It can be difficult to find specialized work via crowded career websites. We asked Qualified founder Alex Cooney about building a niche job board app focused on connecting qualified accountants with businesses in Ireland. Alex has been using Bubble for two years. He chose Bubble because of the no-code platform's speed, flexibility, and cost, which enabled him to build his MVP in just two days.
Tell us about your app and what it does.
Qualified is a niche job board app focused on the qualified accountant market in Ireland. It's a two-sided marketplace that connects skilled candidates with high-quality career opportunities. From conversations with friends, I discovered that accountants looking for job opportunities found existing platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed are often filled with low-quality and irrelevant jobs posts. Recruiters had a similar pain point, with their expensive job adverts on LinkedIn and Indeed often attracting a huge number of thoroughly unsuitable candidates. Qualified bridges this gap by showcasing only highly relevant job posts to a really targeted audience.
How does your app work?
Qualified is a classic job board. Users can view job posts and apply for roles either through Qualified or via a link to a company's career page. Recruiters can track how many views and applications each job post gets. The app uses a Stripe integration that allows recruiters to pay for job slots either on a subscription or a one-off basis.
Tell us a little about your background and how you discovered no-code tools like Bubble.
I've been using bubble for nearly two years now. I initially discovered no-code when I was trying to build a different marketplace app with WordPress and found the whole process clunky and difficult! Bubble was a game-changer, both in terms of how intuitive and flexible it was for someone like me that does not know how to code.
Why did you build your app on Bubble?
Speed, flexibility, and cost. I was able to put together an initial MVP of Qualified in just two days and quickly get feedback on the idea. As the app gathered momentum I gradually added requested features like a recruiter dashboard, analytics, and flexible payment options. The low cost of building on Bubble was another key advantage – there are plenty of software providers that offer off-the-shelf job board solutions, but the good ones cost at least $300+ a month! Quite expensive when you're just trying to validate an idea and they typically come with limited flexibility.
What have been your milestones or successes so far?
Our first paying customer was a big one! It took a few months of manually seeding the job board with posts myself but after meeting a few recruiters for coffee they saw the gap Qualified was filling and signed up. We're now working with a number of fantastic recruitment agencies who pay a monthly subscription fee to post featured job adverts on Qualified.
It was also great to see the really warm response our official launch video got.
What are your next steps or future plans for your app?
There's a number of requested features on the product roadmap. Several agencies we work with have requested a CV database, while we're also looking to build a number of interactive tools to attract further candidates to the app. On the marketing side, I've recently been getting to grips with SEO and have seen Qualified slowly but surely climb the Google rankings. This is something I want to focus more on during the next year as traffic is really everything for an app like Qualified.
Learn more about Qualified: Instagram
About Bubble
Bubble is a leader in the no-code movement. Bubble offers a powerful point-and-click web editor and cloud hosting platform that allows users to build fully customizable web applications and workflows, ranging from simple prototypes to complex marketplaces, SaaS products, and more. Over 500,000 users are currently building and launching businesses on Bubble – many have gone on to participate in top accelerator programs, such as Y Combinator, and even raise $365M in venture funding. Bubble is more than just a product. We are a strong community of builders and entrepreneurs that are united by the belief that everyone should be able to create technology.
Do you want your app featured by Bubble? Reach out to us and tell us about your app. In addition to this series, we sometimes select our best apps to showcase on our website.
