Ed. Note. My colleague Toby Dayton, CEO of LinkUp, wrote a groundbreaking and analytical piece on the current state of recruitment advertising. I am running the article in its entirety here but you should really jump over to Toby’s blog at Diggings, and sign up for his RSS feed and updates. There’s no better place. I am proud to be associated with Toby; similarly, Nick Corcodilos, a worldclass headhunter , wrote a piece for FastCompany you just have to read. Both are brilliant. You can read Toby’s here.
by Toby Dayton
Marty Brack, in a recent ERE post, provides an excellent case study in rethinking traditional methods of recruitment advertising. In the test, he analyzed the cost per quality resume using both Careerbuilder and LinkedIn. Not surprisingly, given how horrendously Careerbuilder and Monster (the 2 most bloated, polluted, antiquated, pay-to-post behemoths) typically perform for employers, LinkedIn delivered far superior results. LinkedIn provided almost as many applicants as Careerbuilder, but a higher percentage of their candidates were qualified for the positions advertised. This resulted in a much lower cost per quality candidate and therefore a much higher ROI. In addition to just providing solid information, the article delivers 3 important lessons for recruiters, employers, and even job seekers.
1) While the hype can seem excessive, and in some cases it probably is, social media has become an essential, mandatory component of recruiting efforts and companies must be thinking both strategically and tactically about how they can best leverage it. (One simple example would include automatically publishing jobs from a company’s career portal on their corporate website onto their company’s Facebook Fan Page using the Facebook application Current Jobs At Our Company).
2) Just because someone has used Careerbuilder and Monster forever (and maybe, circa 1997, they even worked), it doesn’t automatically mean that the decision to continue using pay-to-post job boards is a good one or makes any sense in today’s environment. As people used to say about the daily newspaper, no one ever got fired for placing an employment classified in the daily newspaper. That is, until someone else eventually looked at the recruitment advertising budget, questioned why the company was spending $750 or more per week for a black and white liner ad that no one saw, and decided that it was time to bring in some fresh thinking regarding talent acquisition strategies. The same thing is happening now with the job boards.
Only 3% of jobs are filled by ‘mega’ job boards such as Monster, Careerbuilder, and HotJobs. They are not only expensive and bloated, but they simply do not deliver quality candidates. Equally as detrimental for employers, the pay-to-post job boards are filled with old, outdated job listings, work-at-home scams, phishing jobs, scam jobs, identity theft postings, and other garbage listings which seriously erode the user experience and potentially a company’s employment branding. This means, as well, that aggregators such as Indeed and Simplyhired that do nothing more than mash all of those bloated, polluted databases into a giant pile of garbage are equally as counter-productive.
There are better, cheaper, more efficient, more effective, and more transparent ways to advertise for jobs. And job search engines such as LinkUp, which only indexes jobs from company websites, offer a performance-based, per-click model so employers only pay for those job seekers that are delivered straight to the company’s career portal on their company website.
3) In the same way that Google and search engine marketing have driven greater transparency and data into the world of advertising, the same is happening in recruitment advertising. Employers must not only critically analyze where quality candidates are coming from and determine which strategies and advertising channels are delivering those quality candidates, but then also allocate resources accordingly. Companies that neglect to do so will simply not be as competitive as those that are.
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@GL This really is an excellent piece. Thanks for pointing it out ot me!
Thanks for stopping by to read it, Michael. As one of the top voices in the HR space, you have the chops and soapbox IMHO, to get out in front of this. Pass it along to other HR professionals who should be leading the charge. Again, thanks.
