The times are changing, and so is the balance of power in the job market. It’s no longer the job-seekers who are competing against each other for working with the best companies, but recruiters who are looking for the best talent and fit for their organizations. A few years ago, recruiting new talent was like fishing with a hook and bait in a pond abundant with life. Just one hook with an attractive bait was enough to attract hundreds of good quality fish in an instant. Companies just had to post an ad and every posting attracted hundreds of qualified responders.

But now, looking for high-quality talent is like casting a wide net into a sparsely populated ocean, hoping to score something even mentionable. And even the ones that appear to be within the net often slip out. In this scenario, job boards act as the net that recruiters use to reach out to a large number of potential employees. Although it is a given that recruiters should choose job boards with the largest reach, quality is still a key requirement when looking for candidates. And smart candidates, as you would expect, use smarter ways to find jobs they like. This includes practices like using automated job search methods, following the most effective job search tips, and most importantly, staying away from job boards that don’t perform well.

After all, why would a smart person go anywhere near a job board that posts mostly expired jobs, leads to random spammy websites, and doesn’t give enough pertinent information on the jobs it displays? Such websites are a dime a dozen. You know you wouldn’t hang around those. We know we wouldn’t. But how do recruiters identify job boards that will attract the best and the ones that will only waste time—both theirs and their potential candidates’. Here’s a little insider’s list of things recruiters should look for, to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to job boards, as it were:

1. Compatibility with ATS

Recruiters who are well-versed with technology should be aware of the specifications of their internal Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). They should also know what other forms of recruitment technology they use. With those in mind, they should choose job boards that are compatible with a broad range of ATS’s and other recruitment systems. Certain newer job boards are based on job wrapping platforms that can be integrated with a variety of software used by different employers.

Job boards that are compatible with recruiters’ ATS’s are more convenient for job-seekers to use. This is because such job boards can be programmed to lead applicants to the employers’ careers websites, and specifically to the page that allows visitors to apply to jobs directly. In most cases, job-seekers have to go through a number of steps before actually reaching the original employer’s site. This disconnect between the recruiters’ site and the job board’s platform also means that jobs are not updated as frequently and as promptly as they are posted. In most cases, it is not the people running the job board themselves who are to blame, but the job aggregator software that periodically scours through thousands of online sources to find newer jobs instead of always being in sync with the recruiters’ job sites.

When a job board and recruiters’ sites are integrated through APIs, every change in the source is automatically reflected in the job board. This ensures that the job board becomes a reliable source for job-seekers to constantly stay updated on new job postings by popular employers. This, in turn, enables the job board to garner a huge volume of traffic, attracting a large number of qualified candidates. Thus, every recruiter that posts their jobs on such job boards ensures maximum discoverability.

2. High-quality data validation

One of the most frustrating experiences for job-seekers, if not the most frustrating, is to find a job that perfectly fits them in every way, only to be found expired on visiting the employer’s site. Job-seekers seethe when they click on a link thinking it is a valid link to the job application page, only to find dead links and 404 errors. A quality job board is founded upon a job aggregating platform or a job wrapping solution that is built to validate job data and filters out undesirable and invalid links. This is different from most job board sites that, upon clicking on a job posting, lead the applicants to another website stuffed with ads and more misleading job links that would turn even the most patient job-seekers away. When this happens enough number of times, job boards begin to lose their ranking on search engines and plunge into online oblivion, never to be found by even the most desperate of job-hunters.

Recruiters should be wary of posting their jobs to such boards, as the replication of their invalid and expired ads on multiple such sites would then make job-seekers skeptical of even their legitimate postings. This, consequently, may result in recruiters missing out on good candidates over time.

3. Niche and customized job aggregation

Although it is advisable to post on job boards that have a general mix of job postings and high traffic, recruiters can have greater success in finding candidates on niche job boards. These job sites may focus on specific industries, specific geographic areas, or other kinds of niche such as a job site just for senior-level management personnel.

When posting jobs on a niche site, however, it is important to know that not all niche sites are created equal—or equally well, to be precise. Some niche sites are nothing but aggregators of jobs that source jobs simply based on the inclusion of certain keywords. They don’t go through the content of the job postings, at least as thoroughly as would be ideal. This has two drawbacks:

they aren’t able to identify all jobs that fit into the the niche, and they miss many jobs that do actually fit into the niche.

This means that the jobs on most so-called “Niche” job boards are not all relevant and not all-inclusive. Good job boards that cater to niche demographics use highly intelligent, customized and automated job search and job aggregation solutions. These software systems are highly complex and highly potent at identifying specific job postings from across the internet. They can identify any and all jobs that meet selected criteria, regardless of how obscurely phrased they might be. Job boards that use such platforms attract a high number of the right kind of candidates, making it easy for recruiters who post on them to find suitable employees.

In addition to these features, recruiters should also look for job boards that present adequate information about the jobs that are posted, both in quality and quantity. Since candidates always look for jobs that are specifically suited to their interests, they must be provided with enough accurate information about vacant positions to enable them to make informed decisions. A high-quality, reliable job board uses job wrapping algorithms that extract all the necessary information from sources (the employers’ career sites) and even filter out jobs that don’t have enough necessary information. They present this information in easy-to-read, consistent format, making the process of finding and analyzing jobs convenient for candidates.

Even though students may use means of automated job search and networking sites to do most of their job-hunting, they will still need job boards to complete their job search strategy. And to be their first choice, job boards are using technological solutions like premium job wrapping tools by Propellum. And, such job boards make it to the top of a recruiter’s list of most favorite job boards to tie up with.