Why your association needs a full-service career center: Job boards vs. career centers

Here’s an interesting statistic:

American workers change jobs about every 4 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting Great Resignation, changing jobs has become even more frequent in the labor market.

That offers a prime opportunity for associations like yours to position themselves as the go-to destination for professionals in your industry to find information about new job postings, career advice, networking opportunities, and the like.

One way to do that is with an association job board. Despite their usefulness, job boards fall far short in several respects because of their limited scope, lack of features that unlock the value of your members and target audience, and minimal interaction with relevant industry professionals.

On the other hand, upgrading to an association career center puts your members front and center, giving them the full suite of tools and resources that they need to grow their careers successfully. With a career center, your association has a full-scale career development hub at its disposal, giving you the opportunity to engage with members and industry professionals on a regular basis.

Your association can also offer value and create additional engagement with new learning and networking opportunities, industry news and insights, career advice content, and much more.

This is where the crucial differences between job boards and career centers are most evident. Remembering that workers change jobs about once every 4 years, do you want your association to be a resource that professionals in your industry use only sparingly with a job board, or frequently with a full-service career center?

Here, we take a more detailed look at the differences between job boards for associations and full-service association career centers, while also examining the benefits of upgrading to an optimized career center for your association.

What are job boards for associations?

Job boards for associations are webpages used to advertise job postings, upload jobseeker resumes, and offer a place where jobseekers can sign up for email alerts when new jobs are posted.

Job boards started as online replacements for classified job sections in newspapers, magazines, and journals. Globally, there are thought to be more than 50,000 job boards operating.

What are association career centers?

Career centers for associations combine the functionality of job boards with a more comprehensive suite of resources for an association’s target audience, including relevant and useful content, event information, skill assessments, learning and development tools, networking opportunities, and more.

They offer more value and a more extensive range of options for associations to engage with their audience, leading to improved member satisfaction, retention, and engagement as well as the ability to expand their reach online.

Why should you upgrade to an association career center?

So, why should you evolve your job board into a full-service association career center? Let’s examine some of the advantages of career centers for associations in-depth.

Increase value for your members, build your audience and grow membership

Association career centers are a great way to increase value for your members with relevant, engaging content and other resources, as well as grow your audience and attract new members.

While association job boards function primarily as a way for jobseekers to find and apply to new roles, one of the benefits of career centers for associations is the full suite of tools that association members and jobseekers have at their disposal.

In addition to offering a place to apply for roles, career centers also serve as central hubs for editorial and career advice content, information about upcoming industry events and news, learning and development tools, professional skill assessments, and other useful, relevant resources for your audience.

With these tools, your association can offer more value for its members, boosting member engagement, retention, and satisfaction significantly.

Additionally, career centers offer a much better way to grow your audience and increase membership.

With an association career center, you can leverage this unique mix of relevant and engaging content, SEO, and job postings to greatly increase your reach and value for your target audience. In turn, this can play a key role in growing your audience and ultimately boosting membership, directly leading to more revenue.

Boost your non-dues revenue

Association career centers also offer the ability to generate more non-dues revenue quickly and efficiently. This is crucial for associations nowadays given the fact that membership fees represent under 40% of associations’ total income.

How so? Career centers allow you to attract advertising and sponsorships from key employers in your industry through display advertising technology, offer premium content, market special services to your audience, and spread the word about webinars, conferences, and other events — all of which are leading sources of non-dues revenue.

Gain key insight into your audience

Finally, full-service career centers for associations have another advantage over job boards by offering the ability to gain more insight into your audience.

With a career center, your association can gather data on what types of content your audience is engaging with, what their professional skill levels and experience are, what they're interested in, what their career goals and professional aspirations are, and much more.

With this data, your association can make more informed decisions about how to better serve your members and provide the support they need to advance their careers.

Empower your association with a full-service career center today

Upgrading your association job board into a full-service career center can play a key role in boosting your non-dues revenue, growing your membership, offering more value, and increasing member retention, satisfaction, and engagement.

Right now, take a close look at what you’re currently offering. Is it really a career center or just a job board that generates very little engagement from your members and doesn’t really unlock your audience’s value?

Madgex can help. By upgrading to a full-service Madgex career center, your association will be able to greatly improve its value for your members, connecting them with new career opportunities, valuable content, learning and development resources, and much more.

You can also leverage our market-leading technology and cutting-edge SEO functionality to drive traffic and build your audience, while our extensive sales inventory and advanced display advertising technology can grow your non-dues revenue quickly and efficiently.

Want to learn more? Get in touch with us today to find out how we can improve your association’s career center, so you can truly maximize the value of your members.