What is a Job board?

If you’re a recruiter you’ve had to post a job ad on a Job board, but you may not be aware of the difference between a Job board and a Job ad aggregator, or the history and evolution of the Job board. It’s time to get some clarity.

A Job board (Classified job ads) is a portal for job listing: recruiters can use different Job boards to advertise their vacancies and ads to potential candidates.

Originally a Job board was both a physical and a virtual site, but in recent years the paper format has disappeared so today the term refers exclusively to online portals for job ads.

Historically the Job board emerged in the US in 1992, when Bill Warren launched the “Online Career Centre” service. Two years later in 1994, what is today considered the world’s top Job board was born: Monster. In the same year the direct competitor, Career Builder, was also launched.
Over the following years, Job boards have constantly evolved: since 2000 the general Job boards (with listings for all types of roles and industries) have sat side by side with vertical Job boards specialising in niche areas.

It’s important to distinguish Job boards from job search engines: sites that collect job ads from all different sites, both Job boards and Work with us pages on company websites. Indeed and Simply Hire (founded in 2004 and 2005 respectively) are among the world’s leading job aggregators.
Over the years, Job boards and job search engines have integrated with the different Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) used by companies: using an ATS you can publish job ads automatically on multiple Job boards (Multiposting) and then collect proprietary databases of the applicant profiles that have sent their CV to the Job board or search engine.

Companies that decide to manage their recruitment through Job boards have a variety of services that they can use:

– Publishing of job ads

– Searching for candidates

– Directly contacting candidates

– Managing job offers

Usually a job ad on a Job board includes the name of the company, a brief description of the job or role, the deadline for application and how to apply (often including a link to the company’s Work with us page, linked to the ATS).