Industry-specific job boards: the outback of Australia’s recruitment advertising?

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Much like our great wide brown land itself, Australia’s recruitment advertising landscape really is like no other in the world. Large numbers of our advertisements congregate in a handful of major generalist centres, and to someone who spends all their time browsing those pages, they can feel like the whole story. However in reality, these large hubs only account for a small proportion of the total picture, and there are many more smaller but worthwhile advertising locations that lend Australian recruitment advertising a more distinct, targeted flavour.

We’re talking about niche advertising – or stepping outside of the big generalist job boards to use websites, publications and membership organisations that target candidates in your specific sector.

These devoted avenues are smaller, of course, than the huge generalist monoliths, but this can work to your advantage in two ways:

  • You know that 100% of the people browsing your ad are already working within your industry, or at the very least have an interest in your field of work, rather than the large amount of unqualified applicants that visit generalist job boards.
  • Your advertisement has far less competition for the attention of browsers, so not only are you sure that relevant candidates will see it, but with lower number of new ads uploaded each month, it will stay visible for longer.

Depending on the field in which you work, you may already be aware of the best niche recruitment advertising sources to target your candidates. Many sectors such as Engineering, IT, Community Services, Education, Mining, Trades and HR are well serviced in Australia with the familiar format of job boards, where active applicants from a specific industry visit and search for suitable roles.

On top of these boards, specialist publications in some industries offer ways to target more passive qualified candidates who are perhaps not actively searching the internet for jobs at the moment. If you work in an industry like Local Government, Healthcare, or Travel, industry-specific magazines, newsletters and publications are often delivered straight to the offices and lunch rooms of your peers and competitors – and placing your advert in one of these could open up new levels of exposure to your next hire. Similarly, if your profession has a magazine that’s widely read amongst your peers – think Business, Finance, Arts, Transport or Sports & Fitness – an advertisement in their pages is your opportunity to reach more relevant eyes.

Many potential candidates in fields like Accounting, Allied Health, Environmental Science and Marketing are registered with professional associations, whose websites or e-newsletters offer members the opportunity to advertise directly to their peers. Again, while the overall number of viewers for this kind of advertising might be lower than placing an ad on a big job board, you’re guaranteed of a much higher level of relevance amongst browsers.

As we mentioned, the Australian market is all but unique in terms of how its niche advertising sources compare to the generalist channels. While smaller markets such as New Zealand struggle to support advertising options for specific industries, options in the USA and the UK are so numerous that it can be difficult to navigate through a labyrinth of specialist sources. On this front, Australia’s closest comparison may actually be Canada, which like us has a few large generalist job boards, known by the majority of the market, but also a strong field of niche advertising.

Looking at Employment Office’s figures for the past 12 months, industry-specific niche advertising accounted for over 25% of all applications received. From these figures, we can conclude that where appropriate and available, placing an advertisement in a small but targeted medium within your sector, in combination with generalist advertising and social media, can be a valuable channel to finding your next recruit.