Job Boards and Staffing

Talent Acquisition Marketing Maturity Model

Job Boards and Staffing

Talent Acquisition Marketing Maturity Model

Job Boards and Staffing

Talent Acquisition Marketing Maturity Model

The recruitment marketplace is becoming a challenge to navigate


Job Boards and Staffing companies simultaneously face multiple disruptions. On the Talent Supply-side, a low employment level means fewer Active Job seekers are visiting job boards, and the number of Applicants per job is declining rapidly. On the technical side, this puts extra pressure on reaching Passive Job seekers in a world where the number of channels used for Talent Acquisition is growing. Furthermore, the tracking of campaigns is becoming exceedingly complicated due to browser tracking blockers and bot traffic.

Everyone in recruitment will face these Talent Acquisition and Technical challenges and have to respond to those changes. Job boards and Staffing companies need speed and agility to invest in the right technologies. Companies that are advancing quickly are reaping the rewards of those gains, while companies making only gradual headway are falling farther behind their more mature competitors. The diminishing role of 3rd party cookies in ’23 pushes the urgency for change.

The more Mature businesses book direct gains with their Talent Acquisition strategies
  • Conversions measured with cookieless tracking enabling significant optimisation improvements

  • Better distribution of Job Applications over different jobs when using micro-targeting and optimisation on the job level (reducing peaks where some jobs get most applications and others none)

  • Automatic reduction of bots traffic is crucial for good performance optimisations

Talent acquisition maturity: four categories that matter


Our analysis found that companies can be divided into 4 categories on Talent Acquisition maturity: Nascent, Emerging, Professional and Expert.


With all the changes taking place, our analysis isolated four specific accelerators that stand out as the principal drivers on the fast track to maturity and improved performance


Accurate classification and Taxonomy for Jobs at the job board/staffing company
– allowing for automated targeting of jobs ad campaigns with the right audiences and target groups, as well as defining the right bidding strategy on individual job levels. Having the right classification and taxonomy improves performance prediction by +30%.

  • Quality Cookieless End-to-End tracking – accurate (server-side) performance tracking based on first party data, capturing +30% more conversions and improving optimization capabilities significantly, removing bots traffic and duplicate clicks. 

  • Dynamically allocating budget and optimising across channels. Management of media channels such as aggregators, social, retargeting, and display simultaneously on a micro level vs running category or channel-based campaigns.

  • Automation of Talent Acquisition marketing on individual job level - allowing to maximise performance, remove leakage, and create new advertising propositions. Optimising on an individual job level increases the distribution of conversions across jobs by 28%

  • Clear Strategy and Agile Organisation. A test-and-learn culture deploys new media channels and continuous optimisation based on business goals.


These accelerators enable companies to ascend the maturity curve more quickly than their competitors. Each accelerator has individual effects but delivers maximum impact when implemented together. Active and visible C-level leadership support is necessary at all maturity levels.