The days of walk-in applications for jobs have passed. People are no more interested in meetings with a recruiter and handing them their resumes personally. At the same time, it requires a lot of energy and time, which makes the process not efficient enough.
Sourcing candidates without effective sourcing tools is like walking through a jungle without equipment. Experienced sourcers and recruiters might still find their way to hidden treasures. But, it doesn’t have to be that difficult. Sometimes, a creative approach to candidate sourcing tools can make a recruiting job easier (and maybe even more fun).
It’s important to find relevant and qualified candidates in a timely manner to maintain a company’s smooth hiring process. Using job portals can streamline the candidate search and help your company make the right hire.
In this article, we discuss what job portals are, why they’re important and becoming more popular, how to use them, and tips on how to source candidates there.
Contents
What Is a Job Portal?
Job portals, also known as recruitment portals, job boards, job sites, job websites, or employment websites, are online platforms that help job-seekers to find an applicable job and aid the employer in locating candidates as per their experience, qualifications, skillsets, etc.
There are 3 types of ranges for job portals:
- Local. These job portals only cover a region within a country, e.g., the New York State in the USA or the Rotterdam area in the Netherlands.
- National. Such job portals operate on a national scale.
- Multi-countries. These sites cover several countries, e.g., job portals operating throughout Europe.
Using job portals, you can advertise jobs and search for resumes. These platforms are an essential part of almost every hiring process, and using them effectively will help you to find qualified and relevant candidates in a more cost- and time-efficient way.
Why Job Portals Are Becoming More and More Popular
Needless to say, that job portal has become quite essential in today’s web world. Nowadays, everything is available on the internet, and the job portal is such a platform that bridges the gap between job seekers and recruiters.
Job hunters can easily contact plenty of job vacancies through job search engines, at their phase. Away from that, most job portals have filters that can be useful for slighting down the results.
At the same moment, job portals can help employers speed up their hiring process. It would be easy for recruiters or hiring managers to verify job applications online and for sourcers to find qualified candidates using search practices. Hence, job portals help them save time and effort.
Benefits of using job portals for job seekers:
- Receiving job alerts. Plenty of job portals provide standard job notifications for job hunters whenever there are interesting job openings for them.
- A lot of job opportunities. Job portals offer a full collection of job choices from different companies. It means that job seekers have a chance to search for the job they want anywhere.
- Resourceful. With these portals, job seekers can become relevant for a job effortlessly. Instead of going somewhere, the person can submit the resume online and wait for future employers to take action.
Benefits of using job portals for sourcers and recruiters:
- Promotion of the company’s name. Job portals allow a company to make an advertisement in a better beam. When job hunters research different job opportunities, the first thing they’ll look at is a company’s background. They’d want to know something about the work culture, environment, and career development opportunities the company has.
- Easy resume research. The filters available in job portals will help sourcers and recruiters to select the most relevant candidates for the job. Likewise, they can show resumes with the right skills, qualifications, and experiences. These filters will screen out inappropriate resumes to get the most competent applicants as soon as possible.
- Easy way of choosing candidates. Recruiter’s and sourcer’s aim is to fill the position with an excellent candidate. Using a job portal in the hiring procedure makes it easier to choose the best applicant for the job. With this, it’s possible to have a list of applicants with the necessary skills, achievements, and experience.
How Job Portals Can Be Useful for Sources and Recruiters
It’s where the candidates are
A job portal is not just a place where employers post job vacancies. It offers a huge candidate pool where job seekers upload resumes so recruiters can easily find them. A resume database works well for people who aren’t actively looking for a job but are open to new opportunities.
You can discover qualified applicants
Job portals let recruiters apply search filters by parameters like industry, location, experience level, and specific keywords. Some platforms even pull keywords from job advertisements to find candidates that may be a good fit for your open positions.
It can reduce screening time
When recruiters post a job advertisement, they can determine requirements and exclusion factors. This way, only relevant profiles reach their inbox. Instead of looking through many resumes to find matching candidates, recruiters evaluate resumes that meet their minimum requirements.
