a) The 50% + decline in newspaper ads includes the economic slow down factor and the migration to online factor which, if you have seen the Seek investor presentations, is BIG
b) The almost 30% decline in online ads includes the slow down factor, the ‘less-reposting’ factor and to a still small extent, to a ‘migration off classifieds’ factor.
c) If you take a) and b), then the corollary is that the decline in the actual job openings is less dramatic that the ad statistics.
d) There will be more applicants per job ad, but possibly less applications overall (due to lesser volumes of ads). But if you accepted a) and b) then it will not be 50 or even 30% harder to get a job, ceteris paribus
Anecdotal evidence indicates that referrals are a great source of placed/place-able candidates. “Great” is obviously highly subjective, it could refer to a number of variables and scales.
I will forget for a moment that I have not seen systemic/comprehensive empirical of the ‘greatness’ of referrals. Assuming this is a channel worth nurturing and developing, I believe that what enables the message (job opportunity) to disseminate through the channel is a minimum of two Trust relationships:
- 1 between the referrer and referee (colleague, relative)
- 1 between the potential employer or agency (whomever offers the job) and referrer (current employer, family business)
I am not even saying that this trust is well placed, I am only stating it needs to exist so that the message (job opportunity) goes somewhere. Eventually, a third trust relationship – between employer/agency and referee – may develop, even though the candidate is not offered the job.
From this it follows that the core issue with online referral systems like 2vouch and others is the fact that there is no trust relationship between the job poster and the referrer, so there is no comfort in disseminating the message. I would argue that the info on the job posting is not comprehensive enough to compel a referrer to recommend it to a contact.
The accompanying risks are well known: spamming, low quality, lack of ‘greatness’. What follows then is that if I were to run one of these referrals sites, I would dedicate 90% of all my budget to develop at trust relationship between the job poster and the referrer, sneezer, etc.
Do you agree? What else would you do to make an online referral platform actually work, other than the usual (great service, fluid site, blah)?
based in the US, currently in beta mode. you can apply for registration or get referred (send me your email if you want to go straight in)
the idea: give candidates cash for taking interviews with employers and recruiters; members are also encouraged to spam, i mean refer the site to people that might be interested in joining by given the inviters a % of the money made by the invitees in one year.
the user experience: clean design (although someone commenting on the techcrunch article reckoned that the layout was a ripoff from google’s grandcentral. uploading your profile from linkedin is meant to be easy too, though I did not manage to connect. On the other side of the equation, employers get to see a blind profile which they can choose for interview and lay out the cash
The site offers 100% money guarantee, not sure about the terms of reimbursement though.
It will be obvious to you that the model can fall on its bum before it comes out of beta if there’s abuse, lack of talent or buyers. I am wondering tho if you as individual agency or corporate recruitment department would be prepared to materially reward candidates at interview, shortlisting or placement stage of the process. Or, are you already doing that?
Had you asked me at the beginning of the year: will you be in Vizag for business in 2007? I would have honestly said no.. but here I am. This is all part of the plot to justify why I have not been writing – or reading – blogs in the last couple of months or so. More details soon.
Anyhoo, I was reading today about how LinkedIn is not going to be bought by News… Just in case they change their minds and/or Nye stops playing cat and mouse, I reckon this is a fab purchase because it enables News to
a) move up the value chain re. employment [from classifieds (immediate placements) to relationships with professionals (workforce planning)]
b) nurture an interesting audience for its other advertising and content
However this one got a good comment, which you may miss out on if you don’t check previous entries.
By good I don’t mean I concur 100%. I somewhat disagree with the outlook expressed in the last item. By good I mean it highlights a few key messages regarding using networks as a sourcing tool or advertising medium:
- The network environment gives you access to additional candidate info you may not get when advertising in the paper or a job board. It even gives you information about the people that decided not to go for the job; this has to be good intelligence for future postings
- Recruiting becomes more personal and symmetric. You as a hirer have a few more obligations in things like response management, to ensure that your ad increases the strength of your network as opposed to the other way around
- Networks as promising sources of good candidates may/will deteriorate IF the hiring processes do not adapt to a network environment and the behaviors it spouses
Jist: Matches candidates with employers based on resume type information plus something that resembles a preferences and attributes profile (e.g. are you money-driven, does you work have to have a positive social impact). Climber calls this the Career Fingerprint.
Snapshot today: At the moment the jobs matched to the system’s registered users are keyword-matched ads from the Indeed engine, but as employer preference data grows the matching is expected to be more comprehensive. Professionals have private profiles and decide to share personal/contact info to specific employers.
Initial assessment: The attributes and preferences profile is superficial; then again, it is not meant to be a rigorous tool to assess a person’s suitability for a role. Given this, if the profiles were to convey the candidates/employers likes and dislikes, there is an increased chance to assess a level of compatibility between potential hire and hirer at the onset.
I would also like to know how this information is embedded (e.g. taken into account) in the recruitment process. Maybe RPO and corporate recruiters are readier than others to use this information effectively.
Down the track: It has the potential for interesting metadata
My philosophical question: At the end of the day do you hire on (soft) compatibilities or hard skills?
Went for a bit more info, but the system is like, down
My first foray into empirical research as part of LatinOcean. It is really more a brief compilation on how recruiters are using the system in the region in an attempt to transcend the hype and the buzz.
Don’t go too hard on me re. sample sizes and statistical relevance; nevertheless I hope it is of benefit to some of you out there, and feel free to pass. Enjoy
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.
I have given the What We Offer section a very small update, as I have now included a LinkedIn master class session and the management of recruitment advertising campaigns on Google (AdWords) in our offerings portfolio.
I have been very suscint in what I have included on the site mainly because every time I have delivered on these services, they vary substantially depending on the client requirements. I might need to expand on the basics perhaps, as newbie clients come on the site and they need a bit more handlholding, which I am more that happy to offer.
Feel free to pass these details around, there will be a referral fee for you. And even better if you want to take our services up.