Interesting post with some thought provoking points! As an Executive Recruiter, I personally don’t rely on job boards as a source of hire, but I do regularly talk with a number of job seekers who are in active or semi-active search who’ve set up alerts and peruse the boards to stay aware of opportunities of interest. I’d venture a guess that setting up job alerts on the major boards and aggregators is one of the first things someone interested or in need of new employment is going to do. Once they’re alerted to a job of interest, the smart and savvy ones will bypass the job board application process and leverage their networks to find an introduction or referral into the company – even if it’s a confidential posting (they use their networks to figure it out). So in a sense, the job board serves as a billboard to make the masses aware – but they’re not getting credited as a source of hire. I don’t think that employers (or recruiters) can or should ignore that fact. The deluge of resumes and unqualified candidates is often considered an “opportunity cost” involved with getting the word out about their openings. (Which of course creates a whole other problem – lack of response or poor candidate care – but that’s a problem for another post.)
Is there a link to the data behind the quote: “Only 3% of jobs are filled by ‘mega’ job boards such as Monster, Careerbuilder, and HotJobs”? While most research shows that networking/referrals will be the highest source, I think job boards (which would include niche and aggregator sites) are typically the second or third highest resource – and as I mentioned above, they may also be the initial source of many who credit the hire to networking/referrals.
You’re right on that the recruiting/hiring process is evolving and it’s important to figure out how to utilize all of the new resources and opportunities to reach the talent needed for our businesses. I also think that aggregators like LinkUp are a great new tool that can be a big help to job seekers and employers alike. But are Job Boards dead or on the outs? I don’t think so. Will they have to evolve? Absolutely. But ask any job seeker what resources they plan to use in their job search – and my guess is a browsing job boards is going to be listed in the top two or three. Until something else rises to that level of awareness, I think they’re still in the game.
I’ve heard the three percent number several times now in reference to the number of candidates who are sourced through Monster, Careerbuilder, and HotJobs. The consensus in the job board industry seems to be that about three times as many candidates are sourced through niche boards, for a total of 12 percent.
Personally, I take these numbers with a huge grain of salt. Virtually none of our clients understand the correct meaning of the word “source” or are able to accurately track it. The vast majority include their own web site as a source of candidates even though it is a destination and not a source. Also, if an employer tracks their source of hire at all, the methodology they use is typically so flawed that it does more harm than good. The most notorious example of that is the dreaded “how did you hear about us” dropdown box, which relies on the inherently flawed candidate self-identification. Studies have proven that self-identification is bound to lead to significant errors in reporting. Other employers wait until they speak or even interview the candidate, but let’s be honest. When you’ve applied for a new job, do you tend to apply with just one employer and get interviewed immediately so it is as easy as possible to self-identify your source? Of course not. Most candidates, especially these days, apply to multiple and sometimes dozens of jobs a day. There’s just no feasible way for them to remember how they heard about your opportunity, nor do they care.
Employers that want to maximize the effectiveness of their recruitment advertising budgets need to use fully automated tracking systems where every ad they place has a unique URL (web page address). That doesn’t mean you need to run a different posting on your site for every ad. The software allows you to post the job once to your career page and then provide different URL’s to your various job board, newspaper, etc. vendors. You’ll then be able to see exactly how many clicks each generated and, if your ATS isn’t a total piece of crap like most, how many applications from each source and even how many hires from each source. That level of intelligence is achieved by only a couple of the hundreds of organizations that use CollegeRecruiter.com. Every organization of any size should have that level of intelligence.
Agree w @CincyRecruiter & @StevenRothberg about the hearsay numbers.
Looks to me like these things are just pulled out of a hat & then circulated to the gullible.
Same with research proving that 80% of jobs being found through personal networks. A joke for the wise, a fact for the innocent.
First off — great article and thought provoking!
I agree with Jennifer, the boards will be around for a while.
Recruiters are typically on the cutting edge of technology exploring other avenues to source from. Social media for recruiters is like water to fish.
We figured out– NOW we have to wait for the job seeker to catch up. We teach and coach our job seekers to use other media besides the boards, but the boards are still in their strategy. I personally like to see data when I see percentages quoted. This could be an urban legend. Please provide source of that information or a foot note.
Thank you again for stirring the juices.
