Introducing the ProBlogger Job Board 2.0

Today I’m pleased to announce that we’ve given the ProBlogger Job Board a complete overhaul. It now has new features those advertising to hire bloggers, writers, editors and more, and also makes it easier for those who are applying for jobs.

The Back Story

Back in 2006 I started to notice two emerging types of questions from readers of ProBlogger:

1. From bloggers – How do I get freelance writing jobs?
2. From brands and established bloggers – How do I find quality people to hire to blog for me?

I realised there was emerging demand and supply for the hiring of bloggers and decided to put together a job board to help match those looking for bloggers to hire with those looking to be hired.

This started very small with a very basic system hacked together by friends and just a few jobs a week advertised but gradually in that time the ProBlogger Job Board has become more and more active.

We’ve now had almost 10,000 jobs advertised on the board, with several listings being placed every day.

Every week I get emails from advertisers telling me that they’re amazed by the numbers and quality of the applicants they get and I regularly hear stories of bloggers who have found great work listed on the boards too.

ProBlogger Job Boards 2.0

A few months ago I set my team the task of taking our job boards to the next level.

What you see launched today is stage one of that redevelopment but there’s more to come.

The first change is a new home. We’ve moved the boards to live on the ProBlogger.com domain. You can now find it at ProBlogger.com/jobs. All of the old jobs redirect to the new home and RSS feeds still work so if you’re previously subscribed you should still get alerts as usual.

New Features for Advertisers

1. Employer Registration/Profiles/Editable Jobs

The most requested feature that advertisers wanted was to be able to edit their jobs after they went live. This wasn’t possible on the hand coded previous version but it is now!

While this means one more step in the process of placing an ad it adds a lot to what we can offer advertisers. They can now edit, update and ‘mark as filled’ their ads after the ad goes live, but it also means they now have a profile page which lists company information, links to their site and lists all jobs they currently have live on the job board.

Here’s the profile page of one of our advertisers.

2. New Application Process

Advertisers now have a choice when they set up their ad to have people apply in a couple of ways – either sending people to a link to apply on their site, or applying directly from the job board through our system.

This new ‘Apply Online’ option will hopefully make things easier both for our advertisers and applicants to manage the process. Advertisers choosing this option can now see all the applicants in one place and manage who they want to take forward and hire and who they wish to end the process for all in the one place.

3. Republish Ads

If after the 30 day listing an advertiser wishes to run the ad again this now is a very simple process. Rather than having to go through the full process the advertiser can simply ‘republish’ the ad in a couple of clicks.

4. Expanded Job Categories

Previously advertisers could only place jobs for writers. Over the last few years we’ve seen more and more advertisers wanting to advertise for other roles (and more bloggers wanting work in other areas) so we have expanded our categories to:

• Blog/Article Writing
• Copywriting
• Design/Development
• Editing/Proofreading
• Ghostwriting
• Marketing/Promotion
• Miscellaneous

We’re open to adding more categories as things grow but for now use the Miscellaneous category for anything where there’s not a specific category.

5. Buy Multi Job Packages (Coming Soon)

For those advertisers who regularly publish ads with us we are soon introducing packages where you can buy more than one job listing at a time at a discount.

Single jobs will be $70USD per listing (although we’ve got a limited time launch special of $50), the 5 listings package will give advertisers a 20% discount and the 10 listing package will give a 33% discount.

6. Featured Ads (Coming Soon)

We will be adding a feature for advertisers wishing to have their job featured more prominently. We’ll update you with details of this in the coming month.

7. Launch Special

To celebrate the launch we’re offering advertisers the ability to get their first ads on the job board at 33% off ($50USD) for a limited time only.

In the coming weeks this will rise to $70 (our first price rise since 2006). So test out the job board today and save.

New Features for Job Hunters

While most of our changes so far have been made for advertisers we have added a couple of features for applicants including the previously mentioned new categories of jobs. So now if you also offer design, development, copywriting, editing, proofreading, marketing or other services you can keep an eye out for new jobs in those categories too.

Also when you’re applying for jobs with the new ‘Apply Online’ feature you’ll now be able to receive notifications of the status of the application. This feature also allows you to upload PDF files for resumes/portfolios etc.

We’ve also added:

Job Alerts for Job Hunters there are numerous ways to stay up to date with new jobs including:

• Subscribe to our RSS feed our main RSS feed is here and it will update every time a new job is added.
• Follow ProBlogger on Twitter all jobs are automatically Tweeted to the @ProBlogger account here.
• Sign up for Job Alerts a new option for those hunting for jobs is to add your email address to be notified when new jobs are posted. There are two types of alerts you can set up from the widget in the sidebar:
  • Keyword alerts narrow your alerts to only jobs that contain a certain keyword (for example if you’re just after travel jobs add the word ‘travel’. You can unsubscribe from these alerts at any time.
  • Smart alerts subscribe to a personalised RSS feed based on a category search or job type search. You can opt for them to be sent to your email daily or weekly, or subscribe directly to the RSS feed.

Coming soon for applicants we’ll allow you to list your resume online. Stay tuned for this feature!

As mentioned already – what you see in the newly updated job board is just the beginning. We have plans for more changes in the future but didn’t want to overwhelm you with too much too soon.

So stay tuned, and let us know in comments below if you have any suggestions or questions.