thoughts on online recruitment and stuff

Will it ever be the same again? No.

Will it ever be the same again? No.

An interesting proposition from Bill Gates, 

"The only companies that will succeed will be those that obsolete their own products before somebody else does."

I really don't think that the recruitment industry as a whole has grasped how much change is going to come in the next few years. But it is certainly the employers who are antiquating their products right now.

Through financial necessity and improved online services, employers are no longer reliant on recruitment companies to recruit their hires and are going directly to the source themselves - online. Invariably employers are finding the majority of the right talent through job boards and online tools and have begun to question what value recruitment companies are adding in a world where they have access some of the best talent themselves.

Compound this with more people have been looking for work than ever before and not many have had a pleasant experience from the recruitment companies themselves. The knock on effect will continue to be tremendous, with those new employers becoming the hiring managers of the future.

It's obvious and a little trite to say it but the only recruitment companies that will survive will be the ones that really add value. That value has to be providing candidates that employers would not be able to find themselves. The directly sourced, true passive candidate will nearly always need to be approached discreetly by someone with market knowledge and experience. Whoever provides this type of talent will always be in demand and rightly so.

There is still a need to manage, filter and match the massive response levels for online applications which is time consuming for the client. Some recruitment companies are creatively offering this service in "unbundled packages" = cheap recruitment. But, if I were the client I would question the mercenary nature and the companies' long term plan for these services? "So you mean we could have done this before but you didn't tell me?" Nice.

There will be (and already are) some successful online recruitment companies but their model is based on competitive service and price from the start. Already adding value and providing effective response management and not tainted by being seen as a traditional recruitment company.

Will all traditional recruitment companies then become hybrids of response management and head-hunters? I doubt it, which profitable recruitment business would wish to cannibalise their fees?  Which reasonably sized succesful recruitment business could effect such a seismic change? My thoughts are that there is certainly going to be a lot more treading on toes between the services offered by the consultancies, agencies and online recruitment companies. An increase in the success of the niche recruiter and growth of the dedicated online recruitment business.

And job boards? I am going to come on to them later, I think. I have spoken about it in the past but I think that there are some new developments that will be potential game changers and would like to throw them out there to see what people think.

As always, interested to hear the feedback and thoughts. There are some interesting debates going on within the Recruitment Futurology Group, feel free to get involved.

An interesting proposition from Bill Gates, 

"The only companies that will succeed will be those that obsolete their own products before somebody else does."

I really don't think that the recruitment industry as a whole has grasped how much change is going to come in the next few years. But it is certainly the employers who are antiquating their products right now.

Through financial necessity and improved online services, employers are no longer reliant on recruitment companies to recruit their hires and are going directly to the source themselves - online. Invariably employers are finding the majority of the right talent through job boards and online tools and have begun to question what value recruitment companies are adding in a world where they have access some of the best talent themselves.

Compound this with more people have been looking for work than ever before and not many have had a pleasant experience from the recruitment companies themselves. The knock on effect will continue to be tremendous, with those new employers becoming the hiring managers of the future.

It's obvious and a little trite to say it but the only recruitment companies that will survive will be the ones that really add value. That value has to be providing candidates that employers would not be able to find themselves. The directly sourced, true passive candidate will nearly always need to be approached discreetly by someone with market knowledge and experience. Whoever provides this type of talent will always be in demand and rightly so.

There is still a need to manage, filter and match the massive response levels for online applications which is time consuming for the client. Some recruitment companies are creatively offering this service in "unbundled packages" = cheap recruitment. But, if I were the client I would question the mercenary nature and the companies' long term plan for these services? "So you mean we could have done this before but you didn't tell me?" Nice.

There will be (and already are) some successful online recruitment companies but their model is based on competitive service and price from the start. Already adding value and providing effective response management and not tainted by being seen as a traditional recruitment company.

Will all traditional recruitment companies then become hybrids of response management and head-hunters? I doubt it, which profitable recruitment business would wish to cannibalise their fees?  Which reasonably sized succesful recruitment business could effect such a seismic change? My thoughts are that there is certainly going to be a lot more treading on toes between the services offered by the consultancies, agencies and online recruitment companies. An increase in the success of the niche recruiter and growth of the dedicated online recruitment business.

