Meeting the candidate where they are: the FlexJobs story

JobBoardGeek, The podcast about the business of connecting candidates and employers has returned with the 17th episode. Hosts Steven Rothberg, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of College Recruiter, and Jeff Dickey-Chasins aka the Job Board Doctor are joined by guest Sara Sutton Founder & CEO of FlexJobs.

Our hosts start the episode by discussing StepStone’s announcement that they are offering employer branding and recruiting services. Jeff questions the innovation of this move. While Steven gives StepStone props for their branding, he ultimately agrees that StepStone’s new offerings might be innovative in Germany or other markets, but not in the US.

Sara Sutton joins the conversation by delving into her background in the job board market. After selling her first job board she then starts a new one, Flexjobs, as a way to help others who want to have more flexibility in their careers.

Flexjobs was originally a free model but most of the job listings were for poorly paid positions. She prioritized making the experience better for job seekers by using a paid model and then offering a higher quality service.

Steven applauds Flex jobs for also using a gifted industry writer, Matt Krumrie. Steven asks Sara for her SEO secrets and how she gets her pages to rank highly on google. She says she went to great lengths to create high value SEO company pages so that they rank higher. Sarah intentionally leverages SEO, marketing, and press in her company to not only rank higher, but to get her story out.