The U.S. labor market has been a roller coaster the past few years. After a big decline in jobs in 2020 and a rebound in 2021 and 2022, things evened out somewhat in 2023. Throughout this volatility, career centers have grown even more in importance – both as a valuable resource for job seekers and a critical source of talent to help employers fill job openings.
No matter what comes next with the labor market, you can still drive your association’s career services-related revenue and help to grow your members’ careers. By providing a robust association’s online career center, you can further solidify the importance of your association to your industry, making you a more complete and valuable career destination for employers as well as members and job seekers.
How to drive career center revenue growth and usage
You can drive more career revenue growth and usage by making your online career center a more complete career growth destination – offering both a job board and a broad range of career development resources. Just think: No association has one hundred percent market share for the job ads in your industry. So, even if the market of open jobs declines, you can always grow your share if you increase value to members and job seekers.
As you grow your online career center, the growth has a snowball effect, creating more awareness of your association as a top career resource in your industry and giving a better return on investment (in the form of more candidates) to employers who pay your association to post their jobs. You can then increase your association’s share of recruitment advertising revenue over other job board sites.
Here’s some data to show you just how important enhancing your online career center can be: The 2023 Association Trends Study from Momentive Software shows association trends based on a survey of association professionals (Pros) and association members (Members). The report shows the most important benefits to association members compared to how important association staff (Pros) view those benefits.
Job opportunities and help with career advancement are well represented on this list. But what is perhaps more impressive is how much higher members rate the importance of these benefits versus association staff. These findings suggest that these items might be more important than you think they are to your members.
Looking at the responses by career stage, the difference between Member and Pro viewpoints is even more glaring. Many associations focus on how to attract and engage early career professionals, the next generation of members. Well, the 2023 Association Trends Study shows that career advancement and job opportunities are within their top three priorities. For mid careerists, help with career advancement is the top priority, with job opportunities being in the top five priorities.
These benefits are a big deal to your association’s current and future members. So, want to generate more non-dues revenue? Then, focus more on providing job opportunities and help with career advancement for members.
Learn more about how to grow revenue and your members’ careers
It’s well worth it to grow and enhance your association’s online career center in today’s (and tomorrow’s) labor market. YM Careers by Momentive Software offers job board software and career development services that can help you turn your association’s online career center into a highly valuable career destination for your association, your members, and your industry.
