FlexJobs is an online job posting and candidate search tool from Bold since the January 2024 acquisition, focusing on telecommuting and remote hiring, and other "flex" jobs.

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What is FlexJobs

FlexJobs is a job board focused exclusively on flexible positions. Flexible jobs, according to FlexJobs, are not only work-from-home positions but also part-time, freelance, temporary, seasonal, and flexible schedule jobs.

This description puts FlexJobs in a somewhat unique niche among job boards. Flexible jobs, as defined by FlexJobs, are a broader set of jobs than remote jobs, like what WeWorkRemotely and RemoteOK would have. However, flexible jobs are a much narrower set of jobs than a job board like Indeed would offer.

The Applicant Pool

A job board’s usefulness is gated by the number and type of job seekers using it, regardless of any other features. Ideally, if you want the maximum number of quality candidates with the right skills using the platform to maximize your chances of getting the best applicants.

Traffic Quantity

The first, but not only, step in having the most users with the right skill set is simply having the most users. While the number of accounts or other such information is hard to come by, monthly unique users should make a useful proxy measurement. The table below shows the unique monthly users in July 2022 for several remote-specific job boards and Indeed.

So among the remote-focused job boards, FlexJobs is a traffic winner. Even accounting for its high bounce rate, presumably because it is paywalled, FlexJobs still commands significantly more traffic than its direct competitors. But how does it compare to Indeed, which dwarfs it in traffic? According to one study, 9.5% of job searches in April 2022 involved remote work. Even taking only 5%, much less 10%, of Indeed’s remote-related traffic would be over double FlexJobs’ traffic.

Educational Attainment

One of the big selling points of FlexJobs is the high quality of its job seekers. From the site's own statistics, 82% of users hold a college degree. Furthermore, 35% of users hold an advanced degree. This compares very favorably to the national average for these categories, which is 48.4% and 14.4%, respectively.

Job Promotion Strategies

Visibility of job posts plays a huge part in successful hiring. As more people see the post, the more people apply for the job. As time passes, however, more job posts come in, and your post gets shoved down until nobody can see it anymore. Fortunately, most job boards, FlexJobs included, have the solution: paid premium placement. FlexJobs will pin your post near the top of its category and location results for a small fee.

Of course, pinning job posts is not the only method of promotion offered. Another method is social media posts and email blasts. An example of a post from LinkedIn is shown below.

A different post from FlexJobs’ Facebook.

Whereas a WeWorkRemotely LinkedIn post looks like the following.

And a RemoteOK Twitter post looks like this.

FlexJob’s competitors also offer these. While I can’t comment directly on the efficacy of these posts, the number of Twitter followers for FlexJobs, WeWorkRemotely, and RemoteOK is 29.1k, 46.6k, and 43.2k, respectively, as of September 2022. For LinkedIn, FlexJobs’ profile has 76.2k followers, and WeWorkRemotely has 147.9k.

Other job promotion strategies unique to FlexJobs are company-hosted webinars and participation in FlexJobs’ Virtual Job Fairs. These both allow for more personal interaction with potential job candidates and can be good ways to encourage applications.

Applicant Filtering and Screening

If you post a job, people will apply. Even people who shouldn’t. I can tell you from personal experience that job seekers eventually hit a point where their attitude becomes, “What are they going to do, say no?” Because of this, having tools to help filter bad candidates instead of manually evaluating them can be helpful.

Unfortunately, FlexJobs does not have great tools in this area. If you are using a separate ATS, you can use its tools to help sort and filter candidates. If not, you can somewhat filter by searching your own candidates’ resumes. However, this haphazard method only works if you need certain specific skills or certifications. A better example of a general filtering tool would be Indeed dealbreakers.

But how does FlexJobs compare to other remote-focused job boards? RemoteOK does not have any applicant filtering tools and doesn’t integrate with any ATSs. So you’ll be reading those resumes manually. WeWorkRemotely offers a feature where an actual human will read through your applications for you and sort them from best to worst based on your criteria. No applications are removed in the process.

When an applicant applies through Indeed, applications are sorted pass/fail on a set of criteria, ranging from stated experience to assessment scores. These dealbreakers can help you rapidly trim your candidate pool to a manageable number, especially the assessments (anybody can lie on the experience questions, especially since Indeed often alerts job seekers if they do not meet the requirements).

Resume Database

Unlimited searching of their resume database is something on which Flexjobs likes to sell themselves. Essentially, you can search through their database of over 125,000 resumes. The resumes can be filtered on several different criteria, including location, desired employment type, career level, education level, type of job flexibility, and specific keywords. You can further refine keyword searches with Boolean search or other operators. By comparison, WeWorkRemotely does not have a resume database. RemoteOK’s database is not actively searchable but is used for auto-matching candidates to your job post.

