Quality Seek Applicant.

Future Of Job Boards – Is It Social

Online community is a bit of a buzzword at the moment and I reckon it’s important we begin to define it in the context of recruitment. Why? Because recruitment is moving rapidly into an almost entirely online workspace. This being the case, whatever is a hot topic in the internet generally, becomes a hot topic for us. More importantly, though, we need to understand this concept in order to shape how we respond to it.

Here’s where I break it down for the readers: There are two main components to the notion of community. These are: a) common interest b) communication. So, a community is a place where people with a common interest meet to exchange knowledge, discuss ideas or get to know one another.

The demands of our lives are such that, with regard to communication, interactivity is vital. It allows us to achieve all three aspects of communication in one shot. In doing this, we can make informed decisions about WHOSE information we need access to and WHAT sorts of things we want to know. Interaction gives us this. It permits us access to a subtext in the discourse of a particular communication. It does this through commentary, but also through circulation on social networks.

Okay, so where does this leave job boards?

Over the short term, what this means is that job boards will attempt to integrate some form of interactivity into their sites. Sites such as TribeHQ have already begun to do this.

In the long term, however, job boards will not serve the functional requirements of our society. Lacking some of the basic elements of community, they will not be able to satisfy the need to streamline information resources, and they will not provide the social proof required to verify the validity of their advertisements. Seek already have difficulty with this and dedicate a large amount of resources to preventing (sometimes unsuccessfully) fake job ads.

‘Future of the traditional job board’ was discussed together with Thomas Shaw and Diane Lee at the ‘Recruitment Rumble’ recently. Listen to the recording here.

SEEK TVC

Seek.com.au tvc. The message is: If you don’t use Seek then you won’t find!

Live Recruitment Rumble – May 7th, 11:00am

There’s nothing like a good stoush.

And frankly, while I like nothing better than a good old jab at industry players like job boards and recruiters, I reckon it’s about time I took on one of my own kind.

So, rally around the shelter shed, peoples, it’s gonna be a bewdy. (details here)

Join online recruitment industry leaders Geoff Jennings and Thomas Shaw for a LIVE “Recruitment Rumble” Thursday May 7th, 11:00am – 12:00pm. All gloves will be off as Geoff and Thomas go head to head in a discussion about key topics (Geoff may even wear his shiny purple boxing shorts).

Joining in the live discussion is Diane Lee, founder of Even It Up! providing a perspective from the job seeker point of view and “outsider” to the industry.

Topics for discussion include:

- Future of the traditional Job board?
- SEEK vs. CareerOne/Monster – who will win?
- Fake job adverts?
- RCSA: Soft as a marshmellow?
- Should I use a recruitment agency or go direct?
- Background searching candidates online?

Do you want to listen or join in the discussion? Register here.

Geoff Jennings is the controversial man at the helm of http://www.geoffjennings.com, a site dedicated to keeping the recruitment bastards honest. He has worked for online industry leaders and is currently Managing Director of www.onlinerecruitment.com.au

Thomas Shaw is the “pretty boy” of online recruitment, having established his stranglehold of the industry via his blog www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/blog By day he works in the recruitment industry, and at night a tweet from Thomas can make or break your organisation.

Diane Lee is the founder of Even It Up! which aims to provide information about recruitment practices for Australian jobseekers. Diane is leading the revolt from frustrated job seekers who want an even playing field www.evenitup.com.au

Seek’s New Consumer Marketing Campaign

I know ANZAC Day is over, but sound the bugle again anyway.

There’s war on them streets.

Don’t panic.  I’m not talking the terrorist-blowing-the-biggest-building-they-can-find type war.  I’m talking war of the job boards.

This war will be fought with advertising grenades and marketing bullets.

Seek will strike the first blow with their “A New Job Every 30 Seconds” Campaign.  Civilians will become very familiar with this campaign, as it is set to have a heavy presence on billboards, trams* and buses, Hoyts cinemas and major FM stations (and we all know how important radio is during war time). Powered by Monster, CareerOne are set to retaliate with the May launch of their new site and offensive.

Like every good war correspondent, I’ll be donning the fatigues and reporting every strike.  Wish me luck out there, it’s gonna be down and dirty.

Here’s hoping the fatalities are low.

Wifey: Geoff, come here dahl.  You’ve got something on your nose.

Geoff: What?  Where? Here?

Wifey: No. Lower.  Here . I got it.  What is it?  Mud?

