Scaling your tech team and looking for the best way to get developers interested in your opportunity? Getting information on your open developer roles into the wild — and making sure the right people are seeing it — is your first step to making a hire for your team.
Chances are you’re already considering a variety of ways to get the word out about your open roles. Here we compare two methods you could use to spread awareness on your role and hire developers: job boards and a talent marketplace like OfferZen.
TL;DR: In this article we’ll compare:
- Developer talent
- Features
- Pricing
- Support
What are we comparing here?
A talent marketplace
A talent marketplace is an online platform that serves as a meeting point for companies seeking to hire professionals with certain skills and the talented individuals who possess those skills. It acts as a bridge between ‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’ of talent.
OfferZen is an example of a talent marketplace specialising in developers.
Job boards
Job boards allow employers to post public job listings, and developers can apply directly through the job portal for a specific opportunity.
Job boards can be general like Pnet or Indeed, or niche like Crunchboard or Dice, which are job boards for technical roles.
How does the developer talent compare?
Let’s dive into the differences between the type of developers that use job boards versus OfferZen:
Job-seeking intent: Developers can usually sign up to a job board regardless of whether they’re currently actively job-seeking or not. If you make use of these candidate databases for sourcing, a large part of your outreach will be to developers that might not be looking for a job right now. On OfferZen, only developers that are actively job seeking are visible to employers.
Responsiveness: Tied to job-seeking intent, active talent tends to be more responsive to outreach since they are committed to moving jobs. Because developers on OfferZen are active in their job search they are guaranteed to respond within 48 hours.
Time spent on sourcing: Inbound applications for technical roles have
seen a sharp rise in 2023, with job ads receiving an average of 174 applications in the first four weeks. This would translate to significant time spent on shortlisting developers during the sourcing process. In contrast, companies send an average of 24 messages to developers before making a hire on OfferZen.
Quality: Most job boards do not curate who can sign up to use their platform which leads to varying quality of candidates. On OfferZen, developers are curated for quality before they can enter the marketplace.
Location: When using general job boards with a wide audience such as LinkedIn or Indeed, it is easier to filter for developers in locations across the globe. However, the vast majority of top-ranked technical job boards specialise in US-based developer talent, with some regions in Europe and the UK also available. OfferZen caters to employers and developers based in Africa and Europe.
Access: A fundamental difference in job boards and OfferZen lies in direct access to developers. When using a job board, you are usually paying to advertise your roles, with developers applying to you. Getting access to contact developers directly is usually a separate paid feature. On OfferZen, you can directly reach out to developers with an opportunity. Soon, we will be introducing a feature at no extra cost where developers can also apply to your roles if they wish.
Features
Job boards:
- The distinguishing feature of job boards is the ability to advertise your open roles to a wide audience using the job board.
Common extra features, depending on the job board:
- Sourcing features, where you can search the database for candidates and reach out to them.
- Matching technology and recommendations for most suitable candidates.
- ATS features such as the ability to manage and communicate with applicants, and schedule interviews within the platform.
- Analytics on your job post’s performance.
OfferZen:
- Curation of the companies and developers that participate in the marketplace.
- Filtering capabilities to find developers that fit your requirements, such as salary, remote work preferences, skills, years of experience and visa status.
- Automatically matching you to candidates that are a good fit for your roles based on your search criteria.
- ATS integration with over 10 options.
- Company profiles to showcase your employer brand.
- Positions dashboard that enables you to manage and communicate with applicants, and schedule interviews within the platform.
- Analytics dashboard that provides insights into acceptance rate with benchmarking against other employers on the platform.
- Standardised, transparent developer profiles that can showcase things like skills, recent projects and work history.
- Templates for reaching out to candidates about an opportunity.
- Coming soon: The ability to feature your positions to candidates, where they can apply directly to a role.
Pricing
Many job boards split their pricing for access per feature.
Job boards typically charge to sponsor your open roles to a wider audience. They can follow a few different payment models for this, such as price per job post for a period of time, or a pay per click model. Besides advertising your roles, some job boards offer additional pricing for extra features.
For example, LinkedIn offers packages called Recruiter Lite/Recruiter Corporate to access sourcing features such as high numbers of InMails and search filters, which is separate to their pricing for advertising your roles.
OfferZen offers two pricing models. Companies can either choose to pay a 12.5% success fee per hire or make all their hires for a flat custom fee on a subscription. Included in this price is the ability to open unlimited new roles and make unlimited hires.
Let’s see how OfferZen compares to two different generalised job boards (the South African job board Pnet and Indeed, operating across the globe) and two job boards specialising in tech (Dice and Crunchboard, both mainly operating in the US).
| OfferZen | Pnet | Indeed | Dice | Crunchboard | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing* | Pay-per-hire: 12.5% success fee per hire based on candidates cost-to-company. Unlimited subscription: Custom fixed fee to make unlimited developers hires and save over 50% compared to recruiters. |
Advertising roles: One listing: R 2 668 Two listings: R 5 198 Three listings: R 7 659 Features at extra cost, custom based on organisation size: Direct search of database. Service to shortlist candidates and score applicants. Careers page, recruitment management system and ATS features. Dedicated Account Manager. |
Advertising roles: Free posts: Free posts are offered, with less visibility than sponsored jobs. Sponsored jobs: Price per application (recommended according to market factor), times the number of applicants accepted. For example, a $20 application with 32 applicants would equal $640 in total. You can set a limit of applications you would like to accept. Sourcing and reaching out to candidates: A standard subscription includes 30 contacts a month for $120. A professional subscription includes 100 contacts a month for $300. |
Advertising roles: Price per job post to advertise for 30 days. Jobs are also promoted on other technologist channels: Single job post: $ 495/R9 312 Two job posts: $429 each/R8070 each Three job posts: $399 each/R7506 each |
Advertising roles: Price per job post to advertise for 30 days. Your posting itself does not expire: Single Job Posting: $349/R6 565 5 Pack Of Job Postings: $1,295/R24 363 5 Pack Of Featured Job Postings $1,695/R31 888 10 Pack Of Job Postings $2,495/R46 939 |
- Please note: Rand prices calculated according to exchange rates at time of publication.
Support
Most job boards offer a help centre that collects answers to commonly asked questions, and a support centre where customers can submit tickets to get further help if needed.
OfferZen has dedicated Account Managers for hiring teams, who offers hands-on, personalised support for questions about individual candidate processes, and provides market data and benchmarking information.
What is the right choice for you?
Ultimately, your choice in hiring method will be highly dependent on your specific context. That said, looking at our breakdown:
- OfferZen combines many features that job boards often split into separately priced products.
- It curates the talent in the marketplace, compared to job boards that offer no curation of candidates who are often passive and not actively job-seeking.
- You are in control of the number of developers you reach out to, compared to job boards where you can be inundated with applications.
- OfferZen’s pricing is based on making unlimited hires, compared to job boards that charge you for advertising individual roles and sourcing candidates.
In conclusion, OfferZen is a great fit if you are looking for a hiring method that offers one monthly or annual fee, and if you’re looking to quickly find quality developers to add to your team.