I have been a critic of Craigslist in the past. The site seems to troll the murky waters of scammers and escort services. But I have also heard of a few success stories from clients. When our clients ask for advice, we simply ask “How do you value your employment brand?” Most times, they choose to place their ads elsewhere.
Jon Ralston recently “Flashed” a story about a congressional candidate looking for his PR/Campaign Manager on Craigslist. I wonder how this will affect his image…..
Operating a Las Vegas job board is not an easy task. It requires two core audiences….employers and jobseekers. And without one or the other, a job board owner will not find any level of success. Equally as important, without current and relevant content (jobs) …. a job board will struggle. Recruiting Nevada works very hard at maintaining an equal balance so both of our clients are satisfied. This is the business we are in.
Unfortunately, there are companies selling job board technology to anyone willing to buy it. And some organizations, for profit and non-profit, try and get into the job board business because it seems easy. But without knowing the balancing act between employers and jobseekers, they ultimately offend one of the core audiences. And then we are left with another job board carcass leaving a bad taste in the mouth of both the jobseeker and employer.
The most recent job board to enter the Southern Nevada market is Goodwill of Southern Nevada. They launched a job board called Power of Work (I do like the catchy name). But, it appears that they acquired their technology from a third party resource – Geographic Solutions. It appears Geographic Solutions simply aggregates a business directory from infoUSA, much of which is outdated or contains no employment information. This bad data will quickly offend a jobseeker as they are looking for ‘real’ jobs right now.
To counter balance this list of non-hiring employers, Geographic Solutions is aggregating job postings from what they call a PJB or Private Job Boards. In this case, it looks like the ads are coming in from Yahoo Hot Jobs. So now Goodwill must rely on Yahoo to provide real jobs in Las Vegas. Unfortunately the majority of Yahoo HotJobs advertisers are staffing agencies and multi-level marketers.
What is even more concerning is that a jobseeker must provide their social security number to register. This is a no-no that was abandoned over a decade ago by most job boards with the risk of identity theft and privacy issues.
I am certain Goodwill of Southern Nevada had good intentions of launching such a service. It always looks easy to operate a job board. But really, they should leave the job board business to those who do it every day. I would welcome the opportunity to partner with them to provide a clean database of real jobs. That is a community partnership that would make sense.
2009 is not shaping up to be a good year for newspapers:
Source: Silicon Alley Insider
You gotta love when a dying medium tries to remain relevant. Here is the latest campaign from the Newspaper Project:
I have to admit, I am a die-hard newspaper reader and do enjoy consuming my news from this medium. However, I am of the minority nowadays. Most consume their news from television, the Internet, Kindle or cell phone. 
But – I do find it entertaining watching these guys come up with campaigns that try to state that the newspaper is the best “portable information device.” And “no charger required.”
Maybe the Baby Bells should push a campaign to bring back the telegraph machine! It was an original.
There has always been a “lovefest” between ad agencies and newspapers. A recent article in Advertising Age magazine (Do Some Good: Create Newspaper Ads) just about made me puke. The author, Mike Hughes, did all but beg for agencies to throw newspapers (another) life vest.
Decades ago, long before the Internet and Cable, newspapers were the dominant medium used by all ad agencies. And frankly, it is easy money for ad agencies. Design an ad copy, charging the client creative fees, and place that same ad in multiple newspapers…making 15% on all of the media buys. If the ads don’t work…don’t worry there is always tomorrow, or next week. Just double the size of the ad, place it in multiple sections …..and so on.
Now, our world of recruitment advertising is a little bit different than the general purpose ad agencies; But recruitment ad agencies once maintained a very, very comfortable relationship with newspapers. That is until clients held them accountable. What changed a lot of that? The Internet. The Web is a simple medium, and it is easy to measure.
I have probably shared the story of Bernard Hodes’ first venture onto the Internet back in the early 1990s. If you have not heard it….this is the crux of it:
The economy was hit pretty bad and recruitment budgets were being scrutinized (sound familiar??). Recruitment ad agency budgets were heavily impacted the. So agencies looked at various ways to diversify and offer new products or services in an attempt to keep revenue coming in.
HRIS, or the first versions of Applicant Tracking Systems, were developed and sold to clients by some recruitment ad agencies during this time. Other offered other human resource related support services that were not recruitment related, but allowed them to maintain their client relationships.
Well, Bernard Hodes chose to venture into New Media…or the Internet. They created one of the first job boards – Career Mosaic, a brilliant move at the time. I think the only other online job board of its’ kind at the time was Help Wanted USA! Hodes’ strategy was to offer an online job posting to clients as a supplement to their standard newspaper buy. And the client could so so for just $150. Hodes would retain 100% of the revenue of the online job posting in addition to the 15% they would make from the print ad.
Hodes didn’t expect the Internet to perform as well as it did. And clients were able to measure the results from the online job posting, unlike the traditional print ad. Well – clients began to shift more and more of their print budgets online, which was the right thing to do. But imagine this…. move a $10,000 display ad budget from the LA times to a $150 online job posting. The $10K ad earned the agency $1,500 in commission as where the Internet ad earned them $150. Quite a difference.
Keep in mind the $10K ad was for 1 day. The online job posting was for 30 days. As clients shifted more and more of their newspaper budgets online, Hodes realized they were cannibalizing their core business. So they sold Career Mosaic and exited the business.
Today, Hodes is stronger than most recruitment ad agencies out there. They no longer ‘own’ a job board, but obviously have strong relationships with many. The successes they found online with Career Mosaic have been leveraged and integrated into many of the services they offer today.
