Stories from the War: Choosing the Wrong Job Board SaaS Partner, TWICE

After the whirlwind of the HR Tech Expo Hall and last week’s flood of industry news, the Job Board Doctor team thought it’d be a good time for a “back to basics” post—valuable not just for aspiring and up-and-coming job board operators but also for the job board SaaS vendors and critical partners (and their sales teams) who power our job board solutions.

In my first post as the New Job Board Doctor, I promised war stories as I grew the world’s largest job board for the incredibly talented community of job seekers with disabilities.

Well today, we jump in headfirst to the most harrowing battle of all – Choosing the right job board SaaS partner and vendor.

Building a niche board for a community that experiences dramatic discrimination and neglect in every community and conversation provides a set of obstacles which made our journey even more challenging. However, a lot of the mistakes I made in choosing a job board vendor are not unique to working with an underserved community – albeit they may have been enhanced by that fact.

Our Why

I’m a huge fan of Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why.” It guided the creation of Disability Solutions. So, when we started discussing adding a job board (which we call a career center) to our solution, it had to align with our “why.” Why do we exist? To change minds and to change lives by removing barriers to employment for 25% of the U.S. population and 1 billion people globally.

Once we confirmed a job board offering fit our WHY and HOW, we had to figure out WHAT it would look like for our business and community.

For us, the build vs. buy decision wasn’t even a question—buying was the only option.

Although I made numerous mistakes, I’ve narrowed it down to three main forehead smacking missteps for now, which we can explore in detail in future posts (or over cocktails).

Mistake #1: Underestimating Our Needs

Here’s what we identified as our needs when starting our vendor search:

– An affordable platform that could scale with us.

– Better tracking of job seeker behavior as they applied through our client companies’ ATS to drive our value proposition

– A means in which to create “foundational revenue” (don’t ask where the hell I came up with that term) with a solution employers were already familiar with as we fought a two-front battle to sell both a community’s value and a solution.

– A platform that could offer multiple monetization options, including programmatic advertising.

– A solution accessible to users with various disabilities.

These were the right needs, but the reality of how they would be achieved was much more complex than expected.

Mistake #2: Falling for a Sales Pitch Without Proper Due Diligence

Then came the snake oil salesmen (you know who you are). Don’t @ me, I know not all salespeople are bad—after all, I married the best one the gods ever created. But hand to god, I dealt with some shady ones.

Here’s where you all roll your eyes at me: Julie, you didn’t do your due diligence. You can’t blame a salesperson for selling you something different than what you needed.

Fair enough, I was a shady salesperson’s dream. I was inexperienced and naïve. I asked the right questions and trusted all the answers.

What did I fall for?

– Highly customized product demos – If you have the budget for customization, great! We didn’t, and most people I talk to don’t either. That’s OK. Have the salesperson show you the bare-bones site and make a specific list of must-haves and nice-to-haves.

– Job limits – Most, if not all, job board SaaS models limit the number of jobs based on a tiered fee model. That makes sense. At first, 100k jobs seemed like SO many jobs. But depending on your niche and monetization strategy, it might not be. For us, it certainly wasn’t, quickly. I underestimated the volume of jobs we needed to grow a solid footprint and monetize with performance-based advertising. This mistake delayed our success by three years.

– Revenue share models – This is likely unique to Disability Solutions, but I share it because it impacted our buying decision. Of the two vendors who promised easy money through revenue sharing, neither ever sold a single post for us. They didn’t understand our community and thus couldn’t communicate our value proposition to perspective buyers. Make sure you get the estimates of revenue potential based on your niche or industry.

Mistake #3: Committing to Long-Term Contracts Without a Trial Period

My bad decisions caused a three-year delay in launching a meaningful (and profitable) job board. Why? I got locked into not one, but two long-term contracts with vendors I realized within weeks couldn’t deliver on their promises.

After some tears, I called the OG Job Board Doctor (thanks, Jeff) and said, “I don’t know what I don’t know, and this isn’t working.” That’s when we began a six month trial (paid month to month) with the vendor and partner that finally met our needs, offered the customization we needed, and had pricing that worked for us.

Their long-game approach paid off, we started by spending $800 a month for 100k jobs and grew to 3 million jobs and $50k annually in our vendor’s (and friends) pocket. Fast forward, starting our fourth year with the right vendor and we have had YoY sales increase of 85% and a subscription retention rate of over 80%.

Morale of the Story: Look for a vendor who wants to win with you—not just for you to sign on the dotted line.

So, my friends, we came out better for the battle – a little less naïve and a little bruised. Today, we celebrate getting nearly 10,000 people with disabilities to work with a solution (and a job board partner) that proves our value as a talent pool and a profitable solution.

I am not sure if that team understands how many minds and lives they have changed, but if they are reading today. You have and it means more than you will ever know.

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