Who needs a job board?

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Every town, company, non-profit, professional association, newspaper, periodical, television station, blog and club in the world. In many cases, a specific geography or profession can use multiple sites. The purpose of a job board is usually
% ]& x) I- w4 W2 D: \: ~' ga) To inform members of an audience about relevant job openings or,
b) To offer customers the opportunity to post job openings to a specific audience.

! O$ h( j2 Y; m" |7 HSounds logical, doesn't it? The reason that this level of simplicity is important (if somewhat obvious) is that familiarity with a particular niche is critical to success. The Employment market is different in different cultiures. So,

Adicio is successful powering a certain range of domestic American Job Boards. Their penchant for the newspaper industry shows in their range of offerings (They offer a full complement of services for housing, employment and transportation)
Boxwood Technologies are highly successful in the Association Industry. Trade and professional associations are a culture in and of themselves. A frirm like Boxwood must be able to tailor its offerings to the realities of Association Business Model and cash flow/ organizational objectives.
MonsterTrak (a subsidiary of Monster) powers a huge number of college job boards.
& V2 R+ A5 P/ H% p6 a7 NMadgex is highly visible in European markets along with Stepstone.
4 Y7 c2 B( z" r+ eTaleo, BrassRing, Vurv and others power the websites of their corporate clients.
. @8 _, m0 w7 A- v( E5 U. \There are hundreds of companies offering similar services in a broad array of niches. If there are 50,000 job boards, there are probably 350 small companies powering them. The market is undifferentiated and overlapping.

+ L/ Q+ o+ v# Q3 vAs we look further at the future of Trade and Professional Associations, the requirements for a job board (and its functionality) will become central to the discussion.