In a past post, I compared several different job boards which I utilized in my daily life. I summarized the most effective job boards as those which cost a freelancer a very insignificant amount of money, did not spam the freelancer, were not overly intrusive to the normal business operations, were easy to sign up for, and did not compare freelancers to one another. Generally speaking the post was met with nods of approval; after all, why should my earnings on one site determine whether or not I was a decent web designer? For all that site knows, I could have already grossed double the amount reflected using a different service. And, additionally, why should I limit myself to one service when I know that job posters will be posting to different sites? And after educating myself and working towards certifications with W3C and Adobe, why should I pay for another web site to certify me?
Then, I recently noticed that CSS Mania had released their own job board. There is no subscription fee; the site is paid for by the advertisements on the main CSS.
Pros: I like that there is a distinction between the full time and freelance jobs. This allows me to sift through things I should or shouldn’t apply for. In addition, there is no need to register for anything! Thank goodness! No password to remember! Though, of course, with this comes the fact that there’s no real easy form to apply with either. This may come from the fact that the CSS Mania admin has essentially been gathering the job listings from the private sites of said listings, moreso than the fact of there not being a form; thus, the user is shown where to apply, as opposed to being able to apply from the site. Said easy form, for me, was somewhat taken for granted from other sites such as Freelance Switch; I like to just be able to go between listings and read through them and follow the instructions to apply.
Another thing I like is that there is a division between design and programming. Not all sites do this, unfortunately, and doing this early was a very good move for CSS Mania. In addition to this, after each job listing is a list of related job listings for those surfing. Cool! This makes going through all of the job listings much easier, and was very thoughtful. A few other features I liked thus far is the search feature by region, and the links on the bottom of each listing to share it through social networks.
Cons: The lack of the form is essentially the major con that I see. I don’t mind so much, however; it’s mostly negligible, though perhaps something similar will be implemented in future. Also, as it is an emerging job board, the jobs currently listed on it are all gathered by the admin and are very sparse.
In addition, I’d like to see the future implementation of being able to sort between freelance and full time positions; namely, the option to see both or one or the other instead of all at once. I also noticed that it allows job posters to sort by geographic area on the side, which lists the web designers which have had their web sites listed on CSS Mania (BeLink’d has not been listed on CSS Mania, as I have never felt the design was complete enough). If I were someone searching for a designer, I’d also like to be able to search by region from said list, instead of just “United States” in general. This, I feel, borderlines on comparing design professionals, in that if my site was never submitted to CSS Mania or accepted, then I do not seem as professional as the people which are.
The same goes for sorting freelance and full time positions – to be able to sort by geographic region. Certainly I can always search, but why not just click a button the same as job posters are apparently able to do?
Summary: Overall I’d say that the emerging CSS Mania job board is coming along fairly well. Some of the features bring the best of other job boards together, such as the lack of a registration fee and the ease of applying for jobs, but right now they seem like they are definitely in beta (such as searching through professionals through geographic regions). As a site CSS Mania is very popular, and so its new job board will most likely rise on the SERPs and become as big of a name as Freelance Switch. I look forward to this job board with a bright future.
