According to a recent survey conducted by WEDDLE’s between January 1 and December 31, 2009, job boards were the most successful means for jobseekers to find a job, beating out referrals, newspaper and social media.  With the growth of social media, many expected it to be the leading source.  In fact, less than 1 percent of respondents found their job on a social media website.

Jobseekers are twice as likely to find a job on a job board compared to any other source according to the survey.  Here are the results:

• 21.7% found their last job on a job board
• 9.6% found their job from a ‘tip from a friend’
• 8.4% found their job in the newspaper
• 7.1% found their from a headhunter
• 6.9% found a job by posting their resume on a job board

What was interesting was that 39.4 percent of respondents feel they will find their next job on a job board while 13.3 percent feel they will find a job by posting their resume on a job board.  Collectively that is over 50%. 

And….no the survey was not taken from job board users.  It was actually a survey that was found in general searches on the Internet and included more than 1,800 respondents, far more than most surveys.

This is good news and validates why we continue to do what we do.

According to The Conference Board:

Online advertised vacancies slipped 66,900 to 3,957,000 in February, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine™ (HWOL) Data Series released today. The February dip follows a large increase of almost 750,000 in the previous three-month period. Recent declines in the number of unemployed (labor supply) coupled with the rise in the number of advertised vacancies (labor demand) has narrowed the gap between labor supply and labor demand by 1,500,000, and in January, the latest month of unemployment numbers, there were 10.8 million or 3.69 unemployed for every online advertised vacancy…….read more

Another report published by CareerCast.com/JobSerf found positive news….there was an increase in Managerial Openings in February 2010.  This is typically an indicator to future increased hiring as managers are put in place first.

I am not certain how this will ultimately impact Las Vegas and Nevada employment.  Typically, we are the first to rebound from an economic slowdown.  That clearly has not been the case with this recession.  We have lost tens of thousands of Las Vegas jobs over the past 18 months. 

Thanks to Adam Sandler from the Nevada Broadcasters Association on providing this article:

According to consumer and media research firm Scarborough Research, Detroit, Providence  and Las Vegas are the leading markets for Online Job Searchers. Nearly one quarter (24%) of Internet Users in each of these markets conducted an online employment search in the past month. In contrast, Salt Lake City and Tulsa are the markets least likely to have Online Job Searchers, as 12% of Internet Users in these cities searched online for a job. Nationally, almost one fifth (19%) of Internet users conducted an online job search during the past 30 days.

Job websites have obvious appeal to anyone looking for employment. Scarborough Research finds that employed adults are utilizing online job search to keep their eye on the market. The majority (74%) of Online Job Searchers are, in fact, employed full-time or part-time.

“Employers can reach both active and passive job seekers, nationally or in specific local markets, by using employment web sites,” said Gary Meo, senior vice president, digital media services, Scarborough Research. ”These types of sites are a powerful tool for marketers to connect with consumers – on many geographic levels.”

In examining Online Job Searchers locally, Scarborough Research finds this group is distinctive based on location. At a state level, all of the top local markets – Detroit, Providence, and Las Vegas – are located in states that have higher than average unemployment rates as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In drilling down to the local market (DMA) level, more demographic differences are revealed. For example, Las Vegas Online Job Searchers are less likely than the national average to be employed. 59% of Las Vegas Online Job Searchers are employed versus 74% of all Online Job Searchers nationally.

Online Job Searchers in Detroit and Providence, on the other hand, are more on par with the national average. 71% of Detroit’s Online Job Searchers are employed, and 77% of Providence Online Job Searchers are employed.

“While some generalizations can be made about the makeup of Online Job Searchers at the national level, our data shows that the demographic profile and Internet usage patterns of Online Job Searchers are unique to the local market,” said Meo. “It may seem obvious that Detroit, Las Vegas and Providence are high ranking given their rates of unemployment. But when we look more closely at Online Job Seekers in these cities, we find differences including age, ethnicity, income and white collar versus blue collar employed.”

Scarborough Research examined the demographic makeup of Online Job Searchers nationally, as they compare to other Internet users. Online Job Searchers are much younger than average Internet Users. They are 47% more likely than the average Internet User to be between the ages 18-29. The average age of Online Job Searchers is 37 compared to Internet users’ average age of 43.

They are 70% more likely to be African-American. While Online Job Searchers are embraced by adults from all income levels, those with lower incomes tend to be more likely to conduct an online job search. Further, more than half (54%) of Online Job Searchers have one or more children in the home.

