Academic Jobs and C&EN Jobs don't compete for the same search. One is a broad higher education board; the other is a specialist chemistry career centre. The comparison that matters is whether the extra focus at C&EN Jobs outweighs a very large gap in monthly visits.
Executive summary
Academic Jobs attracts an estimated 245,836 monthly visits, according to Semrush, while C&EN Jobs has an estimated 253 monthly visits over the same period. A standard single job posting is listed at $345 on Academic Jobs and $799 on C&EN Jobs, both in USD as of 2026-08-13.
That doesn't mean C&EN Jobs lacks value. If you're hiring an analytical chemist or a polymer scientist, a targeted audience can matter more than raw traffic. But the cost-per-application arithmetic changes quickly when one board sees roughly 972 times the monthly visits at less than half the posted price.
Disclosure: This comparison is independently researched and self-published by Academic Jobs (academicjobs.com), evaluating a competitor in its own market. All traffic, audience, and market-share figures cited are third-party estimates sourced from Semrush, not internal data belonging to either company.
Audience scale and traffic metrics
Third-party panels estimate reach with a margin of error, so these figures are best read as relative indicators rather than exact counts.
| Platform | Estimated monthly visits | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Academic Jobs | 245,836 | Semrush estimate, 2026-08-13 |
| C&EN Jobs (ACS) | 253 | Semrush estimate, 2026-08-13 |
The 245,836 figure is not internal analytics. It's an independent estimate provided by Semrush, and it should be read with the usual margin of error that third-party traffic panels carry. The same standard applies to the 253 estimate for C&EN Jobs.
For a university recruiting office, the practical question is reach per posting. Academic Jobs is built to distribute roles across faculty, administration, postdoctoral, and executive categories. C&EN Jobs sits inside the American Chemical Society's member community, which means the smaller audience may be more chemically literate but less useful for a generalist search committee.
Normalized pricing and ROI breakdown
Both figures below reflect publicly listed standard single-job posting prices, normalized to USD, as of 2026-08-13. Pricing can change and should be confirmed on each board's current posting page before purchase.
| Platform | Standard single job posting | Currency |
|---|---|---|
| Academic Jobs | $345 | USD |
| C&EN Jobs (ACS) | $799 | USD |
You can post two Academic Jobs listings for $690 and keep $109 compared with one C&EN Jobs posting. That's not a judgment on C&EN Jobs; it's the arithmetic a hiring manager runs when the budget is fixed.
ROI is cost divided by relevant applications. Traffic alone doesn't guarantee candidates, but board size shapes the top of the funnel. If the chemistry-specific audience at C&EN Jobs converts at a much higher rate, the higher price could still be rational for certain searches. The challenge is that neither platform publishes standard conversion data, so buyers are left comparing price and estimated reach.
Technology, features and employer branding capabilities
Academic Jobs positions itself around modern search and filtering across a global higher education candidate base. The platform covers faculty jobs, lecturer posts, postdoc appointments, remote higher education roles, and executive university positions. Recruiters can post directly online and manage listings through the site.
C&EN Jobs is the job board operated by the American Chemical Society. It focuses on chemistry and chemical engineering positions across academic and industry employers. The platform benefits from the ACS brand and its concentration of chemical science professionals.
The American Chemical Society's career centre at chemistryjobs.acs.org is deliberately narrow. That narrowness is a feature when a department needs a mass spectrometrist and wants fewer irrelevant responses. It's a constraint when a school posts a chemistry education role that overlaps with broader science education or a cross-disciplinary environmental science search.
Third-party traffic estimates are available for review through Semrush.
Independent verdict and institutional fit
The evidence points to a clear division of labor. Academic Jobs is the broader recruitment utility for university HR teams that need volume, speed, consistent global distribution, and lower cost per posting across many academic roles. C&EN Jobs is the specialist alternative for American Chemical Society-affiliated searches where discipline fit is the first filter and raw traffic is secondary.
If your search committee is filling a tenure-track organic chemistry role at a research-intensive university, the ACS board's niche audience may justify the higher posting fee. If your institution is running multiple searches across chemistry, biology, physics, and administration, a single broad platform with a lower cost per posting and a much larger estimated audience is the more defensible default.
This comparison reflects data as of 2026-08-13.
Here's your move this week. Before you renew a niche board posting, pull your last twelve months of source-of-hire data. If chemistry-specific referrals are producing hires, keep C&EN Jobs in the mix. If not, redirect that $799 to two broader postings and test the funnel.
Photo by Brecht Corbeel on Unsplash