Geoff: It’s not mud.  It’s goddamn camouflage, okay? Camouflage. (Exits in a huff, muttering ‘Bloody civilians’).

Monster Vs. Seek – The Rumble Down Under

The much-anticipated heavyweight battle between the undefeated champion of the job board space, Seek, and the 400-kilo gorilla, Monster,(who will be powering the new CareerOne site) is just around the corner.

And the word on the street is that the contender is in the best shape it has ever been.

This scenario is not dissimilar to an event, thirty-five years ago, The Rumble In The Jungle, when Muhammad Ali entered the ring to challenge undisputed heavyweight champion George Foreman. The fight with Foreman represented more than just a chance for him to become the second former heavyweight champ to regain the title. A victory over Foreman meant validation and redemption for Ali.

For Monster, beating Seek would signify their redemption after having to leave the Australian market several years ago. Seek is still thought to be so invincible that Monster/CareerOne aren’t given much of a chance against them.

Fight Stats:

How many Unique browsers per month:

SEEK:           3,192,692
CareerOne:  1,620,077

How many job ads on site:

SEEK:           97,869
CareerOne:  31,874

Source: Nielsen NetRatings Australia, March ’09

This sets up for one of the greatest heavyweight battles we have seen since Seek took on print – and won (and don’t start on me about how they haven’t really won, peoples.  You’ll start to sound like the fundey right-wing Christians still trying to suggest that evolution is nothing more than a ‘theory)’.

I Didn’t Do It

Last week the news sat smack-bang in the middle of denial territory.

Pauline Hanson denied starring in those glam nude pics. Gemteq denied forum allegations that they publish fake jobs.

Pauline reckons she never had a boyfriend called “Jack” and that she feels for the young woman in the bondage outfit featured in the photos.

Gemteq reckon the reason for the similarities between their credible job adverts and ads from overseas job boards is that they look to the latter for “inspiration”.

Shortlist March 13. He said recruiters had historically referred to other job postings for inspiration when writing ads, and this may be the reason for the strong similarities between certain Gemteq IT job ads and other ads posted on overseas boards.

See any similarities here?

I won’t comment on the Gemteq saga. Jobseekers can make up their own minds about the validity – or otherwise – of Gemteq’s job postings. But the issue raises an interesting point. How can the industry be regulated? Seek has made an attempt to set the standard by releasing a statement saying it is making attempts to obliterate fake ads from its job board.

Shortlist article March 13. SEEK is launching a new “job seeker charter” designed to encourage candidates to report job ads which might be fake or misleading.

And sometimes it takes the market leader to set an example of best industry practice. There’s also the RCSA, but they can’t achieve much with the few members they have.

Anyhow, I don’t want a regulatory body in the industry. This causes unnecessary bureaucracy. But surely all of this could be avoided if folks just acted ethically. I mean, and I’m not accusing Gemteq specifically, it doesn’t take much to figure out that posting fake jobs to reverse market candidates is not good for anyone. You don’t need to be goddam Aristotle to figure this out. It damages the industry enormously and ultimately, if you tarnish the industry to which you belong, your business will suffer.

Tread lightly, my people.

CareerOne Job Ads – On Seek

Would you have ever seen a promo for a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on channel 7?  No.

Would you ever see a CareerOne job ad. on Seek?  Oh hang on.  Yes.

This totally weirds me out – in the same way that the contemplation of incest does.  News Digital has decided to whack a few jobs up on Seek.  Ashamedly.  What, is their job board not up to scratch?  Are they having such a hard time luring job seekers that they have to use the competition to find candidates?

More importantly, what message does this send to recruiters?  Should we be prepared to pay bigger fees to the number two player in the job board stakes who, by voice of their actions, is publicly announcing that their opposition is better suited to the purpose of finding candidates?

I’d also be interested in knowing how Seek feels about C1 pitching a tent in their backyard.  Chances are, I don’t need to phone a friend to know the answer.  Does the $180 odd bucks Seek yields to advertise a C1 job negate the loss of good candidates to their competition?  I doubt it.  They’re so market leader, they don’t need to play butt-boy to their competitor.

By the way, I’m running a tab on how long it takes for these ads. to get pulled…

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.

Seek’s New Look. Share Price Up…

Seek has gone to see the plastic surgeon and given the tired old site a face lift (see also Thomas Shaw’s blog). Very Sam Newman-esk with its dramatic horizontal stretch. Like Sam’s new look, it may take a while to get used to…

The new image for Seek has coincided with an increase in their share price. And who said image doesn’t matter?

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