What do job seekers want? (Hint: a job…and a wee bit more)

Why do job seekers go to job boards? Ahem – to find a job.

I might add that’s why they network, Tweet, post profiles on LinkedIn, and troll through company career sites. They just want a job. Right?

Well, no. Not exactly. They want a lot more than a ‘job’. They in fact have an entire laundry list of desires:

work that fits their skill set
work that pays well
work that lets them advance over time
work that means something
work with great co-workers
work with a great company

Yeah, so, no big deal, right?

As a job board operator, you know that most of the job seekers visiting your site are going to leave disappointed - and there’s nothing you can do about it. Seriously – with a list of needs and desires like the one above, you’ll be lucky to make one out of a thousand happy. (This is not unique to job boards, by the way – it’s true of any channel, venue, or site where job seekers congregate to find work).

So, what’s to be done?

Be as honest as possible: Focus on what’s true (i.e., your niche and your employers), not on what’s iffy (‘your perfect job awaits!’).
Up the odds: Do everything you can to connect each job seeker with the best fit jobs. Give them ways of promoting themselves. Have job alerts. Train employers to use resume search tools effectively.
Listen: Give job seekers an obvious and direct way to communicate to your job board. Act on the best ideas.
Educate: As much as possible, show the job seeker how to use a job board effectively. Keep their expectations realistic.

Many job seekers simply don’t realize that their expectations are unrealistic – or they don’t know how to increase their odds of getting hired. It’s a job board’s responsibility to help them out, both because it’s the right thing to do, and because it will improve results for employers.

Now, as far as unrealistic expectations, I’d really like a SawStop….

Comment by Chris Brablc on March 8, 2011 at 10:47am: Great post, Jeff! Totally agree. Sure job seekers want a job - but they want the right one and a ton of factors go into that.

As an employer, the more transparency into your organization you provide and the more you focus on your overall value proposition to employees, the better you'll be at finding the right employees for your organization.

Comment by Alasdair Murray on March 8, 2011 at 10:58am: Can I add, dare to put in place some form of quality control, whereby the job ad content you carry passes the litmus test to the question 'would I have been happy to see this ad appear in the press?'. i.e. cut and pasted job descriptions or ads littered with bad grammar will be sent back to the advertiser asking for a rewrite under your editorial quality control terms.

Comment by Brian Larson on March 8, 2011 at 2:11pm: Good post and comments. Job seekers are hoping to find "real" jobs, even if they are ultimately not a perfect fit fo them. Job seekers want relevant data. Quality control applies to the content 'behind' the post as much as the content 'in' the post. It can also be very difficult manage this.

Comment by Paul Basile on March 9, 2011 at 11:28am: Well, exactly. Jobseekers need to know themselves in job-relevant terms. They need something scientific, substantive, reliable and verifiable - not best-guesswork. Resumes don't help them get there nor do nearly all job posts and "employer branding" exercises that are more aspirational than real.