Compared to Indeed Resume, which boasts over 200 million resumes, the FlexJobs database is tiny. Even with FlexJobs' greater specificity to remote work, there are probably more relevant resumes in the Indeed database. However, without a specific subscription, Indeed’s resume database will only show part of the resumes. You can see full resumes and contact candidates with a subscription, which costs $120 or $300 per month.

Integrations

If you are hiring for many positions or posting to many different job boards, then the last thing you want to do is post manually. It is much easier to write a single job description in your company's ATS and post it directly to each job board. FlexJobs supports integrations with the following 21 ATSs and recruiting platforms.

This broad cross-section of ATSs is missing some notable HR heavyweights like ADP and UKG/Kronos. Other missing names include Ceridian, BambooHR, Paycor, Paylocity, and Zoho Recruit.

In contrast, Indeed has over 100 ATS integrations; however, even its coverage isn’t perfect. Indeed is notably missing integrations with SAP and Workday. So while Indeed has broader coverage, which site is better in this respect depends on which ATS you are using.

Relative to other remote-focused job boards, FlexJobs ATS integrations are excellent. For comparison, WeWorkRemotely integrates with two ATSs, Workable and Polymer. Jobspresso and RemoteOK have none.

Pricing

Unfortunately, pricing is not an apples-to-apples comparison in the job board space. There are several different base pricing models to consider. On top of that, many job boards have optional upgrades that further complicate pricing.

FlexJobs' base pricing model is relatively straightforward. Your company pays for a membership for a certain period of time. During that time, you can post an unlimited number of jobs and interview and hire an unlimited number of applicants, access the resume database, and view dashboard analytics. The price for a one, three, and twelve-month subscription is $399, $859, and $2999. Additionally, there is a 50% rebate for 501(c)(3) nonprofits and B Corps.

FlexJobs' flat pricing model is somewhat unique. The industry's more typical pricing model is similar to what WeWorkRemotely and RemoteOK use, which is a per post per month model. The base cost of each job posting costs $299 per month on WeWorkRemotely and $499 per month on RemoteOK.

Another pricing model is Cost Per Application (CPA), which is how Indeed works. With CPA, the job post is free, and you are only charged for every application that meets your guidelines. On Indeed, these guidelines take the form of “deal breaker” candidate screening questions. There are also free job postings on Indeed, but given the reduced visibility of these postings and Indeed’s gigantic pool of jobs, the free postings are not likely to be successful.

The actual charge rate per applicant for Indeed varies with the location, title, and several other factors. It can be anywhere from $15-150 but typically falls towards the lower end. Depending on the number of applicants you want to see, this can be much cheaper or much more expensive than other job boards.

In addition to base costs, many job sites have upgrades for job postings. These can include social media posts, email blasts, pinning the job post, etc. These upgrades can be quite pricey, ranging from tens to hundreds of dollars per job post. While FlexJobs doesn’t publicly post their current pricing, the upgrades generally range from tens to a couple of hundred dollars.

WeWorkRemotely offers the following upgrade packages for job posts:

And RemoteOK offers these upgrades:

In conclusion, pricing in the job board space is not necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison. There are many different pricing models available, and which one is best generally depends on the specifics of your situation. However, as a rule of thumb, if you are planning on hiring for multiple jobs, FlexJobs is likely a good pick on the pricing front.

Use Cases

There are a lot of job boards out there, and FlexJobs is dominant among remote and flexible-focused job boards. However, it is questionable whether this niche dominance translates to competitiveness with titans such as Indeed. Its job promotion strategies are slightly above average, and its applicant filtering and screening tools are not great. FlexJobs’ breadth of integration with ATSs is pretty good for remote-focused job boards but not enough to make it stand out. However, FlexJobs’ stellar applicant pool and unique pricing model give it a couple of strong use cases.

1) Hiring High-Skill Remote Workers

If you are looking for an applicant pool of experienced remote workers with high educational attainment, then FlexJobs should be one of your top candidates. It is the largest of remote-specific JobBoards in terms of traffic, and its users are disproportionately degree and advanced degree holders. Furthermore, most of its user base has worked remotely before and are mid-level or above professionals.

These factors combine to make FlexJob superior to its immediate competitors, such as WeWorkRemotely and RemoteOK. Not only that, but it can compete with industry leader Indeed within this niche while also likely having significantly fewer “bad” candidates.

2) Hiring for Multiple Job Titles

A result of FlexJobs’ flat pricing model is that the site gets more valuable the more positions you need to hire. If you are hiring for only a single job, FlexJobs is one of the more expensive JobBoards. However, if you are hiring for three, four, or five positions at once, FlexJobs quickly becomes one of the cheapest job boards, especially for the overall candidate quality.

FlexJobs

What is FlexJobs?

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