And job boards? I am going to come on to them later, I think. I have spoken about it in the past but I think that there are some new developments that will be potential game changers and would like to throw them out there to see what people think.

As always, interested to hear the feedback and thoughts. There are some interesting debates going on within the Recruitment Futurology Group, feel free to get involved.

joining up job boards and face to face events - extend the brand

The constant theme in these posts is that recruitment advertising is not going to come back as it was before, what is needed now is to look at alternative ways to increase revenues from a decreasing space.

I hope I have added food for thought with previous posts about lateral revenues, outsource and out-placement opportunities and headhunt services.

In my first post I touched on online recruitment fairs. I want to return to this in more detail as an excellent opportunity to extend the job board brand and add more recruitment services.

In the past 7 years there has been exponential growth in two areas of the media space, recruitment advertising and events. Yet for the most part these two areas have been largely distinct. Mostly because, as a job board owner, you would not want to alienate your major client base, the recruitment consutancies and agencies. However, now that they have left you, why not look at ways to capitalise on this opportunity for targeted direct employers.

Virtual Recruitment Fair software, which simply plugs into your current software and CMS is already out there and keeps on improving. Some publishers have trialled their own version, Trinity Mirror is running something at the moment (the service, I think, misses several tricks and has terrible user experiences, but at least they are trying to increase yield and their service). Adicio were at the Onrec Conference and they demonstrated that they are pretty much leading the way with their plug in virtual fair platforms.

But why stop at virtual? What more can be offered? Job boards are increasingly the brand that job seekers and direct clients are turning to in this climate rather than the recruitment consultancies. Am I missing something, but why isn't there a job board that is currently delivering compelling recruitment fairs that engages the job seekers and employers online but also delivers a powerful face to face experience, with all the additional opportunities that can bring? An event that adds value to your audience and extends the brand. Particularily when most job board owners are media companies that also own event businesses!

Jobserve is trying something similar with jobservelive. 

Personally, I would have had more niche events, that were sector and geographically specific, with a less confusing mix of attendees and exhibitors. And would also have joined up the virtual with the face to face more effectively, through micro site creation and relevant job listings and application processes on and offline to track the success. But it is still an attempt to look at online recruitment creatively.

And there are many other ways in which job boards could create effective on and offline events which add value and increase revenues. There are various options, but it's mostly common sense, boiling down to the relevance, resonance and return on investment for all involved.

And why does it just need to be a recruitment fair, what other face to face experiences could be considered? What other ways can you extend your brand and services?

As always these are just some thoughts and ideas, if you would like me to expand on these points, feel free to get in touch. I am always interested and appreciative of feedback and comments.

I have had a couple of requests to build a forum for this discussion, so have put something together called very grandly Recruitment Futurology on LinkedIn. Feel free to join up, it is a place for Job Board stakeholders, online recruitment specialists and HR professionals to share ideas on new ways job boards and online recruitment can be effective in the new economy.

job boards providing outplacement services

I want to talk about outplacement services within job boards, so please permit me a small "I told you so" moment. At the beginning of 2008, when I worked for a job board software provider, I suggested that during the last down turn in the economy for recruitment industry (2001, I was a Director at TMP-now Hudson), the businesses that thrived were the outplacement firms helping clients who were making redundancies. “Let’s look at outplacement job board solutions for our clients”, I said…

Fast forward less than a year and within the last month and we now have monster evolutions and IrishJobs.ie looking to provide these services. I am not just telling you this story as a case of I told you so, but this is another interesting new development in the merger of recruitment services and job boards, which I discussed before.

 

 

In the cases of IrishJobs it seems that they are really just re-marketing their traditional job board service replacing the emphasis - similar to what Jobsite announced today with their new redundancy advice site. Monster is partnering with an outplacement company in the US so neither are really changing their busniess model, but why should that be the end of the service?

 

 

When positioned correctly, job boards can be the brand that candidates and employers identify with and place their ongoing trust in - unlike most recruitment companies. These are places that dedicate themselves to their sectors and niches, which can add value through content, branding, jobs and all other recruitment services.

 

 

Why couldn’t outplacement be a part of those services as well and add value to your clients and your industry at large?

