job board or job search engine?

Let's take a walk down - "online job search" road and see what's what. Well at least in one opinion, job seekers have two options available as far as online job search goes. The first being job boards and the second being job search engines. To whom do we owe the honor of such simplicity? Take a stroll on over to the way to go is job search engines versus job boards to learn who. Now as far as the logic behind the author's assessment goes, the first head scratcher, is that no definition between the two is provided by the author. Instead a link is provided to yet another site to get a definition of a job board and a job search engine. When you navigate to that site, then a list of preferred job search engines is provided. Hummh. Well OK - the primary distinctions made by the second author are as such:

1. Job search engines don't charge money and don't require resume submissions.
2. Job search engines only function is to list companies with job openings.

OK, lets get a fact check going. First, job search engines don't work for free, nor do the owners of these job search engines. In fact, job search engines do charge for their services. Moreover, job search engines have what is called a pay per click model which is what the big search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing have. In essence, most of the job search engines, listed, are simply attempting to duplicate the per per click model that search engines use because simply put - it is much more profitable. Either the second author is misinformed or ignorant to the fact of how job search engines work. That is quite ironic, too, since the second author lists Indeed, SimplyHired and others as job search engines, albeit a simple look on either Indeed's or SimplyHired's website would explain their pay per click advertising model. In short, the fact of the matter is that job search engines DO charge a fee they just simply don't charge job seekers a fee which incidentally is pretty much the same as with job boards. Of course, there are a few unorthodox job boards that try to squeeze job seekers out of cash with account upgrade fees and what not, which i agree, with the author, should be avoided at all costs.

Now looking at bullet point two above - for the most part this has already been addressed, but i will add that the second author's understanding of the facts is skewed at best. A pay per click search model is predicated on free listings (aka organic listings) that compete with one another just like with the regular search engines. For the employer or recruiter that doesn't want to compete with thousands of jobs with the same job title and similar job descriptions, than they can get a sponsored listing with these job search engines that CHARGE a fee every time your sponsored ad link is clicked. So here is where reality kicks in - lets say that only 20% of applicants meet the employers job requirements and it takes some 50 applicants to get that 20% qualified applicant rate. At a per per click rate of $1.50 for the top spot (that's a rather low rate might i add), the employer pays $75 for 50 applicants whereas only 10 were qualified. So the real math is that the employer in this example pays 75/10 which is $7.50 per applicant (remember only 10 qualified applicants). That seems like a deal right? Not so fast - who is to say that the batch of 10 that initially seemed qualified are actually really qualified or even still available when job interviews start? If not, guess what? Its back to job search engine for more applicants. Perhaps you're starting to see the big picture. Lastly, as for the "...don't require resume submissions" statement made by the second author, hummh lets guess how job seekers would apply. Send a note to the employer attached to a pigeon's toes? Of course not. Job seekers apply online at the site that hosts the job opening. So the job seeker does what again? APPLY ONLINE - which requires what? - a resume submission.

In short, there is no cookie cutter answer to which is best, a job board or a job search engine, it simply boils down to what works best for your situation. SimplyHired, Indeed, Monster, CareerBuilder, etc. all are successful even though clearly a few could be classified as job boards while the rest can be classified as job search engines. If the truth is told, Monster has been involved with more successful hiring over the past decade, than all of the others combined. So be sure to check the facts versus being quick to buy into propaganda.