How NIRI Increased Job Board Revenue by 300% and Doubled Member Engagement
with Tim Fest, CAE, Vice President, Membership and Marketing
A focused career center, hands-on employer sales, and coordinated marketing turned an underused member benefit into a high-performing industry destination.
300%
increase in job board revenue
2×
member engagement
#1
Google-ranked IR job board
About NIRI
Founded in 1969, NIRI: The Association for Investor Relations is the world’s largest professional investor relations association. Its members represent more than 1,500 publicly held companies and approximately $12 trillion in stock market capitalization. NIRI’s Career Center serves a community of nearly 3,000 investor relations professionals and the organizations that hire them.
Membership overview:
3,000 investor relations professionals
1,500 publicly held companies
$12 trillion in stock market capitalization
SmartJobBoard gave us more than a new platform. Their team helped us fill the career center with the right investor relations jobs, increase awareness among our members, and actively support employers. The result is a job board that is far more useful to the IR community and a much stronger revenue source for NIRI.
The Challenge
NIRI’s previous job board was not delivering the value its members or the association expected. The provider populated the site with jobs that often fell outside the investor relations profession. That irrelevant content made the career center less useful, weakened member trust, and gave members little reason to return.
Employer activity was also limited. Paid job posting sales were low, and the platform received little ongoing attention from members or employers. NIRI needed more than replacement software: it needed a partner that could improve job relevance, actively support employers, raise awareness, and turn the career center into a meaningful source of non-dues revenue.
The goal: Make the career center genuinely useful to the IR community—and make it perform as a revenue-generating association product.
The SmartJobBoard Approach
NIRI officially rolled out its new Career Center with SmartJobBoard in January 2026 after Tim Fest, CAE, NIRI’s Vice President of Membership and Marketing, sought help improving both member value and financial performance. From the start, the work centered on relevance, promotion, and hands-on support—not simply replacing one technology platform with another.
01
Build a Career Center Focused on Investor Relations
SmartJobBoard created a new career center tailored to the investor relations profession and populated it with a reliable supply of relevant opportunities. By replacing unrelated listings with targeted IR roles, the job board became a focused and useful destination where NIRI members could confidently explore their next career move.
02
Actively engage employers instead of waiting for postings to appear
A dedicated SmartJobBoard sales representative became an extension of the NIRI team—answering employer questions, recommending posting options, following up with prospects, and supporting employers through the purchase process. NIRI could also route employer leads directly to the representative, giving every opportunity prompt, personal attention.
03
Launch a coordinated member-marketing campaign
SmartJobBoard’s marketing team worked closely with NIRI to prepare email sequences, newsletter copy, social media posts, promotional graphics, a member discount campaign, job-feed options, and a homepage job widget. NIRI promoted the new career center through its e-newsletter, a standalone email, LinkedIn, and its website homepage—creating multiple paths for members to discover and revisit it.
04
Improve discoverability through search
SmartJobBoard strengthened the career center’s SEO structure and created indexable, job-focused pages built around relevant specialties and locations. Those improvements helped the NIRI Career Center become the leading Google result among job boards dedicated to investor relations, expanding its reach beyond NIRI’s existing communication channels.
05
Make the transition easy for NIRI and its users
SmartJobBoard migrated employer accounts, job seeker accounts, and job alerts from the prior platform, copied active paid postings, and provided responsive help with the launch, feeds, and homepage integration. This allowed NIRI to switch providers while preserving continuity for its community.
The Results
Within the first months of the partnership, the NIRI Career Center had changed from a lightly used, poorly targeted job board into a growing industry resource and revenue channel.
Member engagement doubled
Relevant investor relations jobs and coordinated promotion gave members a stronger reason to visit and return.
Revenue increased by 300%
Hands-on sales support and a better employer experience converted more interest into paid job postings.
NIRI became the leading dedicated IR job board in Google
SEO improvements expanded organic visibility and made the career center easier to discover.
Member feedback was strongly positive
Members appreciated the more relevant job selection and modern tools, including job alerts, instant recommendations, and match scores.
Why the Partnership Worked
The platform mattered—but the outcome came from combining technology with ongoing execution. SmartJobBoard supplied relevant content, active employer sales, member-marketing support, SEO expertise, and responsive customer service. NIRI contributed deep knowledge of the investor relations profession and consistently promoted the career center across its channels. Together, the teams built a product that serves members and supports the association’s financial goals.
The Takeaway for Associations
A career center does not become valuable simply because it exists. It succeeds when members can trust the relevance of its jobs, employers receive real support, and the association has a partner committed to promotion and growth. NIRI’s experience shows how a focused, actively managed career center can become both a stronger member benefit and a meaningful source of non-dues revenue.