Job portals help simplify the hiring process
You can manage the entire process, from recruitment to communication and hiring, with a job portal. These platforms can be synchronized to your ATS and help you look through applications in a more time- and cost-efficient way.
You can meet job hunters halfway
Job portals offer candidates and recruiters the same opportunities to find each other. Recruiters get relevant resumes, and candidates receive notifications about job openings that match their preferences.
It helps recruiters focus on their desired audience
Every job portal has a different niche based on location, industry, seniority, etc. Recruiters can strategically choose specialized job portals to get closer to the people they want to hire.
A lot of job portals are free!
Whether it’s a completely free service or it just has a free trial, you have nothing to lose when looking for the absolute best fit for a position. Job portals can save you time and money and open your hiring practices up to many great candidates you may not have had access to before.
Check our article to get more insights:
The List of Job Portals that Might Be Interesting to Source Candidates at
There is a large pool of job portals that might be interesting to source candidates and post your vacancies at. Which one will work for you better is a matter of what you’re looking for. There are free and paid job portals. Some platforms can offer a pay-per-applicant option, meaning you’ll be only charged after receiving an application/candidate’s resume.
Most job portals require a subscription to give you full access to their resume database, or you can use a free trial to test it and understand if it’s convenient enough. We created a list of the most popular ones:
Best free job portals
Best paid job portals
- Arbeitnow
- Bayt (Middle East)
- Behance
- Beyond
- Bumeran (Argentina)
- Cadremploi (France)
- Careerbuilder
- Coroflot
- Dice
- Dribbble
- Glassdoor Premium
- Hire a hero
- Indeed
- Jobs.lu (Luxembourg)
- JobStreet (Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam)
- Monster
- Remotive
- Resume-library
- Seek
- Stack Overflow
- StepStone (Europe)
- TotalJobs (UK)
- ZipRecruiter
Popular job portals by country
Poland:
Ukraine:
Hungary:
Bulgaria:
Columbia:
Chile:
Mexico:
Brazil:
Nigeria:
Kenya:
South Africa:
Egypt:
Armenia:
Cyprus:
Greece:
Serbia:
Tips and Tricks on How to Source Candidates from Job Portals
A job portal is one of the essential and important tools in your sourcing arsenal. A well-designed job platform facilitates the entire process, from sourcing to screening and scheduling interviews.
Most job portals ask job seekers to post their resumes so that the job search software can find the most relevant positions based on keywords and experience. That means that sourcers and recruiters can search through the portal’s database to find matching candidates by setting specific criteria to narrow the resume search.
But how to source potential candidates from job portals? Here are some tips and tricks for finding resumes and effectively recruiting talent on job search platforms.
1. Use the Advanced Search function
By using the advanced search function on the job portal, it is possible to narrow down the results from the pool of resumes and find resumes that match the specific requirements of the open position. You can search: by location, skills, education level, and experience. Plenty of job portals allow searching for resumes online using multiple filters without posting a job advertisement. You can also set up an email alert or synchronize with your ATS to get notifications for matching profiles.
This can save time and effort and help ensure that the results show only the most relevant and qualified candidates. In addition, the advanced search function can help identify potential candidates who may not be actively searching for a new job.
Here is an example of what the Advanced Search looks like (screenshots taken from the job portal Indeed.com).
The search query was to find a Software Engineer with knowledge of Java-based in London:
As a result, we have 501 resumes of candidates who might be relevant for a position. Filters are quite similar to the ones that LinkedIn has. You can narrow your search by using filters like job titles, availability, years of experience, etc.
There is also a possibility to set up an email alert to receive new resumes directly in your mailbox.
Check our article to get more insights:
Candidate Sourcing Automation: Ultimate Guide to Finding Candidates at Scale
3. Use keywords
Keywords are another good way to filter resumes on job portals.
For example, if you are looking for a Software Engineer with experience in Java, you might use the keywords “Software Engineer” or “Software Developer”, etc. Enter these words or phrases into the search bar when looking for a specific type of resume.
Using keywords, you can be sure that the resumes you receive will be relevant to the position you are trying to fill.
