OMG – No Investor Support

Fairfax’s MyCareer.com.au number of ads stands at 25,000+. Seek’s – 105,000+.

And it’s no wonder. Even the folks who should be supporting MyCareer aren’t advertising with them.

Fairfax NZ is advertising for a Acquisitions and Retentions Manager . Where did they place their ad? Seek.

Then there’s Online Marketing Group, the folks who boast in their job ad that “Fairfax Digital is a strategic investor in our company”, have posted a job for a Online Account Executive position. Guess they don’t have much faith in their investor. They chose to advertise exclusively on Seek.

MyCareer Out Of Touch

You may recall that recently, MyCareer moved back home with their parents.  By that I mean that they moved their online operations back into print. And, I dunno about you, but whenever I moved back in with the olds, you know, after the stint overseas or whatever, I always became a little lazy.  Mumsy did the washing for me, Dad fixed up the back lawn just right so I could have my mates over for a barby.  Point is, I found myself sitting around for most of the day, checking out day-time TV and generally kicking back.

And this is kinda what MyCareer has been doing of late.  Too many episodes of Oprah, and too much time spent on the big issues like what flavor of chips to buy from the Night Owl, and they’ve gone from being an innovator in the market to a job board that’s doing nothing much but echoing the brothers and sisters at print.  And by that I mean, they’ve lost their edge-up-to-date content.  Check this out:

Their salary centre features a graph tracking the average Australian salary.  It’s still proferring figures from 2008. (of course, this may be a case of wishful thinking, considering the recent economic situation).

Further, I posted an article in early February Confusion At MyCareer regarding the inconsistent bundle pricing listings.  This has yet to be amended.

If we add to this close to a year it took the folks at MyCareer to a/b test the new search options, we have one job board that really needs to get off its arse and find a new pad…well away from its very daggy and conservative parents.

Print Classifieds – A Case for Euthanasia

When I was a kid, I had a dog. Dog’s name was Jimmy. Each afternoon, he’d hear me coming up the driveway home from school, and he’d race out the front to meet me, scraping his wet old tongue all over my face. Sniffing my crotch. Some days, that old guy’d get so excited on account of me being home, he’d pee all over the exposed aggregate driveway.

One afternoon, Jimmy wasn’t in the driveway to meet me. Mum and I, we ran all over the goddam house, looking for him. Was me who found Jimmy, rolled on his back in the garden, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, phlegm and blood pouring from his nose and eyes.

Jimmy had eaten rat poison some bright nut of a neighbor had decided to put out a little too close to our fence line.

The vet tugged up the legs of his flared trousers and bent down to talk to me, so as we were on eye level. “Jimmy’s got some problems with his brain, Geoffrey, and even if we can save his life, the hopes of him ever being like the Jimmy you love are slim. Probably best, son, if we stop Jimmy’s struggle and let him rest peacefully.”

My little guy fists were red raw that night because I banged them so hard on the lino floor of the surgery. I never saw Jimmy again.

And it’s funny how things that happen to you when you’re a kid can fashion the way you view all sorts of things when you’re a man.

While I was eating my Coco Pops this morning, something I read on Crikey, Fairfax classifieds in freefall. What next? reminded me of old Jimmy. Like Jimmy, print is dying. It’s put its curious, whiskered snout too far under the fence and sucked back a truckload of rat poison. And it’s never going to be the same:  “media analysts Goldman Sachs JB Were claiming dramatic falls in classified advertising in Fairfax’s traditional metro papers for December.” Falls were reported in all of Fairfax’s classifieds including motor, real estate and employment.

Problem is, unlike my sage and compassionate vet with the flares and lino, those with the say-so in media empires like Fairfax are not prepared to put print gently to sleep. They’ve whacked it on a respirator, and pumped a bunch of chemicals in its bloodstream in the hope of its survival.  Problem is, even if it manages to live, it’s gonna have major spasticity in its arms and legs and it won’t be able to control its need to defecate. It’ll never be like the print we once loved.

It should be laid to rest peacefully.

