Are job boards dying?

Recently I have heard yet another time that “Job boards are dead”. It’s not even “job boards are in decline” or “We are at the end of a job board era”. Instead, a hard, completed statement about a deceased patient. Is this the case? Where is this coming from? Let’s look into answering those questions!

Recently I did a presentation titled “black mirror in recruitment IT”, where I was speculating on the future of such programs. One of the slides did examine the current job board market, wherein most of the countries we have a dominating player (Germany — Stepstone, Australia — Seek, Poland — Pracuj.pl, US — Career Builder, etc) or a highly divided market with literally hundreds of job boards that sometimes focus on a really niche markets (UK). The market is clearly changing with the success of Linkedin (and similar sites like German Xing or Polish Goldenline) and new job board-like players joining the game (Google for jobs, Facebook jobs), not to mention innovative new tools (Pocket recruiter, idibu). While I can’t quote exact job boards figures (those NDAs…), I am far from agreeing with the “Job boards are dead” phrase.

In my opinion, Linkedin and other sources of candidates, are just that. An alternative channel of candidates, which is successful for a very specific reason — lack of talent. In an employer market, where unemployment is high and there is demand for work, no one…