MyCareer.com.au Head Hunter television commercial

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.

Desperate Times At MyCareer…

This morning I received this email from Ganesh Bettadapura at MyCareer:

Good Morning Geoff,

Just a courtesy follow-up to see how you are going with your Sales Executive ads listed under Work from Category on Seek ?.

I have been assigned as your Account Manager here at MyCareer. If you are looking to place any ads on MyCareer then please contact me directly so I can offer you some discounts.

There are several important features available on MyCareer which may help you get a quality response.

If you have any queries related to our products, features, discounts or benefits then please contact me directly.

Thanking you,

Kind Regards

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

F.Y.I – If you are looking for a quote for your ” Sydney Morning Herald ” ads then please contact me directly before the cut-off time.

Cripes. Desperate times at MyCareer. So desperate, in fact, that one of the new sales approaches is to spam Seek’s clients.

Interestingly, this happens also to be one of the approaches of many in the recruiting industry; offering services to companies who have placed an ad looking for staff. At best, it’s cheeky. At worst it’s annoying and does nothing to ad value to the business making the calls. There’s no way I’d advertise with MyCareer in response to the spam I’ve received. I hope they know this.

Responsibility In A Crisis

We’re all over the recession articles. And I’ve tried to avoid the doomsday-type articles predicting doom or gloom. The recession’s here. We all know it. And we understand what the consequences are. But I’d like to pause a sec from all this banter to tackle the problem of how businesses approach the issue of social responsibility and economic crisis.

To do this, I’m going to highlight an example. Recently, LinkMe let go of their Queensland state manager, and their general sales manager as well as a number of other sales staff. In the case of the former, this was after only three months after having been employed. This is not a solitary example. I’ve written previously of MyCareer’s heinous decision to move their Melbourne staff to the Sydney office. (MyCareer – Take It Or Leave It.)

From a purely economic perspective, it makes little sense to knee-jerk your way through the recession; cutting lifelines of employees in order to stay afloat. In all cycles, boom follows bust. When it comes to rehiring, the costs involved in getting a bunch of people onboard to a do a job you had people doing previously, makes no sense.

But if a business is going to run with profit and loss as its only indication of success, what it creates will leave only a dint on the world’s duco. And if those dints keep popping up, soon the world will begin to resemble a beat up old piece of junk at the scrap metal yard.

Here’s what I reckon’s going on. Companies talk quite a bit about being ethical. How many times have you inquired about the culture of a company and been told it’s “family-friendly” or “casual and relaxed”, only to discover that you are sneered at when you come to work an hour or so late because you went to your kid’s Father’s Day breakfast at school? Examples like the LinkedIn LinkMe one demonstrate that there is little awareness within companies of how their behaviour impacts on the lives of individuals. Surely it was foreseeable that, three months down the track, their services of a Queensland state manager would no longer be required. Surely. Who made the decision to hire them? It was irresponsible of LinkMe to hire someone under these conditions, knowing well enough that it would not be a long-standing proposition.

But perhaps something else is at play here. Perhaps a recession climate acts as an excuse for companies to let go of people en masse, with minimal outcry from the public. “In an economic downturn”, they tout, “we must do what is necessary to remain a viable business. This means cutting costs.” A good excuse, or reasonable economic sense?

You decide.

Mycareer – Playing Games

Okay, so MyCareer has this new promotion for Headhunter. Deal is, you set up a store and earn money for the business by “recruiting” employees to your store – kinda like a virtual popularity contest. The shopkeeper earning the most money at the end of the day gets “a trophy of the character”. Woot. Woot. I think, and I’m not really certain although I’ve read the competition outline a coupla times now, that when you register you go into the draw to win fifty grand.

Considering the hiding I’ve given MyCareer lately, I reckon if they pull my name out of the barrel, they’ll look around to see who was watching, pretend to cough, and poke the bit of paper with my name on it into their mouth. Then they’ll redraw.

The prospect of devoting a good part of my day setting up my shop, and sending pathetic emails to my friends and family, asking for virtual support in this enterprise isn’t exactly compensated by the prospect of winning a trophy of my avatar (check him out, he’s the cruddy old guy behind the counter in my “shop” – the one who looks a bit bored, kinda like he’d rather shoot himself then deal with yet another complaint about the economic crisis). And it’s not as though I’m beyond having a muck around in my virtual universe. It’s just, well, if I’m gonna enter a competition, I don’t want it to be like some kinda high maintenance friend who’s just, like, take, take, take – and very little give-back.

And isn’t it slightly ironic that the results for this are published in The Australian – a News publication? I’m not holding my breath about winning…

2009 Predictions

The Christmas trees have now (hopefully) all been packed away, everyone’s recovered from their post NYE HOs, and we’re all gearing up for a fascinating 2009.

Seek, CareerOne and MyCareer have all just popped around and drawn the tarots from the deck (not REALLY.  You guys have got to learn not to take everything I write literally:)) and here are the results of the session.  Here are, in other words, the Geoff Jennings predictions for the online recruitment market in 2009:

Seek will target the SME market

Seek has seen consistent revenue growth of over 30% for the past four years.  This is largely attributed to  growing job ad volumes, price increases and the Seek Learning revenue contribution. 2009 will be a very different story for the market leader and it will take a mighty effort to achieve 0% growth.  They might attempt this feat by:

- Ditching their focus on recruiters and targeting the SME’s (Small Medium Sized) businesses, especially those who currently advertise in print. This will enable them to tap into a new advertiser that will be much easier to grow the yield with because it is accustomed to paying hefty print prices.

- Push new products. Stand Out ads, Premium ads…obviously, this will also contribute to yield growth and it is a path that Seek has already begun to promenade.

