Where’s The Value?

Where has the value gone out of the recruitment industry?

Recruiters are offering a Christmas half-price special to their clients. Job boards are offering free ads. Jobserve think they are back in the Bobby McGee’s happy hour days and is offering 2 for 1 deals.

My concern is that, while this might all be fun and games for clients of these businesses, what happens in the cold, hard light of January?  Are job boards and recruiters who have decided to go down this track of devaluing the service they offer going to wake up with a major, throbbing headache after the Festive period has ended?

Let this stand as a warning, guys:  it’s gonna be pretty difficult to contact clients in the new year and tell them that your service is no longer free or half the present price.  Christmas doesn’t reduce your costs, and it does not alter how you go about searching for applicants.  Don’t let the silly season force you into dropping your pants.

Things Are Not Always What They Seem…

You might recall my article on the launch of RecruitMeNow.com.au back in April. Also, this article JOBX and Recruitment Academy Plugging Leaky Bucket.

RecruitMeNow claims to be “The first exclusive Recruitment Industry job and candidate board“.  I like that, a niche job board, a job board that knows what it’s about.  Straight to the point.  No nonsense.  This sort of self-knowledge gives me tingles.

I thought I’d do a little update on RecruitMeNow.  It’s been a while, and I’m always interested to see how new sites are progressing.  The site looks good (certainly a relief after my interlude with Groovy Jobs).  Just mucking around, I typed in a search for ‘Accounting’.  This is what I got.

Not one job in the recruitment industry…

I didn’t sleep well last night.  It was one of those hot nights, where the air is steamy.  Plus I went over my coffee quota during the day.  Point is, I’m a bit hazy-brained this morning.  But why would the site claim to be exclusively for jobs in the recruitment industry, but deliver a search result like this one.  Have things changed?

Doncha just get sick of things not being what they seem?

Jetsetting…

The blog might take on an international flavor over the next few weeks.  In the tradition of the middle-class male, I’m off on a European tour.  In between cups of cafe au lait, I’m gonna have a look at what’s going in Paris and a few other cities in Western Europe. There’s some pretty interesting stuff happening over there in regard to online communication and recruitment and I hope to bring you news about my many adventures.

Au Revoir!

JJJ - News Or Propaganda?

Jobadder recently made the claim in their blog that JobsJobsJobs are currently #2 in terms of job applications per advertisement. (see article here) It is a claim that has not been supported by data. To begin this blog, I would like to challenge Jobadder to present the data supporting their claims. Without valid data, the claims are nothing more than the opinion of Jobadder.

Opinions are acceptable and necessary in their proper place, but should not be represented as fact sans supporting evidence.

Okay. That’s off my chest. Let’s move on to the next point.

You may have noticed that the tone of this blog is a tad more serious than usual. That’s because I get cranky when folks send me marketing emails that are nothing more than hype. It interferes with my sense of intelligence. Take for instance the newsletter I received yesterday from JobsJobsJobs - the one that’s piggybacking the unsubstantiated claims by Jobadder that we discussed at the outset.

First up, JobsJobsJobs make the claim that recruiters want competition within the job boards. They then make an appeal that recruiters should “drop the other contenders and let them run their print businesses” so that maybe, just maybe you will have the competition that you have asked for.” I hate tautologies. If recruiters drop the other contenders, JobsJobsJobs will have a monopoly, and there WILL BE NO COMPETITION.

JobsJobsJobs goes on to ask us to forget about traffic volumes, and assess the success of a job board according to applications per ad. They acknowledge this formula does not account for the quality of applications, but write the problem off by contending that quality is difficult to quantify because of the varying demands of different companies. To dismiss this vital flaw in the traffic vs job application per job debate does not satisfy me, nor should it satisfy other folks who are interested in participating in the debate.

The newsletter from JobJobsJobs goes on use of traffic volumes to demonstrate their growth. Please - don’t patronise your clients by dismissing the use of traffic volumes on one hand and use it to demonstrate your strength in the next breath…

The use of spurious claims by Jobadder, together with a bit of chucked around logic, make the recent newsletter by JobsJobsJobs nothing more than meaningless propaganda.

It is the application rate that matters!
Our focus at jobsjobsjobs is to increase the value that our advertisers get for their investment – we’re here to help you make money – and that means increasing the volume of ad response that you get.

Earlier this month Jobadder, a leading multi job posting solution provider, ranked jobsjobsjobs.com.au as the #2 in terms of job applications per advertisement – well ahead of two very well established competitors. (see article)

The head of one of these competitors recently stated that half of their traffic comes from overseas – which re-enforces the point that volume of traffic to a site can create false perceptions of value.

The critical measure is volume of ad response per advertisement.

We recognise that there are other factors that are important to advertisers such as quality of applications but this is difficult to assess given that what suits one company may not suit another.

The Recruitment industry has wanted competition for many years. The recruitment industry recognises that two well known major players have more interest in protecting their print revenues (why wouldn’t they?) and have not provided the competition that you want.

At jobsjobsjobs we believe we have shown that we can deliver more than them – though it is still early days. We have enjoyed strong support from hundreds of recruiters – but now is the time for all recruiters to put their support behind jobsjobsjobs, drop the other contenders and let them run their print businesses and maybe, just maybe you will have the competition that you have asked for.

From Strength to Strength…
It has been a massive three months for traffic for jobsjobsjobs.com.au. Since the last quarter of 2007 we have grown over 69%.

Seek In The Black

I couldn’t help but see the parallels here, between the company that is the leading job board in the Australia and New Zealand market place, which turns over in excess of 200million dollars per annum, and which is advocating the use of the black screen for Earth Hour on the 29th of March. I had a chuckle to myself about the irony in this, then moved on mentally to congratulating them for tapping such a wealthy and politically concerned target market - and for looking out for the environment, of course.

Jobfox.com and MyCareer in bed together!

Cashed- up US job board Jobfox.com with candidate/ job matching technology has reportedly struck a technology deal with Fairfax’s employment website Mycareer.com.au

“Jobfox will also grow internationally after completing a strategic co- branding alliance with Australia’s Fairfax Digital, a multimedia company that owns the national job board MyCareer. In the agreement, Jobfox’s proven technology will be incorporated into MyCareer in early 2008.”

The proof will be in the pudding if this helps Mycareer close the gap between itself and Seek