Moral of the story is that, a few months after Jimmy passed away, Mum and Dad bought me a new dog. Name was Taffy. Truth is, I actually liked Taffy a bit more than Jimmy. Taffy was energetic, and a bit brighter. I taught him to beg and sit and he even managed to catch the mice that came into our kitchen through a crack in the wall in winter. Plus, Taffy still met me in the driveway each arvo – but he never once sniffed my crotch or pissed on the exposed aggregate.

Employment Market Shake-up.

I’m an optimist.  Can’t help it.  It’s part of my make-up.  I don’t hold a high regard on always being happy, though.  I reckon you need bad times to challenge your strength, just like the immune system needs the odd germ to strengthen it.

There is a fair amount of talk at present about the state of global financial health.  Most of it’s pretty dire.   As a result, companies are getting nervous about their economic well-being.  Staff are lying low and getting on with the job.  There are lots of stats, not facts.  I’m going to regurgitate a few, and would ask that you decide of your own reading of them.  I’ll give you my opinion at the end.  But as I warned you…I’m an optimist:

According to Seek.com.au the Australian employment market has eased further in October.

Despite much speculation however, there were no signs of an abrupt response to the deepening global financial crisis that might signify a developing recession.

Nationally the SEEK Employment Index (SEI), which measures the ratio of new job ads on seek.com.au to job applications via the site, fell by 4% in seasonally adjusted terms, suggesting jobseekers may have witnessed increased competition for fewer available jobs.

However, despite the global financial crisis deepening, this rate was consistent with the average rate of decline seen since December 2007 (4.5%).

However, Seek Ltd themselves have downgraded their forecast for profit growth to zero. Net profit after tax, which last year saw a 37.4% rise to $76.3 million, is now forecast to be flat.

News Corp has flagged job cuts, after reporting a 29.6 per cent drop in first quarter profit and it’s likely that Fairfax is also felling the pinch…

So what does this all mean for the online recruitment market.  Here’s what I reckon…Seek will have to make some changes they might not otherwise have considered.  Strategies must change, even if a little.  Will this open up opportunities for niche job boards to gain a foothold in the market?   Possibly.  And if this happens, what a great opportunity is a recession (no Keating comparisons, please).

Point is, sometimes nothing beats a good old dose of the flu.

MyCareer Print/Online Bundle Offer

Pick a box any box…(just don’t pick the middle one). Hint, they all cost $180 + GST

MyCareer print/online have launched a mandatory bundle offer with every print ad.

When you buy online here you receive:
1 x Website Ad that’ll appear on MyCareer for 30 days
1 x Newspaper Ad in The SMH or The Age

Interesting move by Fairfax. If you can’t beat ‘em then join ‘em I say. When you book an ad in the newspaper you also get a job ad on MyCareer.com.au all for one low price.

Given the significant growth in online ads and the steady decline in newspaper employment ads I would say this move is to boost up the number of job ads for the print side of the business. But is it also at the expense of devaluing the online offering??

Let’s see what online search results ranking they get compared with the full-paying listings.

Will the print folks send the inbound phone calls for line ads to the better-value online portal?

Will MyCareer.com.au see any revenue split for their efforts?

Ahhhh. Questions. Questions…

Seek’s SARA Awards – 22 Days To Go…

The Seek SARA (prom queen) recruitment awards are off and running for the sixth time. With only 22 days to go for voting you’d better get your good suit or frock out from the mothballs in anticipation of that victory speech.

I remember the first time this was presented at the Brisbane RCSA conference way back by Matthew Rockman. I remember this because we (Fairfax/MyCareer) were the major sponsors of the conference and Seek set up the stage right in front, blocking our stand. Cheeky…

One to watch this year will be serial runner-up (small specialist recruiter) Retailworld Resourcing. They are sporting a bright orange web site with little space ships flying around and aliens with signs saying “Vote Now”. If you were from the USA and saw this site for the first time you would think that SARA was running for President.

Good luck and had a laugh at the video jobcast. Gotta love Kerrie-Anne…

.Asia Update #2

In case you missed my last update, I have been keeping an eye on the MyCareer.asia auction and have some news.

Either the folks at Fairfax haven’t seen the value in this new domain or they got out bid (which I find difficult to believe) but it has gone to a Melbourne-based company Jtec Corporation Pty Ltd. (Whois look up)

I hope they don’t try and use this domain in Australia and New Zealand in the employment space as it will make the Fairfax lawyers very happy…