More than 26% of the Indian population is using the internet today. Different people spend time surfing the internet for various reasons. Be it ordering food online, shopping from e-commerce platforms, or searching for jobs, our lives today are very much dependent on such platforms.
Today even online job portals have become a crucial part for both job seekers as well as recruiters. The hiring process has become easy for companies and there are abundant opportunities available for the candidates. However, there is certainly one question that comes to our mind – How do job portals make money?
Almost all job portals give the option to explore jobs, seek opportunities, and register for job updates just for free. In this article, you will get to know how these job portals make money.
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Database Selling
Premium Content
Affiliate Marketing
Email Newsletters
Offering their Products and Services
Hiring Events
Advertisements
There are several ways in which these job portals make money by publishing advertisements. Usually, when a company is in need of employees, they contact job portals in order to outsource some of their work.
Job portals advertise these job openings on their homepages and websites where they get huge traffic of visitors. The job portals advertise such posts into various categories depending upon the job location, type of job, etc.
In addition to job posts, there are many other ways in which these job portals can earn a huge amount of money by displaying advertisements. For example – Google AdSense. This is one of the most efficient ways to monetize the website. By creating an account on Google AdSense, these websites can publish advertisements and earn heavy amounts if they have a good volume of traffic on their website. This money is usually earned by pay per click model.
Another common method of earning through websites is by placing banner ads on websites. These banners feature jobs, services, or products related to the website niche and the clients get good visibility on the job portals. Banners, buttons, tile adverts, and all such related advertisements help the job portals to earn a good amount of money.
Database Selling
Whenever anyone wants to look out for jobs online, these job portals ask for free registration by simply making an account on their website. The registration details include the job seeker’s name, email address, phone number, etc.
This data is recorded with the job portals and whenever companies are in need of prospective employees or are looking out for candidates for the recruitment process, the job portals sell them this data.
This is one of the most common and simple ways of earning money for job portals. Also, there are many such platforms that also sell data to job seekers. This data is nothing but details about the vacant positions in different companies.
Premium Content
Today many job portals have differentiated their services into free services and premium services. This helps them to make their customers buy their premium services.
By charging a basic amount to the customers i.e. both the recruiters and job seekers, these websites earn handsome money. To the employers, these portals sometimes charge on the basis of every candidate they interview or offer services in a lump sum.
As far as the job seekers are concerned, these portals charge fees monthly or annually depending upon the need of the candidates.
Affiliate Marketing
Many job portals try to use affiliate marketing strategies to earn revenue. Affiliate marketing is nothing but a process of making money by recommending other’s products and services.
When the buyer is interested in that product or service, the affiliate marketer gets a commission on every sale. Similarly, job portals use this technique. They act as an affiliate and charge commission from recruiters and applicants.
Email Sales
The job portals extensively survive on the database that they have. It is one of the most important assets of their business. One such key resource email. When the companies plan to have mass recruitments and enormous openings, they reach out to job portals for purchasing email databases.
Since it is unlikely for a company to hire candidates by just sending emails to them, it actually helps them to get many options so that they filter the best ones according to their needs.
Offering their Products and Services
There are various products and services that are offered by job portals. A few of them are mentioned below:
Resume Writing
Many job portals offer resume writing services for job seekers. They partner with professional resume writers and provide these services to their customers on a chargeable basis. These resume writers also help job seekers to modify, change the existing resumes of the customers.
Resume Featuring
Another interesting service offered by job portals is that they feature your resume if you take their premium services. Many job seekers are very serious about finding the perfect opportunity and resume featuring can be very helpful for them.
Resume featuring can help the candidate stand out from the crowd as their resume would be highlighted for a certain period by the job portal on their website or platform.
Another type of resume featuring is by recording a video resume or cover letters with which the candidates can be highlighted on the job portals.
Paid Courses
There are courses offered by various job portals that are designed to add value to job seekers’ profiles. These job portals sell such courses, provide certificates after course completion, and earn money.
Coaching Services
Job portals offer their coaching services for job seekers who want to develop their resume writing skills, cover letter writing skills, and interview skills. They have various professionals from the industry who help job seekers in learning and improving these skills.
Hiring Events
There are various job portals like Indeed that allow employers to promote their hiring events in which they virtually interview multiple candidates. Employers post and promote such events on these job portals. This attracts many candidates who are then interviewed before the event is hosted.
Once these interviews get over, the shortlisted candidates are invited to the hiring events. In order to do conduct all such activities, job portals charge a fee to the employers.
Rishabh Rathi
Conclusion
These were some of the common ways job portals make money. Many job portals let job seekers create an account for free and then try to sell their products and services or courses to earn revenue. One of the major sources of revenue for every job portal is database sales.
FAQ
Is job portal business profitable?
Yes, a job portal business can be profitable if you choose the right revenue model.
How much does it cost to develop a job portal?
Developing a job portal can cost you around $5000 to $40,000.
How does a job portal work?
Job portals connect job seekers to recruiters for free. They usually earn money by selling databases of job seekers to companies.
