Getting Job Seekers to Return and View Jobs: Retention Plan for a Job Board

You are a product manager for a job portal that job seekers use on the web and in a mobile app. Leadership wants a higher retention rate, and for this product retention is defined by job viewing: a user counts as retained when they come back and view job postings. How would you increase retention? ```hint Ask why people stop looking Some users stop viewing jobs because they were hired, and others because they gave up or drifted away. Separate the two before choosing who to build for. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Is the portal a standalone job board, or the jobs section of a larger product, such as a professional network, that people also visit for other reasons? - What window defines retention: returning to view a job within a week or a month, or a cohort curve such as day 7 and day 30? - Does a job count as viewed when it appears in a list or an alert, or only when the user opens its detail page? - Is the employer side (posting quality, recruiter responses) open for changes, or should the answer stay on the job seeker's experience? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A precise retention metric built on job views, and the recognition that more views alone do not mean better outcomes for job seekers - A segmentation of job seekers by intent and stage of search, with one segment chosen and justified - Pain points that explain why that segment stops coming back to view jobs - Prioritized solutions with success metrics and guardrails such as application quality and notification fatigue - A clear treatment of users who leave because they found a job ### Follow-up Questions - After launch, job-viewing retention rises but applications per user fall. What might be happening, and what do you do? - Should the product try to keep people who just accepted a job, and if so, how? - How would you test new job alerts and new recommendations at the same time when each changes the other's results?