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Job Boards – 11 hours In

Posted By Darren Rowse 24th of August 2006 ProBlogger Site News 0 Comments

Jobboardheader
Thank you to everyone who has sent in feedback, questions and ideas for the ProBlogger Job Boards as well as the many bloggers who have linked up to it.

I’ve always wanted to be a match maker – and now I sort of feel like I am with lots of reports of bloggers and blog employees doing ‘mating dances’ over at the boards.

The boards have only been up and running for 11 or so hours but the response has been very positive. A few highlights already:

  • We’ve had our first paying ads go up (obviously there were a few freebies to start with)
  • We’re hearing that quite a few bloggers have subscribed to the RSS feed and thousands hitting the front page already
  • There have been a few opportunities for interviews with podcasters, bloggers and mainstream media about the boards
  • Initial reports from advertisers are that they’re getting some very quality applicants already. One looks like they’ve already filled a position and are actively negotiating with a blogger.
  • We’ve had some good bookmarks over at Delicious (thanks people)
  • Some great ideas have been sent in from readers as to what they’d like to see added

FAQ – Pricing

One of the most frequently asked questions has been around the price of the ads. This is not unexpected, especially in a time where a number of other job boards and classified type services have been released in Web 2.0 circles. Some of the other services are free and others are charging considerably more – and there have been people recommending/arguing that we’re too cheap or too expensive (as I expected).

Here are a few thoughts on the decision to charge for this service:

  • Pricing is always a ‘best guess’ scenario – As Eric and I tested the boards and showed them to a few fellow bloggers and network owners we had a range of feedback on what we should price the ads at. All agreed that it was a service worth paying for but some priced it high (as much as $250) while others priced it low (down to $50). The price that did come up again and again was $100 – just over $3 per day. This is where we will start (after our opening special) and we’ll then see how the market reacts to it.
  • Price and Perception of Value – I’ve always believed that when you charge people for a service that it changes the perceived value of it and the way that people interact with it. While we will not attract as many jobs as a free service would, I’m hoping that in charging we’ll attract advertisers who have quality positions and that bloggers will see it as something worth subscribing to for that reason. This is a board to help bloggers find paying jobs and not necessarily a notice board for people to find freebie bloggers for their blogs. I suspect that charging will filter out some of that and keep the jobs advertised of a high standard.
  • Not Changing the Rules -We are also charging because we don’t want to change the rules later on. While the price might change the fact that it’s a paid system won’t (and if it did change I’d rather go from paid to free than from free to paid).

Like I say above – pricing is a best guess thing and the market will eventually determine where things will settle in the coming months – but the indications so far are good that people are willing to pay to expose their ad to ProBlogger readers.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. I really like this idea as I have been looking to get others involved in my blog. Any tips you can give on writing a good advertisement?

  2. Darren,

    Your arguments for charging to post a listing is spot on.

    You’ve got a name to maintian, you’ve to got make it a quality service.

    Cheers and good luck.

    “Pink Eyed” Jim

  3. ProBlogger launches a job board…

    I wrote about niche job boards a couple weeks ago when Mike Arrington from TechCrunch launched CrunchBoard. I mentioned how I really liked the idea and felt there was room for more job boards like this. Even though I really liked CrunchBoard I ended …

  4. I sure hope that there will be an opening for somebody who loves basketball!

    Thanks for the great service in the Job Boards!

  5. Are you going to have an affiliates program?

  6. Darren,

    Your Price and Perception of Value argument is 100% spot on.

    If you’d have done it for free you would be downing in postings – mostly of poor quality. This will weed them out in a way – it sounds tough but it’s a win/win for all. The job seeker knows that the advert is serious and the genuine advertiser doesn’t get swamped by a thousand other postings.

    But the real proof is a little further down the track – testimonials of sorts from advertiser who got what they wanted and job seekers who got genuine jobs.

    That’s when we’ll know if this will work. And I don’t see no reasons why it shouldn’t.

  7. not at this point Jay but it’s one of the many features we’re considering.

  8. […] 2. So is being Flexible: In episode one, and in nearly every single episode that follows — well into season 2 — although there are detailed, intricate, plans, nearly all of them fall apart. Things that Scofield had planned on don’t pan out, scenarios that were built on assumptions crumble, and people he may have depended on flake out. Even though YOU have a plan A — do YOU have a plan B? If adsense doesn’t pan out, will you have other sources of revenue to pay for your hosting? Just like Michael Scofield, being flexible is a key to your survival as well. Maybe you should look into affiliate programs in addition to text-link-ads.com … ? […]

  9. Prologger just keeps getting better!

  10. Darren,

    I love your new job board – I am so excited to have a place I can come to that I really trust to learn about blogger job openings!

    Thank you very much!

    Lisa Roberson

  11. Hi Darren,
    Just curious to know what program you are using to generate the job board. Did you use an out of the box solution or create it from scratch?

  12. custom made Splatty.

  13. And bloggers looking to shamelessly whore themselves can try BlogWhore

  14. I just wanted to tell you what a great idea this was, but I did have one issue with the look. It’s really hard to read the orange links in the tan background. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I thought you should know. I never have a problem with the orange color on the white background, but I also noticed your sidebar doesn’t have orange links on it (just orange highlighting when you hover over it).

  15. I think that charging is very very smart.

    My concern with the free options out there are that they could devalue our industry.

    I think it’s about time that business blogging and blog networks matured and stepped up in it’s professionalism. All the ‘free’ stuff is good and well but that’s not how the professional world works and I worry that unless we move away from it we’ll create a culture where bloggers are undervalued.

    It is like what blog designers are struggling with. There are many talented designers out there but having chatted to a lot of them I’ve found that many of them can’t find paid work because everyone expects free work because ‘that’s what blogging is about’.

    Blogging needs to go to the next stage and the more professional paid services like this that show blog employers that they need to treat bloggers as they would any other employees the better.

    I know I’ve already subscribed to the feed and have applied for three of the jobs advertised. I’ve just heard back from one of the advertisers to say that the position is almost definately filled after just 3 hours of being on the board so I’d say it’s working.

  16. Nice, just what I was looking for. I just hope someone out there is looking for a science or health blogger. ;)

  17. Great idea. Glad to see it…I added a link and a post to the board. Best of luck to you.

  18. It’s been great so far. I didn’t expect to receive as many applications as quickly as I did, but there has been a very high quality and diversity to them. Very happy :)

  19. […] Darren has an article over on Problogger about the new Job Board that he has set up, where he charges people US$50 per month to list a vacant blogging posititons. […]

  20. Awesome!

    I think the fee is going to work as an AMAZING filter. Bloggers will know up front that advertisers have to be serious about generating revenue to post jobs there in the first place. Consequently, it will become a valued and competitive board among writers, returning value right back to the advertisers.

    Exciting stuff!

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