Job Boards – 11 hours In

Thank you to everyone who has sent in feedback, questions and ideas for the ProBlogger Job Boards as well as the many bloggers who have linked up to it.

I’ve always wanted to be a match maker – and now I sort of feel like I am with lots of reports of bloggers and blog employees doing ‘mating dances’ over at the boards.

The boards have only been up and running for 11 or so hours but the response has been very positive. A few highlights already:

• We’ve had our first paying ads go up (obviously there were a few freebies to start with)
• We’re hearing that quite a few bloggers have subscribed to the RSS feed and thousands hitting the front page already
• There have been a few opportunities for interviews with podcasters, bloggers and mainstream media about the boards
• Initial reports from advertisers are that they’re getting some very quality applicants already. One looks like they’ve already filled a position and are actively negotiating with a blogger.
• We’ve had some good bookmarks over at Delicious (thanks people)
• Some great ideas have been sent in from readers as to what they’d like to see added

FAQ – Pricing

One of the most frequently asked questions has been around the price of the ads. This is not unexpected, especially in a time where a number of other job boards and classified type services have been released in Web 2.0 circles. Some of the other services are free and others are charging considerably more – and there have been people recommending/arguing that we’re too cheap or too expensive (as I expected).

Here are a few thoughts on the decision to charge for this service:

• Pricing is always a ‘best guess’ scenario – As Eric and I tested the boards and showed them to a few fellow bloggers and network owners we had a range of feedback on what we should price the ads at. All agreed that it was a service worth paying for but some priced it high (as much as $250) while others priced it low (down to $50). The price that did come up again and again was $100 – just over $3 per day. This is where we will start (after our opening special) and we’ll then see how the market reacts to it.
• Price and Perception of Value – I’ve always believed that when you charge people for a service that it changes the perceived value of it and the way that people interact with it. While we will not attract as many jobs as a free service would, I’m hoping that in charging we’ll attract advertisers who have quality positions and that bloggers will see it as something worth subscribing to for that reason. This is a board to help bloggers find paying jobs and not necessarily a notice board for people to find freebie bloggers for their blogs. I suspect that charging will filter out some of that and keep the jobs advertised of a high standard.
• Not Changing the Rules -We are also charging because we don’t want to change the rules later on. While the price might change the fact that it’s a paid system won’t (and if it did change I’d rather go from paid to free than from free to paid).

Like I say above – pricing is a best guess thing and the market will eventually determine where things will settle in the coming months – but the indications so far are good that people are willing to pay to expose their ad to ProBlogger readers.