Opportunity for agencies to run regional job boards

1-Oct-2008

A regional job board network is offering recruiters the opportunity to add another revenue strand to their business by running one or more of its boards as a franchise.

The first franchise, www.herefordshirejobson line.co.uk, will launch within the next six weeks. Web addresses have been registered for 71 regions across the UK, and Gareth Tannatt Nash, creative director of NetSolva, the company behind the network, told Recruiter that he estimates the first 25-30 of these will be up and running before the end of the year.

“In a volatile market we see the job boards offering an additional revenue stream for agencies, who can offer the service to both clients and competitors alike,” said Nash, who worked in recruitment for six years.

Anthony Musson, managing director of FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods] agency AM Resourcing, is one of those interested in running one or more of the franchises. “We haven’t experienced a downturn in our sector yet and there are still lots of vacancies, but the opportunity to diversify and introduce a separate revenue strand is attractive,” said Musson. “My company specialises in search and selection for the FMCG sector across the UK, so I if I ran a regional job board based in the West Midlands or Manchester, there wouldn’t be a conflict of interest.”

Nash is recommending that franchisees run postings for free initially and gain revenue from banner ads. “Once the job board is established, franchisees can change their strategy. We’ve kept development costs low so they should be able to offer rates at half the price of other job boards,” he said.

The sites are built on a standard platform and come with a degree of search engine optimisation having been built to pick up a wide range of search terms.

NetSolva’s sister company, Recruta, has appeared top of Google’s organic listings for the words ‘job board design’ for around 18 months. Recruta will be taking over development and support of the job board business.

As well as the regional network, NetSolva develops and maintains websites for agencies and clients including AM Resourcing, Apt-Recruitment and Australian legal search and selection company, Elias Recruitment.

www.netsolva.co.uk