Is there room for more job boards in Australia?

by Brett Iredale May 20, 2008

The answer of course is yes, but check out these numbers to get an idea of just how much potential there still is:

There are currently estimated to be around 40,000 employment sites in the US. The US has a poulation of around 304,000,000 meaning there is 1 job site for every 7600 people in the US.

Applying the same ratios to Asia, Australia and New Zealand we get the following:

Australia
Population 21,000,000 - so if we had a job board for every 7600 people we should have 2763 sites.

Asia
Population 373,000,000,000 therefore > 49,000,000 employment sites

New Zealand
Population 4,500,000 therefore 592 employment sites.

I don't want to hear 101 reasons from the big job board players about why these stats don't hold up. My point is simply this:

If you assume Australia is a similar market to the US (albeit obviously smaller) and experiences similar demographics, employment conditions, internet connectivity etc, then statistically speaking Australia can support more than 2700 job boards. By our estimations there are currently less than 150 job boards in Australia.

Can we support more job boards in Australia? Heck yes.

Entry filed under: General, Job Board Updates

7 Comments Add your own

1. Scott Savage | May 20, 2008 at 10:01am

It isn't like people aren't trying, they are just running out of money. I think the question should be more what are the barriers to entry in this market? Fragmented recruitment software market that is slow to add new advertising upload destinations? Online marketing lock-out by bigger players? Large amount of marketing used by existing players? Use of annual contracts and discounting to lock in customers?

2. Brett Iredale | May 20, 2008 at 12:03pm

I agree Scott - there are more barriers to entry than people think, however that is just a case of people needing to spend more time researching the market before raising a few mill in VC and diving in blind. A lot of people see the relatively low cost of technology and think "I can do this" without realising some of the points you raise. These barriers exist in most markets though and plenty of people are still figuring out ways to be successful.

3. Recruitment Investor | May 20, 2008 at 10:34pm

To be fair, in my view you need to count the recruiters in australia as 'mini job boards' - they possess similar content and job seeker functionality as pure job boards. As u know, aus is quite unlike europe, usa and asia because so many corporate employers outsource recruitment to third parties. There's easily 3000+ recruiters in aus - check out their websites and you'll obviously find them presenting jobs from multiple employers, getting closer to your target range of 2700 job boards. If anything, the job board market in aus is saturated with very few (if any) job boards outside the big 3 AND the recruiters making any real money.

Consider a few more factors subordinating the emergence of other job boards
- new entrants inability to achieve genuine differentiation for job seekers
- funding (equity angels unimpessed with new job board business plans)
- high concentration of recruiters backing only a small number of sites
- poor quality of management expertise among job board start ups
- lack of integration support from ATS', notably fasttrack and many others
- lack of unity among disparate group of would-be job board entrepreneurs
- news and fairfax ability to lure advertisers with print + online packages
- seek's out and out dominance and recruiters' desire to keep it that way

Outside the main 3, i'd say there are a few interesting job board style businesses capable of achieving a sustainable market position. But even these are likely to be acquired by the big 3 as soon as they've done enough work for one of the main 3 to acquire them with minimum risk. Maybe you'll just see more job boards belonging to the stable of current online publishers of jobs - just like the way print emerged in australia over the last 40 years.

You may also see some job boards shift their business model. Imagine how some of the fringe job boards feel.. they are generating impressive job seeker traffic and receiving quality registrations... and yet no or little support from recruiters (a free trial is not recruiter support!) So, maybe the fringe job boards, if not acquired by the main 3, will go after the 15%-20% placement fees instead.

How ever this all plays out, I would not expect 2700 more job boards of the kind I see promoted on your site. I hope you are right though Brett, it's great to see new entrants having a go and no doubt, to survive they will focus more on the corporate advertising dollar than the recruiter advertising dollar.

4. Michael Specht | May 28, 2008 at 6:27pm

Interesting post & comments.

My feeling is we need job boards that add more value to the job seeker & recruiter (professional, HR or hiring manager), but while a job board is "just" seen as a classified this will not change.

Recruitment Investor you raise some very valid concerns with the last 2 my major concerns today and 3 - 4 years ago. I would also agree we should count independent recruiters who place jobs on their sites as job boards.

More to come on this I suspect :-)

5. Carey Eaton | June 2, 2008 at 5:24pm

I probably should avoid this particular debate but interests aside, I know you're quoting Peter Weddle's Directory when you say there are 40,000 job boards in America.

Do you or Weddles Directory or anyone for that matter have any stats to show how many of the 40,000 he counted in 2006 are in the 40,000 he's counted in 2008?

I suspect what neither Peter nor you are factoring in are one of the words sustainable, permanent or profitable.

6. Brett Iredale | June 3, 2008 at 7:00am

Carey - that would be an interesting and yes I think we all agree that creating a job board and creating a profitable job board are 2 vastly different propositions. That said I stand by my point and that is there is a lot more room for good niche job boards in Australia yet. a LOT more.

7. Kelly Magowan | July 10, 2008 at 7:20pm

As a job board start up, www.sixfigures.com.au this conversation holds great interest (though I am a month or so late). Indeed the job board market is dominated and owned by the three large media giants, which always makes things challenging for new entrants!

There is however always room for new players in every market, including the job board market in which there is a lot of room to innovative, around technology, process, service, design and so on.

As we know most job sites are volume and transaction driven which suits some professions, whilst not others. The focus is not on the quality of information being circulated, but rather the numbers! The market is starting to fragment with niche sites emerging and proving to be successful, even more successful than generalist sites in some instances. The trend of niche will no doubt continue, as Australia follows the success of overseas markets.

In a recent presentation by Rob McGovern, founder of Career Builder and more recently Job Fox, Career Builder, a rival to Monster in the USA has about a 5% placement rate. I am not sure of the figures in Australia for the larger sites, though something I would be keen to know.

Markets change so quickly these days, technology and innovation is rapid and businesses need to look at and commit to new initiatives to stay ahead of the game. I don’t think too many businesses can afford to not be open to change, particularly in the talent attraction and retention space.

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