Managing Changes to Categories, Locations, and Work Types on Your Job Board

Making updates to the structure of your job board—whether it involves revising categories, modifying locations, or adjusting work types—can enhance usability and better meet your business needs. However, these changes have implications for features like job alerts. To help you navigate these updates effectively, we’ve provided a step-by-step guide below.

Watch the Video: Key Insights on Managing Structural Changes

For a quick overview of the implications of making changes to your job board and tips on managing them effectively, watch the video below:

Why Make Structural Changes?

Updating your job board structure can improve both usability and candidate engagement. Common reasons for changes include:

• Better Organization: Refining categories to improve clarity and relevance.
• Location Hierarchies: Introducing parent-child groupings for more structured navigation.
• Work Type Adjustments: Aligning work types with current trends or organizational needs.

While these updates can enhance your platform, they also affect job alerts, which depend on stable identifiers in the system.

How Job Alerts Work

Job alerts are a crucial feature, keeping candidates engaged by sending notifications for jobs that match their preferences. These alerts are created in two main ways:

1. Application-Based Alerts

   • After applying for a job, candidates are prompted to opt into alerts for similar jobs.
   • Alerts are tied to specific categories, locations, and work types, each of which has a unique ID.

2. Manual Job Alert Creation

   • Candidates can also manually create alerts using a "Create Job Alert" form.
   • This form allows customization by selecting keywords, categories, and locations.
   • The system displays all categories that have ever existed on your job board, not just the active ones.

How Structural Changes Affect Job Alerts

When categories, locations, or work types are modified, their associated IDs may change. This can result in:

• Inactive Alerts: Alerts linked to old IDs will no longer function.
• Candidate Frustration: Candidates may stop receiving updates for jobs that match their interests.

For instance, if you replace or rename a category, alerts tied to the original ID will not transfer automatically to the updated category.

The Solution: Job Alert Migration

To ensure uninterrupted functionality, we recommend a job alert migration. This process preserves existing alerts when structural changes are made.

Steps in a Job Alert Migration:

1. Mapping Changes:

   • Share your planned updates with us, detailing the new categories, locations, or work types.
   • Provide a mapping between current and future structures.

2. Backend Adjustments:

   • Our developers map old IDs to new ones, ensuring alerts tied to the previous structure are transitioned to the new structure.

3. Seamless Transition:

   • Once the migration is complete, alerts will continue to function, maintaining candidate engagement.

Note: There is a cost for the migration due to the development work involved, but this ensures the integrity of your job alerts and enhances your candidates’ experience.

Best Practices for Managing Changes

• Communicate Early: Let us know about upcoming changes to allow time for proper migration.
• Plan Ahead: Recognize that changes to categories, locations, or work types affect job alerts tied to those IDs.
• Complete Before Launch: Ensure all migrations are finished before implementing the new structure to avoid disruptions.

Conclusion

Structural updates to your job board are an excellent way to improve usability and meet evolving needs. However, careful planning is essential to maintain the effectiveness of job alerts and ensure a smooth candidate experience.

By working with us on a job alert migration, you can preserve the value of your job board while making necessary improvements.

If you’re planning changes, contact us today to get started and maintain the integrity of your job board.

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