Back To The Future For Job Boards

My recent blog regarding The Future Of Job Boards sparked a bit of debate. A few issues arose from that debate, and I’d like to respond to each of them.

Before I do this, however, there needs to be some clarification around the definition of social media. Many readers assume they know what this means, but – when pressed- have difficulty defining it. And since it remains a hot phrase over the coming years, let’s establish up front what we mean when we use the term.

Social media describes a new set of internet tools that enable shared community experiences, both online and in person.

A community, in this context, is a group of people with common interests who connect with one another to learn, play, work, organise and socialise. Communities can be large or small, local or global. They can be public or restricted to members.

Okay, let’s move on to address some of the concerns and conflicts around what arguably is set to become the latest adaptation in the evolution of the Internet.

1) Social media won’t have the impact on the way the Internet is used: Wrong. Evidence, in the form of the large numbers flocking to Twitter and Facebook, not to mention forums like Whirlpool, demonstrating high levels of uptake of social media suggests there’s something about it that people enjoy. And it doesn’t take a genius in anthropology to figure out what that might be. Humans are social animals. We congregate in groups to share opinion, to gossip, to fight, to fall in love. Any form of communication that exploits this natural tendency will necessarily have dominion over more static formats.

2) Job boards can simply add a social networking component and this way will be able to deliver interactivity to the user, while maintaining their traditional role in the market: This looks like a bet each way to me. Are you a job board, or are you a social network? When customers get confused about the service your business offers, this ameliorates customer base and loyalty. Why would customers want to look at old and outdated jobs listed on the job board component of a business like this when they can hear about what’s hot straight down the line of a social network posting. The immediacy of these types of media makes the static environment of the job board obsolete.

3) Social media is probably where we’re headed, but it’s going to take a while to get there: Well. Der. No one suggested it would happen immediately. We’re discussing future directions here peoples. Keep up with the show.

4) It’s difficult to monetise social media sites: the value of these sites is not around the direct revenue they make, it’s around the value of the unique users. Users bring traffic allowing for the leverage and sale of other products.

5) Social media may overtake the recruiter’s role of moderator in the job-candidate relationship. This may herald the demise of the recruiter: The breadth of contacts a recruiter has, as well as the knowledge of what is happening with the major players in their areas of speciality will work to protect the role of the recruiter in the match-up process. While social media are useful, they are time consuming. Building relationships takes energy. It has always been the value of these relationships that the recruiter offers the process. This will not diminish, but can only be escalated, as social media make contact with more people from more industries, more accessible to recruiters.

FlogMe – Going, Going SOLD

As a member of the Linkme candidate database I receive regular network updates,  including friend requests and messages. These email updates are signed off by the team at Linkme.

I have noticed in my last few of these emails that they are being signed off by third party companies. Here’s one that was prepared earlier:

“George sent you a message.

Follow the link to view the message George sent you about hey guys.

Receiving too many emails?

Click here to log in to manage the amount of emails you receive from us.

Alternatively, if you’re sure you wish to unsubscribe from this type of email completely, click here .

Cheers,

The Finsia Career Network team.
careernetwork@finsia.com

This service is provided by LinkMe

Copyright 2008 Finsia – Financial Services Institute of Australasia. All rights reserved”

What’s strange about this email is that when I log into my account to have a look I am directed through the Financial Services Institute of Australasia career portal. careernetwork.finsia.com
Importantly, by doing so I am now under their terms and conditions policy also. See here

Finsia’s Privacy policy; applies to users of the Portal. We use the personal information you give to us to provide you with services under this Portal.

Further, and even more disgustingly, for the past week I have received similar emails from Live In Australia, an immigration visa company.  Obviously, LinkMe is selling its members off to the highest bidder.

LinkMe has given folks the opportunity to unsubscribe to “this type of email”.  But why should I unsubscribe to something I haven’t subscribed to?

This is madness.

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?

CareerJet: Landing At An Airport Near You…

I received this email from job search engine CareerJet.com.au about getting my jobs listed on their site. Here’s some of what it said:

Job listing fees: Fees are efficacy-based: they depend upon the amount of job seekers redirected towards your site from Careerjet.

You only pay for the listings that are viewed from our site. This is when a candidate interested by one of your offers clicks on the job title found on Careerjet and is redirected towards this offer on your site.

Unit price per click per job seeker: AU$0.05 net

As soon as your Careerjet advertiser account is credited, your offers will be listed and the candidate traffic will begin.

When your account runs out of credit, your listings are immediately downgraded, and then suspended. Topping up your account reactivates your listings.

Advertiser accounts do not involve contractual time obligations: for instance, we do not charge for keeping your advertiser account open and inactive as long as you like until you have more jobs that you would like to list.

Your advertiser account gives you access to the statistics for all the candidate clicks that Careerjet redirects to your site. Upon request, the tracker system can be added to your URL.

Some Careerjet statistics:

Number of monthly visits in Australia: 470000
Number of job offers listed in Australia: 248000
The Careerjet network operates in more than 50 countries:
http://www.careerjet.com.au/?worldwide

It’s kinda interesting that they say they have 248000 jobs listed in Australia without Seek’s jobs.

I did a search on .Net in Australia and two of the first three listings for jobs were not in Australia. I’m not a statistician. And I know that my sample was a small one. Probably if I checked the next 200 hundred listings, and just to give Careerjet the benefit of the doubt, I’d get Australian jobs for most of these.

But I wasn’t exactly buoyed by my initial search. Are the users on Careerjet Australians? Or are they mainly international job seekers. And if the answer to the final question is “yes” why am I being charged 5cents per click for irrelevant traffic?

It gets curiouser and curiouser. Are MyCareer and CareerOne being charged per click for the jobs they have listed?

Or is Careerjet just one big Madhatter’s Tea Party?