Bridging the Gap: Job Boards Connect 2025
After 15 years straddling both recruitment and job board worlds, I've watched the same conversation happen in parallel universes. Each side thinks they understand the other, but the gap is widening—and candidates are falling through it.
AI is apparently reshaping these industries while economic pressures and customer expectations force everyone to justify their value. After attending Job Boards Connect (May 2025), I was struck by a troubling disconnect: job boards and recruiters are speaking different languages while trying to solve the same problems. Here's what I learned about where we are and where we need to go.
I've written about how job boards and recruitment agency models are merging before. Check out how my take has evolved since February 2024.
Uncomfortable truths about volume vs. quality
"Someone applied for 325 jobs in 24 hours." This wasn't a hypothetical example—it was a real case shared by Lee Biggins, CEO of Resume Library, at the conference.
While extreme, it highlights what many recruiters already know: the current system rewards quantity over quality.
There was plenty of rhetoric laying the blame at Indeed's door, but I'm not inclined to agree. The problem lies with misalignment of incentives, with payment models between jobseeker traffic brokers being based on the volume of application, not the quality.
Indeed may take the lion share of traffic and therefore suffer from the 'problem' of high volume but, as Garreth Hayes, Marketing Director UK & Ireland at Indeed, put it, they still only "have a small market share of an industry worth $250B globally."
Meanwhile, recruiters drown in applications and candidates wonder why they never hear back.
AI: friend, foe, or just misunderstood?
The most heated discussions centred on AI's role in recruitment.
Indeed is already using AI at scale for content generation, reportedly saving $10M annually. But their message was clear: "human-in-the-loop" remains essential—they see dramatically better outcomes when AI supports human judgement rather than replacing it.
As Hayes put it: "Robots won't replace people, but someone using robots better than you will take your job."
Alexander Chukovski perhaps spoke most eloquently and on an in-depth level about AI, and believes job boards should focus on three key areas:
- SEO enrichment through niche-specific taxonomies matching search intent
- Better matching algorithms that truly understand roles and candidates
- Screening and validation of candidates – an area currently lacking good solutions
Current hiring processes are fundamentally broken
Lou Goodman, former VP global B2B marketing at Monster, made a brilliant analogy that stuck with me:
"We have a better experience booking travel than we do in our job search. Yet changing careers is a much bigger decision than going on holiday."
This gets to the heart of our industry's challenge. The traditional CV model itself is inherently flawed—it represents your past rather than your potential.
We need outcome data—information about what makes placements successful long-term. This remains the hardest data to capture.
The Path Forward
Both job boards and recruiters need to evolve. The gap between them is narrowing, but not fast enough. Candidates and clients are suffering because of it.
The future belongs to those who can combine the reach of job boards with the judgment of recruiters, supported by AI that enhances rather than replaces human decision-making.