Snakes on a Plane – Destination Bris Vegas

I opened my regional newspaper this morning to more doom and economic gloom. Some poor bloke, degreed, dungareed, but slightly morose-looking is apparently part of the latest lot to be retrenched.

You may have noticed; I enjoy subversion. So, here’s to it.

Are things all that bad or are companies using the recession as an excuse to offload deadweight? Despite reports of unemployment rates “soaring”, companies are still hiring. Here’s the latest from, job posting provider Jobadder, for instance. Watch out: The cobra is looming.

NEW QUEENSLAND OFFICE AND STATE MANAGER
JobAdder has announced the opening of a new office in Brisbane and the
appointment of Darren Watts as Queensland state manager.

Darren Watts has 15 years’ experience in sales and management positions in FMCG and has worked for a range of organisations such as: Sanitarium Health Foods and Coca Cola Amatil.

Darren’s most recent role was business development manager at Blueshift selling high end sales and forecasting systems. He will be responsible for growing and managing all aspects of the business in Queensland.

JobAdder managing director, Brett Iredale said “Queensland is an important market for JobAdder and we are absolutely delighted to have someone the calibre of Darren heading up the new office.”

Doom and gloom – or just a bloody good excuse?

Read more

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%.

Nowhiring – Counting The Bucks

Last week, niche job site network Counting Jobs paid an undisclosed sum for the Now Hiring group of sites.

What this means, beside the fact that Now Hiring founder Brett Iredale can concentrate on his JobAdder business, is that this may kickstart the attack of the niche job boards on the top three players.

Now, I don’t have a doctorate in business, or anything scholarly like that, so shrug me off if I’m singing an overplayed song here (and don’t you just hate it when radio stations flog a song?), but it seems that, in their genesis, industries thrive because of broad-reaching, generalised competitors. But as that industry develops, niche players are required.

Indeed, the online recruitment industry will benefit from niche job boards in a few ways. Firstly, they offer the job-seeker more targeted content, and the converse is that advertisers and others who wish to disseminate information get themselves a specific audience.

Secondly, they’re more efficient to run – and to use. I’m a huge fan of not having to click around too much on a site to find what I’m after.

Sure, they attract a smaller amount of traffic, but if they’re well-marketed and reach the people who they need to reach, what does that really matter.

Thirdly, because they’re generally less expensive to run, they’re also less expensive for advertisers to use.

Whilst the major job-boards all have their niche catagories, there’s nothing like the experience of having experts in specific fields find candidates and some folks like to support independant players – it’s an ethical kinda decision, if you like.