See an example above 🙂
3. Choose the right platform
Of course, there is an enormous pool of job portals existing on the internet. However, sourcing from all of them might be time- and energy-consuming.
First, it’s better to research popular job portals of the city/country/region you are looking for a candidate. The best thing is to concentrate on sourcing from the most well-known and reliable platforms. This will save you time and energy and increase your chances of finding high-quality resumes.
It’s also good to check and test different job portals according to your specific needs. You can experiment and track your results to identify those sources that bring the most qualified candidates.
Check the list of job portals that might be interesting to source candidates from above 🙂
4. Consider alternative job portals
Different websites can serve as de-facto job portals, without being created as one. Their main advantage is that they gather and connect people interested in a specific area and allow sourcers and recruiters to look through their profiles and find their resumes. It is very useful in sourcing candidates with a specific skill set and qualification.
For example, Dribbble and Behance are the most common places for designers not only to hang out but also to upload their resumes and share their work. Github and StackOverflow can also be used by sourcers and recruiters to get in touch with developers.
For example, on Dribbble you can also use keywords and filters like location, years of experience, etc., to find the best match.
For example, here is the easy way to find candidates on GitHub in just 3 steps:
- Sign in to GitHub or create a personal account. It’s quick and easy!
2. Use the top search bar. You can filter out by developers based on location, programming language, number of followers, etc. (E.g. I’m looking for a developer with knowledge of Java-based in London. In the search bar, enter “location:London language:Java” and, as a result, you have 7,5K users who might be interested, including false/positives.
3. Check for the candidates’ contact details in the bio to reach out.
Here are some examples of how to source candidates on StackOverflow:
1.Filter by user. You can source candidates by entering keywords related to what you are looking for in the search bar.
2. Use advanced candidate search. Stack Overflow offers its paying customers access to their users’ profiles.
This option allows you to find, message, and recruit from Stack Overflow’s pool of developer candidates who are interested in being contacted by employers.
3. Tag search. You can also use Stack Overflow’s tag search option to find relevant potential candidates.
The tag is actually a skill. For example, enter “java” in the search bar to find Java developers and click on the “java” tag.
The result will look like this:
Now click on the “top users” to get a list of developers:
You can also narrow your search by using an additional filter and entering a couple of tags (skills) related to what you are looking for.
5. Create engaging job advertisements
Job seekers usually spend little time reading job advertisements before deciding whether or not to apply. That’s why it’s important to ensure that the job advertisements you post are engaging.
Here is a short checklist that will help you to make a job advertisement more catchy:
- Personalize the advert. Think about people who do a similar job to the one you’re hiring for. So it’s important that you personalize your advert with the right person in mind.
- Talk about company culture.
- Make it easy to read. Remember that job seekers spend only a few seconds on an advert, so ensure that the post is easy to read and enlightens the main points.
- Avoid academic words, buzzwords, and cliches. Natural language is much more attractive 🙂
- Make an accent on your values.
- Show your lifestyle. One very simple perk could be the natural lifestyle advantage.
Also, make sure that your job posting provides enough information about the position to catch the interest of potential candidates.
The great thing is to also use keywords in your advertisement. This will help to ensure that your job posting appears in the search results of the potential candidate looking for a job that matches their skills, qualification, and experience.
Here are some nice examples of job advertisements to inspire you 🙂
6. Use browser extensions for sourcers and recruiters
This will help you to make your work easier and to find the best candidates in a more cost- and time-efficient way.
Check our article to get more insights:
Wrapping up
To finalize, job portals can open your way into a more productive and efficient recruitment process. It gives you a big pool of data that provides a broader perspective for sourcing candidates from around the world.
Using the tips in this article, you can ensure you get the most out of job portals and sourcing high-quality candidates.
As a result, you can save time, energy, and money while finding the perfect match for the job.
Do you need support in sourcing candidates that perfectly match your requirements? Matchr provides experienced sourcers who work fully embedded into your team and help you deliver on your hiring plans. With our help, you receive exactly what you need: a consistent flow of candidates without any effort from your side.
