Confusion At MyCareer…

Every now and again I have a moment of remorse for MyCareer and CareerOne, who just seem to spend their existences clawing their way up the mountain past Seek, whose lead just keeps getting wider and wider.

Other times, I shake my head and make that clicking sound with the tip of my tongue on the back of my top teeth; the one I save for my kids when they  have made a particularly bad choice.  Haven’t I just been clicking and shaking my head all weekend over this one.

Check out MyCareer’s advertising pricing.  There is little consistency in the packages.  For example, if I choose to advertise in the The Age over The SMH for print and online bundle, then The Age is more exy.  However, if I’m just opting for a print ad, The SMH is more expensive.  I’m perplexed as to why this is the case.  Then, when I click on to buy the more expensive $211 option of The Age bundle, the prices are actually $198.  Jeeeez.

How can consumers expect to make informed choices about where to spend their advertising dollar if they cannot get correct information from a job board like MyCareer?

And just as a further note, the lowest common denominator, in terms of function, of a job board is communication.  How on earth can MyCareer expect to act as an agent of communication for other companies, if they can’t even get their own messages through clearly?

Search Seek On Google

This Onrec blog has commented previously about Seek’s relative lack of search engine optimisation.  However, I s’pose this doesn’t matter if you get a job search box in Google’s organic search results.

Let’s say you type in ‘Accounting’ into this search box, you will then be presented with a list of jobs from Seek with the term ‘Accounting’ in them. Click away…

When you search MyCareer or other job boards they don’t get the same celebrity treatment??

2Vouch Goes Beta

I’ve discussed 2vouch on this Onrec blog already back in February Vouching For 2Vouch . Today they launched in Beta. Congratulations.

Social referral sites such as 2vouch and Hoojano(which launched some months back) will be a prominent aspect of how we recruit into the future. The idea is nothing new, as indicated by the old adage 2vouch has chosen to adopt as their motto, “It’s not what you know…” (initially they had a genie as part of their campaign. I wanna know where the genie’s gone:)). Being social creatures, we communicate with one another. Being creatures ruled by the ego, we like to be “in the loop”, and being creatures driven by economic concerns, we like to make money. 2vouch satisfies all the needs.

Recruiters pay referral fees to people who give them a lead on a placement. 2vouch is merely formalising this already-existing convention.

Online recruitment has placed some jobs on 2vouch, to give it a go. Stay tuned for how that’s tracking…I wish, I wish (picture me rubbing the magic lantern here) for several successful job placements….

Where’s the Genie??

Office Yoga

Ooooooooooooooom.

Oh. You’re here. Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude, just getting into the spirit of things. It’s Krishna’s birthday this weekend. Big celebrations around town – and I’ve given a spot of yoga a go. Got me thinking…

This has nothing at all to do with New-Age propaganda. It’s a well-established idea that stress interferes with cognitive function and behavior. Put simply, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, you probably aren’t too nice to be around and you can’t solve problems as well as you normally can. And your muscles react. They clench up into balls and send additional signals to your brain telling it that you are stressed. A vicious…vicious cycle. Ooooooooooooooom.

Get your yoga balls out, team. They were all the rage in offices in the early nineties. And if you feel like a frootloop sitting at your desk on a slippery big ball and prefer the chair, try this exercise, designed especially for the covert yogi.

Drop a pen on the floor. Tuck your pelvis under (you do this by pulling your belly-button in), extend the arm which is on the opposite side to where the pen is and swing it around and to the ground to pick up the pen. keep your spine straight all the while. Repeat for the other side.

While you’re down there, check for lost coins…Ooooooooom.

Seek Delivers

There’s good money still to be had in the traditional job board model. If you are Seek. They finished the financial year with total sales up 34% to $210.2 million. Nice.

Not hard to see why. Even their competitors are advertising with them…

Welcome To The New Facebook

This is not an audition for the television show, “Grumpy Old Men”, believe me. But, I logged onto my Facebook page (as you do while at work) and discovered they have revamped the whole thing. Just when I was starting to get used to the way it works…

Why don’t they do like Seek and adopt the ‘don’t fix it if it ain’t broke’ policy?

Your thoughts?

MyCareer’s Search For Excellence

Past Fairfax Digital CTO Seth Yates has covered the update to MyCareer’s search functionality here already.