 

 

On a simple level, just because your clients’ aren’t hiring, couldn’t they been seen to be doing something by promoting themselves positively on your site whilst you work to help the industry through promoting "soft services". "As a leading client in xxx industry, we have partnered with xxx job board to help continue our support of our people and the industry…etc, etc." I mentioned this brand affiliation in an earlier post about lateral online recruitment revenues.

 

 

Marry this with simple outplacement services (CV builder, career advice, etc) and you have an rudimentary online outplacement service or partner with someone such has been done with and Monster Evolutions.

 

 

But this would just be the start, why not create a true online outplacement service that actually adds value? Why shouldn't you start to build business models whereby you can take the CVs of recently redundant and place them through online services within your network of prefered clients?

 

 

As always, I am always happy to discuss in more detail and very interested to hear your feedback.

 

How can job boards attract the good passive seeker in this climate of uncertainty

What's the silver bullet for attracting the passive job seeker online? Now more than ever, there is a distinct difference between the active and passive job seeker and I want to talk about some ideas for how job boards can attract and sell the concept of “passive” seeker sourcing and headhunting services through their sites.

 

I thought about this a lot after digesting the most recent NORAS results (job seekers turn to the internet shock, again!!!), the focus and terminology, as always, is on “looking”. Nearly all of the emphasis in job board technology development and sales strategy in the past 10 years has been placed on the active seeker. That's fine when the market is buoyant - when, by increasing eyeballs onto a site you increase applications, job alerts and CV registrations - using these stats to drive advertising. And as I have said before, the job boards have had it relatively easy for the past 10 years, so not needed to change this model.

 

But how do you address the fact that not all of the best people will now be actively looking and your current business model focus is on the increased numbers of active seekers? I discussed before thoughts on the future of online recruitment and mentioned that we will begin to see a return of the traditional recruitment techniques in recruitment consultancies. Any decent headhunt business will point out that a lot of good talent will not be looking as actively as before for fear of the unknown in this current climate, happy to stay where they are, unless directly approached.

 

 

I think that there could be 3 immediate ways in which online recruitment could focus on increasing and monetising their passive candidate intake.

1. Create a discreet headhunt specific part of the site. Create a part of your site that is entirely discreet, where potential candidates can register to be headhunted for specific, relevant jobs, a “make me an offer” section. Candidates create an anonymous CV that highlights their skills, experiences and job demands. These guys can be promoted to a select band of DIRECT clients, who have paid through for this VIP service, to then contact them directly with their highlighted job (again opportunity for double dipping revenue options). I can see this working best for the niche legal, finance, etc sites.
2. Improve your relationship with your database. I am registered as a candidate with a number of sites to see how they work, I am always sold to, never advised. I would strongly recommend understanding your database and start to add value to them. Provide salary surveys, industry content, update on news, build trust (not just sending them emails which are not read). I would look at ways in which I could find out as much as I can, are they still looking, would they consider a move for money, what are their fears and concerns? Make some phone calls! That way if you can get to a point where you can know which jobs could be highlighted to whom at which point, not just blanket ads. Add value.
3. Effective in-contextual advertising. If have you have a job board linked to relevant content, this is a massive way of charging premium and really drawing in the passive candidates. If I am reading an article about recruitment aquisitions and a recruitment director role appears - I am more likely to view it, because of the relevance to me, the reader. I know that many of you reading this will say you are doing this (Emap, CMPi, Haymarket, Guardian, Haymarket and the rest), but I don't think that you are not doing it well enough. It needs to be manual, it needs to be sold, not promoted via an xml feed, it needs to be RELEVANT to the reader otherwise it is just another ad. I know this is not always possible with daily updates, but it can be done when sold at a premium for weekly positioned ads against content that resonates. 

And I know all about the likes of jobfox or jobster screaming that one day we will all create active profiles to be hunted. But there are many reasons why it hasn’t, and won’t work in the UK, which I am happy to talk about over a beer or two, but too much to go into now.

 

Again, as ever, hope this has posed provided some thoughts and your comments and feedback are welcome and appreciated. And happy to link up with anyone and talk about this in more detail.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemediafigures

 

www.mediafigures.co.uk