Don’t reinvent the (job board) wheel!

Note: The Doctor is now in week 3 (!) of no internet or phone due to the derecho. Trust me, the Midwest is hurting – thousands still without power. You can help by donating here. Here is a post from last year that is always relevant – enjoy!

Calling yourself the JobBoardDoctor means that people with problems are going to call you. And that’s great – I love problems and problem-solving! But about once a month, I get a call from someone who has decided to start a job board or recruiting site, and they have a very sad story indeed.

“Hey Doc,” they say. “I just spent $50,000 with a developer who promised to build me a great job site.”

I wince, because I know what’s coming.

“The site sucks. It doesn’t work. I need help!”

I think – but don’t usually say – ‘You should have called me before you spent the money’.

Why?

Because: a) that $50,000 isn’t coming back; b) most developers think they can build a job board – but can’t; and c) there was almost certainly a better, cheaper option.

There are literally dozens of job board software vendors, providing options at a range of price points, and they all have an advantage that the $50K developer doesn’t have: they’ve built many iterations of job boards. They’ve struggled with the typical issues that affect job boards. They know what features to offer – or not. Their business is tied up in the creation and support of job boards – unlike the $50K developer, who is probably now working on a janitorial supply site.

And…they will probably be cheaper than $50K.

Now, to be clear, job board software vendors aren’t the perfect solution for everyone. Maybe you have a special feature that is new and unrelated to anything that came before it. Maybe you have a crack tech team that’s built job boards before (in which case, the above sad conversation would not have occurred!). And – as always – buyer beware. As I tell my clients, ‘All software is flawed – you just have to find the platform with flaws you don’t care about.’

But for most startups, there is a job board software platform that will fit their needs. It won’t be perfect, and it probably won’t be forever – but it will get your business started. And that’s what matters.

So do yourself a favor. Check out some of the many software vendors out there before you fork out $50K (or $100K or more!) to a developer.

You can still call me. But let’s talk about how you can make more money with your functioning job board site!

PS: Yes, there are ads for job board software on this site. Yes, they send me money. But no, that doesn’t have any bearing on the above – I have been making the recommendation on startups using job board software since day 1 of this consultancy – long before I had ads. It just makes sense!

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