The notes to the latest Seek Employment Index report that on a year-to-year basis job applications are 5.5% higher compared to a corresponding 35.8% increase in news job ads posted to their site. I assume that the numbers for the other two biggest job boards show similar trends (set me straight if I am wrong please)
If I were to stick to the Seek numbers, the stats are saying that a typical/average advertiser is getting @ 22% less applications per ad; which implies less candidate processing work, less job-application-related exchanges, etc; so this is in itself not a bad thing from a processing cost and churn side of the equation.
The problem arises when with the available candidate pool (constantly fed by your applications flow) you cannot fill the role. What this means in turn is that the candidates that make up the 22% that are NOT applying to the roles you advertise happen to be the ones you needs to make a placement or fill a vacancy. So you could be receiving 22% less applications but in fact you may be losing up to 100% of your quality applications (placeable candidates).
What do you do if you are an advertiser?
What advertising advice do you have to give if you are a job board?
If you find flaws in my reasoning, pls give me a shout… and kudos to Seek for their transparency with the trends.
Jorge,
Are Seek counting every job ad on their system as a unique or new job? Bear in mind, many jobs on Seek are listed more than once, in the same category and/or in different categories.
Are there really 35% more vacancies than there were last year?
To a large extent, I believe the increase in job ads is due to the very low pricing offered to bulk advertisers by the job boards. This enables advertisers to regularly re-post their ads and cross post in other categories, and they do so, because everyone else is doing it. Seek et al must be rubbing their hands with glee.
So with record number of ads on the big job boards, advertising on them becomes even more “hit and miss”.
Regardless of this, there will always be passive candidates who either don’t visit big job boards such as Seek at all, or don’t do so very often, and even when they do, don’t spend much time there - i.e. don’t look much past the first page of results. (20 jobs). This doesn’t mean they’re not interested in another job if the right opportunity comes along.
My view is that advertisers should always look for additional ways to reach potential candidates, exploring every possible avenue to find the best people, providing of course there is a desire to reach the best possible candidates at that time.
However, if your recruitment mantra is “close enough is good enough”, then you can just rely on the big jobs boards.
If you are looking for different ways to find people, targeted advertising products make a lot of sense, such as subscriber mail lists for a particular discipline. Such products complement rather than replace a good ad on Seek.
Also any product which reaches your target audience when they are not necessarily looking for job ads, such as journals or magazines published by professional bodies.
When assessing new advertising products ask yourself, will this product reach appropriate people whom your current advertising does not reach? This is the key question.
When considering other advertising products think about the reasons why some people might NOT see your current advertising – why do they NOT use the job boards?
Make sure you don’t advertise on just another job board!
I wrote an article on recruitment advertising options for publication in a magazine last year,
you can read it here
Kevin, thanks for the link to your piece and the suscint advice in the comment… did you leave professional networks or search engines - general or vertical - intentionally (as in don’t waste your time with them)? Or is it just more that these were not in your radar at the time you wrote for jobsinHR?
I do know that reposting occurs, and that it is not a new practice so I think we’re comparing apples to apples, more or less. If reposting were to have dramatically risen over the last 12 months then the numbers could be distorted (e.g. the number of applicants per ROLE could have gone up, even though the number of applicants per AD went down)
In any case the seek article states “…corresponding 35.8% increase in news jobs advertised…” instead of just new job ads; so maybe the analysis isolates the reposting phenomenon.
Jorge, you said;
did you leave professional networks or search engines - general or vertical - intentionally (as in don’t waste your time with them)? I do know that reposting occurs, and that it is not a new practice so I think we’re comparing apples to apples, more or less.
I beg to differ. I think the multiple posting and re-posting has become more frenetic as the market has tightened. One recruitment firm does it and many follow just to get their ads in the top of the search results for a few hours. I maintain that Seeks figures are seriously flawed.
To support my argument check out the ABS Feb06 to Feb07 figures here http://tinyurl.com/yq7g5r (a 12.8% increase).
Hmm, something disappeared from my last post.
Jorge, you said;
did you leave professional networks or search engines - general or vertical - intentionally (as in don’t waste your time with them)?
No, I was just focussing on advertising products. I think those of us who have worked in the recruitment industry could probably write a book on the many different ways of finding candidates, and there are new ways emerging - but no silver bullet!
Kevin
I am not sure about ‘flawed’ because that term would imply that the seek stats aim to represent the actual increase in job vacancies, and I don’t think is what they are saying. That being said the ‘real’ growth of new ads online might be closer to 12.8% than 35.8%, although still higher if you factor in advertisers/jobs migrating online, etc.
.. let me know when the book about candidate sourcing is out
I don’t think there would be many jobs advertised in print media nowadays that are not also online. If you’re going to spend thousands of dollars on a print ad, the cost of putting it on a few job boards is negligible. Given what’s at stake it’s a no brainer (or should be).
I think the book needs to be about recruiting in a broader sense. It’s not just finding or reaching the candidates, it’s about how you interact with them through the whole recruitment process. There are so many companies out there who’s recruitment strategy and/or process is really flawed (there’s that word again). They must think we’re still in a recession, either that or they are overestimating their appeal as an employer. Obviously that’s another discussion for another day…or a book
(hasn’t someone already written one?)
Kevin,
Of course Seek’s figures are dodgy. They apparently do have a formula for taking out ads posted in various categories/locations for when they count their jobs but they really dont want any focus on this as multiple posting is a HUGE earner for Seek. As for re-posting to get to the top of the list- another HUGE earner for Seek.
Jorge, I’m not sure why you’re allowing SeekingMyOneCareer to get into libellous territory here.
Had the poster made the slightest effort, he or she would know that the figures are independently compiled and analysed by Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Economic Studies using publicly available information on Seek’s job volumes amongst other data.
It will not be a surprise to anyone that a full employment economy leads to a greater volume of job advertisements. At the same time, my understanding is that the Australian population has not increased by 35% over the last year, and it therefore follows that the number of people / views / applications per job ad on any Australian job board, including Seek, has fallen.
It is naturally beyond the ability of any job board to raise the population of Australia by 35% in order to ensure that the volume of applications per ad remains the same over time.
Unless you have any suggestions?
Carey, the treasurer already implemented the bribe for baby idea, so I’m back to the drawing board re. encouraging population growth.
I thought for a bit about that comment due to the anonymity … and decided to allow it in order to stop it being just a one-sided view - right or wrong - and give others the opportunity to make it a debatable item.
I am glad that you made it an exchange. I think this beats the scenario of the poster making his/her statements when/where you don’t have the opportunity to reply, right?
I appreciate the opportunity Jorge!
We offer a job board that delivers value to jobseekers, advertisers, our staff and our shareholders - I’m sure you’ll agree, there is no point running a job board that doesn’t work for all four simultaneously.
There’s always bound to be a constituency out there that believes we would be better advised to drop one of the four as being important. The post above also shows there is a constituency that believes that shareholders are more important to Seek than jobseekers or advertisers but that would make very bad business sense frankly.
As you know, getting the balance right between jobseeker and advertiser demands is a moving feast - I tend to err towards the former personally - I’m always open to feedback from either side though, at ceaton AT seek.com.au.