So…. the short of the story is….. there has always been a “Lovefest” between ad agencies and newspapers…even Recruitment Ad Agencies. But – to ask agencies to provide extra business to the newspapers at the expense of their clients is about as ethically bankrupt as one can get.
Is free really free? How much is your time worth? In economic down times, vendors often scramble to keep their businesses alive or try to gain market share in order in hopes of charging more in the future. In doing so, they many times disguise products as being ‘free.’ The most recent ‘free’ offering comes from our friends over at Monster.com.
Monster.com recently announced its’ Keep America Working campaign, which will offer free job fairs to employers in some 140 markets. Now, Monster has been hosting job fairs in Las Vegas for a few years now and have earned the reputation of being the worst job fair promoter in the market. Employers just don’t see the value. Beyond the hefty sign-up fee, the Monster job fair has been known to attract just a few hundred of the least qualified jobseekers. Employers have literally packed up their exhibit booths and walked out the door in hopes of adding some productivity to their day by returning to the office….rather than stare at the few vendors brave enough to stick around.
Today, Monster feels that if it offers free booths maybe more employers will come out, granting Monster sales reps the opportunity to sell them their primary product – job postings on Monster.com. The fundamental problem – is attending a bad job fair worth your time? The set-up, the time standing around yielding questions from unqualified candidates and the reporting of applicants but no hires? And really…..how much is your employment brand worth to attach to an event that has never been successful?
So, you ask …….”How can a Monster.com Job Fair be so unsuccessful when Monster operates one of the largest job boards on the Internet?” The reason is simple - Monster only markets to their own database of jobseekers, of which the majority block or assume the message is just another piece of Monster Spam. I have a Monster account (as well as accounts for all of our competitors) just to monitor the amount of crap that they send me that I never asked for. Fortunately, my Outlook filter drops Monsters’ Spam into a folder that I only visit periodically. Believe me – it receives plenty of junk mail from Monster.
To host a successful job fair in Las Vegas, the promoter must have reach beyond just one medium. They must partner with other community groups to attract the right type of jobseekers to the event. Take a look at a partial list of sponsors for our Opportunity Boulevard Career Fair. Nearly every radio & television station through our partnership with the Nevada Broadcasters Association, the majority of publications through Greenspun Media Group, Relocating job seekers through Las Vegas Publications, older workers through AARP and jobseekers of the Recruiting Nevada Network. Each one of our partners places a crucial role in Opportunity Boulevard’s success. If just one organization tried to hold the same caliber of event, it would not be a success.
Now, I do give Monster an A+ for their marketing efforts. They are good at attracting national attention. But as we all know, employment is done at the local level. And when a product is known to be a ‘crap product’ - does giving it away for free make it any better?
If you have not seen this video – is quite funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DhirLBqTag
We all hear about recruiting on Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn (heck – my last post was about LinkedIn). But what happens when what is ‘tweeted’ …is too much. Or the tweet is exposed to the wrong audience?
Cheezhead, one of my favorite blogs, uncovered a great example – Destroy your job prospects with one tweet.
Basically, a jobseeker shared her recent job offer and uncertainties if it was a job she would truly enjoy. An employee of the employer (Cisco) read the tweet and sent the entire situation viral!! Needless to say, Cisco will more than likely rescind the offer. Probably not the smartest thing to ‘tweet.’
Wow….the other day, I had a prospective client tell me that the people he was looking for were not online. It has been many years since I have heard this.
Back in 2006 when Steve Wynn was opening up Wynn Las Vegas, HR Executive Magazine was fortunate enough to interview Arte Nathan. When posed a similar question, his response was on the money:
“I now know who’s online, and who’s not online,” Nathan says. “The answer is, everybody is online. People in the lower economic strata — all of their children have computers. It’s how they’ve guaranteed that their kids will get a better education and better access to all the information that’s out there.”
Now this employer was looking to fill call center jobs in Las Vegas. I would venture to say that ‘those job seekers are online’ as is the rest of the population ….. like my 90 year-old grandmother, my parents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and everyone in between all of these age groups.
Come to think of it…. I do not know of anyone who is not online anymore. Can you?
On Sunday I came across an ad in the Las Vegas Review Journal for Las Vegas Newspapers in Education (NIE). I have been aware of the program for years, but never really took the time to understand ‘how’ it works. Basically, there is an opportunity for a business to sponsor the program by purchasing newspaper subscriptions for children in the Clark County School District.
My first thought was ….I am not certain kids read newspapers anymore. Most consume their media online where they get access to more relevant news in a more timely manner.
Then my mind soon ventured to ….. why the Review Journal is still supporting this (and why they would dedicate valuable ad space) in a down economy.
Then the answer hit me….. to try and save some circulation. Perhaps NIE is nothing more than a fictitious way to keep newspaper subscriptions overinflated because they are ‘paid’ for by a contribution (1) Get a business to buy subscriptions in the name of supporting education (2) count those as fully paid subscriptions in future circulation audits (3) Attempt to justify ridiculous ad rates based on circulation.
The amounts solicited by NIE range from $62.50 to $1,000. With the cost of computers coming down so much, would it not make more sense to buy the same child a laptop for $400 and just show him or her how to consume their media online? It would be a one-time investment rather than an ongoing expense.
Or how about a Kindle that would allow the child to download books at little charge. Both of these media distribution systems would last years and years and not have to be renewed.
Just a crazy thought….. Thought I would share.
