), job advertising opportunities, and employer branding solutions.
Looking for ways to create your own job search engine?
Find Out How We Can HelpWhat Are the Key Features You Should Build?
To create a job board website, you have to think about two groups of features -for employees and for candidates. Some of them may overlap but the users’ journey will still be different.
Below are some of the basic features you have to develop to create a website for a job application.
How to Create a Job Portal Website - Features for Candidates
How to create a job portal website with more advanced features? After your startup is mature enough, consider adding the following functions to make it more competitive and engaging.
- Salary calculator. This is an engaging tool that helps the users match their expectations with market reality. Consider adding suitable job postings that suit the candidate based on their calculations.
- Quizzes. Job-related quizzes like “What job suits your most” are both engaging and effective for lead generation. Come up with a quiz that will work as a lead capturing tool, and share the most suitable job offerings according to the results (in exchange for the user’s email).
- Cover letter builder. While resume builder is a must-have feature, adding a cover letter may significantly help the candidates to attract the attention of potential employees. Provide them with a cover letter builder that may come for a fee to improve their chances of getting noticed.
- Online interview training. Even experienced candidates tend to worry before the job interview. Your website may help them prepare for it by using an interactive online training tool.
Ready to empower your job search platform with some of the features above?
We Can Do ItHow to Create a Recruitment Website - Features for Employers
Below are more ideas on how to create a recruitment website and make it more powerful with the help of AI.
- Resume screening. Help the companies shortlist the best candidates with a more advanced resume screening, for example, with the help of Ideal.
- AI-powered predictions. For example, with the help of Glider.ai you can accurately predict the candidate potential and make sure that this is a 99,9% perfect match. The solution has a well-integratable API.
Technology Stack for Creating a Personal Website for Job Search
How to create a job search engine from a technical perspective? You have three options to choose from.
WordPress
Using WordPress to create a job power search engine seems one of the most obvious solutions. But despite the popularity of this CMS, it has one significant drawback – to make it work, you have to stuff it with plugins and add-ons that slow down the website loading time. Most candidates looking for a job need it urgently, as well as most HR managers are bonded by metrics of effectiveness, so a slow-loading website can hardly be considered an effective tool for both tasks.
Online Builders
There are also solutions that allow you to build a job search website without coding skills, for example, Appypie and Ruiter. Still, their capabilities are quite limited. The websites created with the help of online builders are almost impossible to customize, scale, and promote in Google so they have almost no chances of being competitive on the modern market.
Custom Development
How to build a website like Glassdoor with the opportunity to make it even better? Choosing custom development services is the only right strategy in this case since this is the way to make a fully customized, well-scaled, unique, and technically powerful job search platform.
Choosing your future development vendor, pay attention to those with experience in creating job search engines and practical insights into how to create a social network app from scratch. These solutions have a lot of overlapping features, and that’s why you will be able to reuse the practical experience, tech and business insights, and the best practices the company already has. Binerals tech team will be glad to help you with this task as well.
Feel like custom development meets your job search project goals?
Unlock Our ExpertiseHow to Create a Job Portal Website?
How to build a website like Glassdoor step by step? Below are the main milestones of your future development strategy.
1. Come Up With Something Unique
How to make a job posting website and make it competitive? The following advice may sound hackneyed but this is proof of its relevance. You should come up with something unique. To brainstorm the ideas, get started by reviewing the modern labor market landscape. A lot of companies have switched to online mode, a lot of people are either forced or willing to work from home, more and more specialists choose abroad opportunities or freelancing. As an option, you may come up with a job search website for remote working opportunities only, for freelancers willing to land a full-time but still remote job, or vice versa.
Research the competition to validate your idea and find more opportunities to make it better.
2. Shortlist the Features for Your MVP
The features we have listed above should be enough to develop quite a powerful Minimum Viable Product. Consider adding something specific as well to make your product outstanding and validate new features demand by gathering users’ feedback and taking their behavior patterns.
3. Think About the Design
Most of the job search platforms are designed in the same way. On the one hand, an already familiar design is suitable for the users when they switch from one job board to another; on the other hand, a non-standard design may become your competitive advantage.
Following the second strategy, make sure to create a detailed and clickable prototype to test it with your future users. Their behavior patterns may suggest how to create a recruitment website powered by a non-standard design solution that should improve the users’ experience.
4. Partner with a Tech-Savvy Vendor
Following the path of custom development, make sure to partner with a tech-savvy and experienced development company. Shortlist the most suitable ones by their location and rating on Clutch.co, review their portfolios and highlight the ones with experience in job search engine creation, and ask for a consultation. Choose the development company whose vision aligns best with your one. As an option, contact Binerals to make the first step towards your job search website development.
5. Test Your MVP, Gather Feedback, and Grow Your Solution
After your MVP is created, it’s time to test it with real users. Their feedback will help you find out how to improve your solution and what scaling path to choose.
Final Thoughts
Creating a job search platform is as challenging as engaging. Given the current labor market tendencies and trends, a well-developed solution with a clear value proposition has good chances of meeting the expectations of job seekers and dealing with recruiting and economic challenges most companies face. Binerals is here to support you along this path.
