What are the best job boards in the UK? And which ones are a waste of time?
With so many options, it’s hard to know what one will generate your company the finest candidates.
The truth is, different job boards have different features.
Some focus on a particular niche, while others are like a search engine for jobs – compiling thousands of vacancies in one place.
Advertising on job boards can be expensive too, with one or two of them charging up to £400 per vacancy for a four-week listing.
So, it pays to make the right choice.
To help you decide which is best for you, we’ve selected five of the top job boards in the UK you can’t afford to miss out on in 2020.
Indeed
Cost: free unless you want it to be seen by more candidates
If you’re hiring a generic role, Indeed is the place to be.
Recognised as the world’s number one job site, it attracts over 200 million unique visitors every month from over 60 countries around the world.
It’s usually the first port of call for many job seekers, as it’s easy to use, mobile-friendly and features almost every vacancy known to mankind!
However, the popularity of Indeed comes at a price for companies, with it so hard to rank in competitive fields.
For instance, if you’re advertising a nursing role in a city where there’s a skills shortage, candidates are going to have an influx of these opportunities to choose from.
This leaves you with two choices; either cross your fingers and accept you’ll probably only receive a small number of applications, or pay for your post to rank higher on the job board to increase of chances of success.
On the flip side, if your company is situated in a smaller town or remote place, Indeed is by far one of the best job boards in the UK to use in 2020.
You’ll face little competition and have access to the greatest number of applicants.
CV-Library
Cost: starting at £75 per posting
CV-Library is the UK’s leading independent CV database, with 14.6 million candidates on their radar.
There are a lot of reasons to love this job board.
For starters, their one-click apply feature makes the platform very user-friendly and accessible to candidates who want to apply on the go.
Their mobile app is also extremely easy to use, with personalised alerts built-in to instantly match thousands of potential candidates to employers.
While this job board might not generate as much traffic as Indeed, their vast database is worth the small £75 job posting fee alone.
It’s ideal for keeping recruitment costs down and generating maximum results.
Totaljobs
Cost: a 6-week job ad costs £74 for new users and £149 for existing
Totaljobs has gone from strength to strength in recent years, having partnered up with Jobsite in 2018.
On average, Totaljobs attracts around six million job seekers to their site every month, making it an attractive platform to place an ad.
However, unlike other job boards, this one delivers true value to both candidates and employers.
Instead of simply advertising jobs, they’ve invested in their careers advice section and included a comprehensive salary checker feature.
Not only do these features generate more traffic, but it can give you further recruiting guidance when you’ve finished reading all of our blogs!
Their daily email notifications are another highly effective way of keeping candidates connected with the latest jobs too – helping to reduce the need to scour the net for hours every day.
What’s more, if you’re willing to stretch your budget a little further to £250, they’ll give you access to their CV database which consists of around 19 million top candidates.
Adzuna
Cost: free unless you want it to be seen by more candidates
If you’re searching for job boards for small businesses, Adzuna is made for you.
It’s free to post a job advert and generates strong organic traffic by using unique artificial intelligence – pretty cool, huh?
In essence, it’s like a search engine or comparison website for the recruiting world, assembling relevant job posts from thousands of websites.
However, if you do want to maximise your exposure and cut straight to the top candidates, Adzuna offers a paid package, whereby, you ‘Sponsor your adverts’ and get applicants sent directly to you.
From a candidate point of view, its ‘ValueMyCV’ service gives them a fast and free estimation of their potential salary and delivers career path suggestions.
There’s also a handy grammatical and formatting checker to use on their CVs.
It really is a top place for job seekers to go.
CWJobs
Cost: starting from £199 for new users and £249 for existing
With the higher demand for technology, CWJobs’ stock is going to rise in 2020.
This job board is perfect for technology companies who want to cut through the masses of job seekers and reach a more targeted audience.
As the self-proclaimed home for tech jobs, this niche job board sends job alerts on the go and boasts a user-friendly mobile app.
Candidates benefit from its various tools designed to help boost their CV and improve their employability, thus increasing the quality of the applications you receive.
If you’re in a remote location and are struggling to find the right IT or tech professional, this is the top job board for you in 2020 – despite the bigger advertising cost.
Final thoughts
If you want to keep costs down and make sure your recruiting campaigns are successful in 2020, you can’t go far wrong with these five job board suggestions.
However, it’s important to remember that it’s a decision only you can make as a company.
The absolute solution is to try one or two of these job boards to start with and monitor the success rate of each campaign.
As the year goes on, you’ll start to identify which one works best for you.
Need some further help in advertising your vacancy? Then use our fantastic job ad builder. For more details on its features, click here.
James is the founder and owner of AdBuilder and a recruitment expert from Sutton Coldfield in the UK. He regularly advises companies on how to improve and get the maximum ROI from their recruitment processes and advertising.
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