Here’s my view. (since I took this home page search box snap shot, they have rolled back to include the sector/sub sector, location e.t.c drop down menus again) MyCareer have informed me that they are running a Test A and Test B search box.

They have gone with the new search suggest keyword technology. Yahoo are using this tool successfully.

Once you make your way to the search results page, you can’t help but notice the new ‘refine your search’ column. With such a nice simple keyword search box on the home page they let themselves down here. Should have kept it slick and given the advertisers the spot light with their job listings.

May I suggest MyCareer, that you keep up the innovation.

JobX Taking Over The Country…

JobX have white labelled yet another site. OurPatch powered by the JobX engine has launched a full-feature “regional” job board providing country folk a dedicated space for jobs.

OurPatch is a network of websites for rural and regional Australian towns offering community and business listings etc.  OurPatch also fancy themselves as search engine optimisation (SEO) experts. They help the smaller regional sites get ranking in search engines like Google.  A quick search on Google shows they have 128,000 listings – not bad for a regional site.  At $30 per ad OurPatch will help their advertisers compete with those in the big smoke, who pay hundreds for an ad on the major boards.

Can You Help Save Print Classifieds?

I was set this challenge with the chance to win $250 USD. All I have to do is write an essay with some ideas about how to save print classifieds…knew there’d be a catch. Doh.

ReinventingClassifieds.com is a new website and initiative whose aim is to resurrect through reinvention the newspaper classifieds business.

Contrary to the belief of many of my colleagues, I reckon newspaper classifieds can be saved. At the moment, though, they’re treading water and the waves are washing over them, causing them to gulp and gasp for air. A few splutters perhaps. They’re not going to be able to recover from their fix alone. They need the new technologies to lean over the edge of their secure aquatic crafts and pluck them out.

If you’re not into metaphors and can’t work out what the heck I’m on about, here’s the point put simply. Newspaper classifieds will only survive if they work in conjunction with new technologies.

For example:

- Offer free Wi-fi internet access for newspaper subscribers while in CBD locations.

- Create a killer application for the new iPhone that ties in the ads from print and online, including video classifieds.

Jeez, US$250…that’d buy a nice meal in a posh restaurant for me and the missus.

Sales Letter or Spam Mail?

Today I received a letter from Rec Radar, inviting me to make an appointment with their sales team. Rec Radar is an online trading system for recruiters, used when they are having difficulty finding candidates for jobs. A nice idea, yes.

But here’s the rub. Rec Radar isn’t the only company to do this, but I’m going to scapegoat them. Firstly, the “sales letter” is addressed directly to the apply@onlinerecruitment email address, but it is addressed “To The Management Team”. How hard is it to find my name and use it in the address?

And I don’t want to be a pedant. I’m pretty sure that a quick perusal of my website and blog will reveal several typos. However, this letter looks as though it is written by someone for whom English is not their first language. In truth, my primary-school-aged kids have a better grip on the correct use of the capital letter than the folks who composed the letter I received.

It’s old advice but sound. If you are going to represent yourself to a potential client, use their name and do your best to use the language properly. Der.

From: peter@recradar.com
Subject: Rec Radar
Date: 10 June 2008 7:23:35 AM
To: apply@onlinerecruitment.com.au

To the Management Team,

I would like to introduce Rec Radar® to you.

Rec Radar® is a secure web based networking tool for ethical and professional recruitment agencies to work together for mutual advantage.

Rec Radar is an automated online trading system. It’s an advanced two directional management tool, Similar in style to E-bay, But only for recruiters in the recruitment industry.

The service enables agencies to earn commission from trading jobs and candidates with other agencies that they would have struggled to fill or place themselves.

In your account, you can list the jobs for which you want to find candidates you can also upload details of candidates for which you want to find jobs.

You protect your agency identity and business by working in a secure, confidential environment. You only release your candidate details to another agency when you want to and you never release your client.

With Rec Radar® you will always have plan B

For a limited time during the launch in Sydney the first 6 months membership for all your consultants is free.

We will be in Sydney from the 16th-19th June and soon after we will be in Melbourne and would like to meet and show you through Rec Radar®. So please check out www.RecRadar.com

Feel free to contact us with a time that is suitable.

Regards,

Peter Fowler
Managing Director

Skype: Rec Radar
peter@recradar.com
www.recradar.com

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