Article courtesy of SBAM Approved Partner ASE
By Anthony Kaylin
Job boards are on the way out and their replacement is on the way in.
Today there are over 50,000 job boards. Yet job board traffic has decreased 50% over the past four years. Monster.com is for sale. CareerBuilder is still going strong, but competitive forces are driving it to create new value chains. Competition has arisen fast and hard, especially job aggregators like Indeed.com, Glassdoor.com or SimplyHired.com. Job aggregators are job search engines that scrape the net for all jobs accessible on company websites. Very comprehensive; but when the jobs expire or are filled, they are not removed from the aggregator website. Further, aggregators engage in Search Engine Optimization or SEO, so when a person searches for a company’s jobs on Google, for example, these aggregators will populate the first page of any search—often enough with job openings that are already filled.
Do a Google search of your company’s website, and don’t be surprised to see your company’s job page in the top three on the first page followed by all the aggregators afterwards, including Monster.com. The way these aggregators make money is by allowing the company to bid for placement on their pages, similar to marketing campaigns run by the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. The company will be asked to bid, say 25 cents per click, and based on the bid will be able to find out where it will land, e.g., on the first, second or third page of an aggregator. The bid does not mean unlimited clicks and cost to the company; the company would specify how much per day it would spend on clicks for a jobs, say $25 per day. So once the $25 limit is reached, the company’s jobs would move back in the pack.
A recent survey from Jobvite shows that recruiters use social media as a primary method for recruitment. Ninety-two percent of U.S. companies are using social networks and media to find talent in 2012, up from 78% five years ago. LinkedIn continues to be a dominant recruiting network, while Facebook and Twitter have seen major adoption growth in the past year. Two out of three companies now recruit through Facebook and better than half (54%) use Twitter to find new talent.
So in comes the new wave in job recruitment: the Talent Circle. LinkedIn was one of the first to take off—a talent circle that all of us helped create. Do you know anyone without a LinkedIn account? Primarily geared to professionals, LinkedIn is six degrees of separation. Currently, jobs can be posted without a fee in LinkedIn groups or in a personal update, or for a fee through LinkedIn’s job service. Also, recruiters can view LinkedIn connections (i.e., its database) for an extra cost. A new LinkedIn offering called Talent Finder allows searches to the third degree for monthly fees ranging from $75 to $680. You can also establish your own personal rolodexes of these candidates for an extra fee. Interestingly enough, two-thirds of all LinkedIn users are outside the U.S. and yet only one-third of LinkedIn revenues are generated outside the U.S.
Consider that as LinkedIn grows as a public company, it will need to find new ways to raise revenues. Expect that its currently free recruiting uses, like putting a job link in a group discussion or as a personal update, will eventually cost. The toll booths are coming.
So imagine the future or recruiting: Companies can take the next step and create its own talent circles. The employer could access talent specific for its needs instantly and screen and interview talent in a few clicks. Employers could establish a video booth just like a virtual room and carry on live conversations with candidates. Assuming compliance with all legal requirements, recruiters will be able to record live conversation with candidates and then share recordings expeditiously with hiring managers. In effect, employers can create their own circle of talent, managing their talent pipelines over time. They will also be able to control their brand more easily: logos, custom information, announcements, messages, etc.
Today’s cost of creating company talent circles is still high, but within the next few years this recruitment methodology will become lower cost and more popular.