Catered to Your Speciality: Introducing Vertical Labor Marketplaces

Job specialization adds value

As the world gets bigger, marketplaces and services are getting increasingly tighter and more specialized. Netflix presents an entire platter of niche movie and television genres based on your unique tastes. Amazon knows just when and what items you should be restocking at any given time. There’s even an entire array of accommodation styles on Airbnb suited to your travel liking (unique stays, for the win). We’ve truly entered a time where it’s the individual’s world, and marketplaces are just living in it. 

So how is this move towards specialization impacting the recruitment industry—or rather, how should it? Traditionally, hiring managers have access to a large pool of candidates, both active and passive, and rely on either generic job boards or high-cost staffing agencies to narrow down their search in order to make a high-quality hire. Both of these approaches require precious time and manpower just in qualifying a potential candidate to hire. Searching for candidates, filtering through resumes, and sending customized messages to potential matches—sourcing in today’s recruitment landscape can be a job all on its own. 

What if instead of placing your bets on a wide, generic pool of candidates, you zero in only on candidates that meet the specific qualifications for your industry and role? Why even wade into a candidate pool that’s crowded with applicants outside of your industry or speciality when you can have access to a pool tailored specifically to your needs? It’s time that recruiters leverage the specialized marketplace trend, otherwise known as the vertical labor marketplace.

What is a vertical labor marketplace?

A vertical labor marketplace is a job platform focused entirely on a specific niche, be it a single industry, job type, candidate type, or demographic. This degree of specialization creates a much more focused experience for both the hiring manager and the talent, which ultimately results in more accurate employment matches. When the candidate pool is narrowed down by very specific parameters, only candidates who meet those exact requirements are produced. This is the kind of one-to-one exchange that recruiters can only dream of.

Focusing only on a particular category enables employers to make ideal hires faster and at scale. For one, they have immediate access to candidates who already fit the specifications of the role, and can move directly onto the interview stage with truly qualified individuals. All the time typically spent vetting and verifying a candidate’s formal qualifications can then be focused on the more informal and personal aspects of the job. What is the person’s preferred working style? What are his or her values that may or may not align with the company’s? Strengths and weaknesses? These relationship-building questions are arguably the most essential part of the hiring manager’s job because they require the most human engagement. 

Rapidly scale your team

Having pre-vetted candidates right at their fingertips also allows employers to multiply their search efforts to fill several roles at once. Hiring managers can identify groups of candidates with qualifying skills at a time and move them down the hiring funnel simultaneously. This function is especially crucial to industries like aerospace and defense that often need to double or triple in size at a moment’s notice.  

With the talent pool now wider than ever and filled with quality candidates, hiring managers must work quickly and strategically to make the right match. Tapping into vertical labor marketplaces allows them to skip the line of unqualified candidates and make a beeline for the top candidates that fit the needs of any given role. This “Made For You” queue gets all the sourcing out of the way so you can get straight to the most rewarding part of the job—extending an offer and landing your next best hire.