While 68% of employed Online Job Searchers are white collar workers, 32% are blue collar workers. This is on par with employed Internet Users nationally as, 70% of employed Internet Users are white collar workers and 30% are blue collar workers. As further evidence of their focus on improving their employment opportunities, Online Job Searchers are more than twice as likely to plan to go back to school in the next year.

The job board landscape is about to change, again.  Monster recently announced that it will be buying HotJobs from Yahoo for $225 million and a future advertising partnership.  Out of the big three (Monster, Yahoo and Career Builder), Hotjobs has slipped substantially in years.  Their hopes were the Newspaper Consortium  would have changed their position, but it never made too much of an impact.   

Here is the press release:

Monster Worldwide, Inc. announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Yahoo! HotJobs, a leading online recruitment website, from Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO – News) for $225 million in cash. Monster and Yahoo! have also entered into a three year commercial traffic agreement, to take effect upon the closing of the acquisition, in which Monster will become Yahoo!’s provider of career and job content on the Yahoo! homepage in the United States and Canada. The traffic agreement calls for performance based annual payments calculated by clicks and expressions of interest, subject to annual floors and ceilings. In addition, the traffic agreement provides Monster with an exclusive right for a period of time following the closing of the acquisition to negotiate similar traffic agreements with Yahoo! properties on a global basis, including countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, subject to certain limitations.

“HotJobs with its significant customer base plus the traffic agreement are an ideal complement to Monster’s innovative recruitment solutions and global reach,” said Sal Iannuzzi, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Monster Worldwide. “These agreements, combined with Monster’s career Communities and our recently introduced 6Sense™ semantic search technology, will bring substantial new benefits for employers seeking more qualified candidates and job seekers searching for more relevant opportunities across a wider range of industries – globally.”

“Bringing together Monster and HotJobs creates even greater access and opportunities for both recruiters and job seekers,” said Hilary Schneider, EVP, Yahoo!. “The transaction with Monster enables us to continue to provide an important service to our users through the traffic agreement. Yahoo! remains focused on its core businesses and delivering exceptional experiences to users, partners and advertisers.”

I was fortunate to attend the Kennedy Recruiting Conference last week.  I always enjoy attending the conference because the audience is primarily made up of corporate recruiters (This year more than most due to the economy).  This allows us to just sit back and listen to what our clients want, rather than try and develop something that we think they need. A novel idea that very few follow. 

One of the best presentations was on corporate career centers – and what works best.  Microsoft has mastered the development of micro-sites for the purpose of targeting specific demographics.  Here are just a few of their micro sites.  You can click on each image and it will take you to the actual micro site:

All are very interactive and engaging.  All are great examples of how to add ’sexiness’ to a career center.

The Recruiting Nevada Network of employment websites is pleased to welcome our newest partner – Vegas.com.  Vegas.com is the leading travel website representing the Las Vegas marketplace.  Recruiting Nevada continues to grow its network.  Over the past 12 months, we have increased our monthly pages views from 400,000 to over 1.2 million, delivering our clients the most cost effective recruitment advertising solutions available.  Check out the new site:

Recruiting Nevada recently expanded its’ network to include LasVegasWeekly.com, Las Vegas’ leading alternative newspaper.  Las Vegas Weekly is a sister company to Recruiting Nevada and part of the Greenspun Media Group.  They were also recently awarded an EPpy Award (most prestigious award for online media websites) as the Best Entertainment Website with fewer than one million unique monthly visitors.

This expansion to the Recruiting Nevada Network will allow advertisers to reach a very rich demographic – the 18-45 year old who is interested, or involved, in entertainment.  We feel this will be pertinent to our gaming clients looking to offer casino jobs in Las Vegas, casting calls for new clubs or even restaurants. 

Check it out:

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.

According to comScore, online job searches saw an increase of 51% between 2007 and 2008:

Keep in mind, this is national traffic, not local.  If you were to do a comparison on Job Boards in Las Vegas, I am confident RecruitingNevada.com would be at the top of the list (of course). 

When economies soften and marketplaces change, it is intriguing to watch business models shift. 

In the ‘recruitment advertising space’ – there are only two parties involved in the transaction:  the jobseeker and the employer.  As unemployment levels rise, the revenues made from employers decrease as the employers do not need to advertise as much.  In turn, many advertising outlets shift some focus to making money from the jobseeker. 

A recent example is JobFox.  Cheezhead recently blogged on Jobfox’s certification offering. It is an interesting read.

Read More