- Grow the Learning business: this will supplement the losses of the Core business.

- Concentrate on ensuring that the international investments work contribute to the bottom line.

CareerOne will tread water.

No significant inroads were made by CareerOne in 2008.  I’m going to acknowledge that they moved ahead of MyCareer in traffic numbers, and this was a good effort…but that has more to do with my imbibing post-festive spirit and less to do with any sort of massive leap by the former.

In 2007 they sold against the promise of a new website for almost a year, leaving many advertisers scratching their heads.   They’re likely to do the same in 2009,  as a result of the new joint venture with Monster. We might see some action on the new look partnership offering by the end of 2009, but by then it will be too little too late for their bottom line.  Promises, promises…

MyCareer will change business models.

MyCareer will move from being a generalist job board (with the only variation on this being their failed attempt with Job Fox in the Headhunter plan).  They will continue their downsizing (hopefully with a little more aplomb than their last Melbourne attempt) and they will cash in on their quality audience by launching a range of fully-integrated EGN executive ads. across all their online news sites.  They could also acquire PageUp People, the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) provider that has an enviable relationship with the corporate market that MyCareer could benefit from.  This would also mean getting in before Seek does.

Aggregators

These pimps of the job space are here and have set-up shop on a street corner near you. Will they make any real impact on the job market? Probably not. They fall short in a few areas.  Firstly, they don’t really have an adequate revenue model and we don’t have enough users in Australia to warrant further investment. Secondly, Seek has ensured the demise of aggregators by not allowing its job inventory to be scrapped. Lastly, the user experience is not great because of the searchability of expired ads..

Referral sites

The new guard are here. It will take all of 2009/10 to establish their offering. But traditional job boards beware. 2Vouch, Hoojano and the like will have a large impact on how the market is shaped for the future and will be targeting the same SME market as you are.

MyCareer Come Back Soon…

Is this a purposeful action, or a glitch in the system?  Taking the site off-line seems like a radical decision in light of the fact that Monday is peek job search day.  Also, how are advertisers feeling about their ads being taken down?  Imagine missing out on that one golden candidate…the very idea sends shivers down this pre-Christmas spine o’ mine.

Presumably MyCareer has decided on the version of job search they prefer and we’ll await the results of their decision with…eagerness.

“We’re currently doing some work on our site to improve your job search.
Come back soon – we’ll be back online shortly.”

Job Board Price War Shake Up?

I received this letter indirectly. A plea from Recruit Me Now.  I can’t call it a media release.  It’s a confusing piece of communication which flits from third-person to first-person (and I’ve offered in past blogs to write your bloody publicity for you – but continue to be witness to the circulation of shite).

Deep breath, Geoff (see, that’s first-person).

Back to the case in point.  Recruit Me Now has offered free job ads for recruiters (now I’m in third-person.  See the difference, Michael?).  This strategy has been used by several job boards (namely, MyCareer, CareerOne, NowHiring).  This is not a successful strategy as it devalues the service offered.

Now I’m going to offer an alternative.  Don’t you just hate it when folks whine all the time but fail to show how things can be improved?  Here it comes, Mike.  Hold on to your jocks.  What Recruit Me Now needs to do is this:  cut ties with JobX.  They’re doing a crap job anyway (also offering free jobs).  Get your shirt and tie on and have a chat with market leader Hughes Recruitment, which has more recruitment jobs than you do, and present yourself as an affiliate marketer that can send them quality apps.  Charge accordingly.  Next, spend your time marketing your site properly instead of begging for free ads.

Let me know how you go:)

Back From My Tour Of Europe

So I’m back from my tour.  I’ve slept, eaten an huge bowl of veges, and ready to resume where I left off.

Nothing catastrophic happened in my absence, but there are a few points I’d like to draw your attention to.

Firstly, a recent Seek survey indicated:

67% of jobseekers are concerned about their current job or career in light of the global economic slowdown according to research from SEEK Intelligence. In a sign that employee confidence is dropping rapidly, when asked the same question in August only 39% of respondents were feeling worried. 

59% of respondents are feeling less secure in their job now compared to 12 months ago, nearly double the number of jobseekers who felt this way in August (31%) 

71% of people think that it will take them longer to find a job now compared to 12 months ago, a massive jump from 39% when the question was posed in August and an even bigger increase from the 29% recorded in 2007

Happiness levels in relation to the respondent’s job continue to decrease, with only 22% of respondents describing themselves as happy (down from 27% in August and 29% in 2007)

These aren’t great results for participants in the survey – but I’m sorry to report that the leverage recruiters can receive from employee dissatisfaction is considerable, especially in a candidate-tight market.

Also, it is important for us as recruiters to keep a picture of the overall feeling of the market place.  If security is a key concern of employees, then this can be used as a selling point in the dance of wooing candidates into various positions.

Secondly, Thomas Shaw, owner of Recruitment Directory, and one of our regular contributors, recently acquired the niche job board digitalindustryjobs.com from its existing UK owners. Here’s to hoping he didn’t pay too much for this as the exchange rate of the pound in relation to the $AUD is not great. However the revenue potential when converted back could work well.

Thirdly, MyCareer is still A/B testing their job search functionality. This has been happening for a number of months now. A decision should be made sooner than later as jobseekers will start to get confused.

Finally.  Seek remains the market leader. Their key drivers remain consistent:

1. Grow Volume of job ads

2. Grow yield

3. Introduce new products

Why change the strategy when you have financial results like these:

$M

 

(Seek presentation to UBS conference)

And I swear, I’m not receiving cash for comments from Seek.  There’s not much I can give these folks a hard time about, though.   The praise I give them is well-deserved.

 

 

Next Page »