Dina
PS Google post their jobs on Monster
There is a very good, reliable source for the percentage of job seekers who found their last job through a job board and I should have double checked it before posting the 12 percent number. The correct number is actually 34 percent and likely to rapidly increase when you look at the percent who expect to find their next job on a job board. That’s almost 70 percent! Here are the correct numbers:
How did you find your last job?
34% on an Internet job board
10% through a call from a headhunter
9.3% by networking
8.7% through a referral from an employee of the organization
8.0% in the print or online edition of a newspaper
3.0% by starting your own company and creating the job
2.9% from an ad posted on the employer’s Web-site
How do you expect to find your next job?
69.7% on an Internet job board
7.8% by networking at home or work
3.9% through a call from a headhunter
3.9% by sending a resume to the employer
3.2% from an ad posted on the employer’s Web-site
3.2% through a referral from an employee of the organization
1.9% by networking at social events/venues
Source: http://www.employmentwebsites.org/research-our-industry
Hi Toby:
Thank you for weighing in with your comments on “mega job boards.” As a competitor to job boards, it’s no surprise that you find traditional job boards to be wanting. Our clients, both job seekers and employers, overwhelmingly disagree with this assessment. While we normally wouldn’t respond to such self serving and vitriolic commentary, we here at Monster wanted to make sure we participated in the dialogue it generated.
Monster absolutely agrees that Social Media is an “essential, mandatory component” of recruiting efforts. That’s why we’ve recently launched Monster Communities, over 20 niche networks where professionals from accountants to firefighters can build profiles, interact and engage with other professionals and hiring makers while staying on top of pertinent trends and best practices specific to the careers they’re passionate about.
We also agree that there’s a job board revolution underway necessitating “fresh thinking regarding talent acquisition strategies.” The 1997 job board model you point out is indeed outdated; that’s why we’ve developed cutting edge semantic search capabilities to allow employers to intuitively match top candidates with specific criteria, paring both cost per hire and time to fill.
It’s funny, to us and our employer customers, our millions of resumes is an asset; why limit a search to those easiest to find when you can use the most powerful technology to find the best person from the largest relevant pool? Our new search technology is also available at a range of prices; we get that small business and limited hiring situations need the same search precision as big enterprises filling dozens of positions, and our products, including our job posting packages, reflect these diverse needs.
So we understand that recruiters are demanding more for their money than clinging to a “post and pray” mentality. That’s why this year we brought our clients the “Keep America Working Tour,” free of charge to all Monster customers, making nearly 100 stops nationwide in 2009. That’s why we provide a slew of free webinars, white papers and thought leadership articles to the recruitment community through our Employer Resource Center. And that’s why we want to make sure we’re listening to ensure every hiring professional (and candidate) walks away with a positive experience.
Finally, we absolutely agree with the need for increased transparency in advertising jobs. As the CEO of LinkUp, which your article mentions as “better, cheaper, more efficient, more effective,” but as the only tangible alternative to the “mega job boards” suggested in this best practices piece, we wish you’d extended your desire for transparency to this posting, too.
We think you should see for yourself what we’re up to at Monster, because it really sounds like we’re on the same page when it comes to the evolution of job boards.
Matt Charney
Monster Social Media Engagement Manager
matt.charney@monster.com | @monster_works
@Matt Charney: Bunk. You say — “The 1997 job board model you point out is indeed outdated; that’s why we’ve developed cutting edge semantic search capabilities to allow employers to intuitively match top candidates with specific criteria, paring both cost per hire and time to fill.”
That’s pure crap. On October 5, on Minnesota Public Radio, Monster’s Doug Hardy used the same line: “You are talking about the kind of data base management that was happending in job boards before… If you look at Monster now, it has much more associative types of search in it, especially the new beta search… we’re trying to go beyond exact word matching.”
The audio is here: http://corcodilos.com/blog/1005/the-monster-ous-quality-of-choice
You guys must be attending the same staff meetings. But here’s the problem, Matt. Let’s forget about your mountain of resumes. It’s nothing to brag about. Dung tends to accumulate where its dropped if no one cleans it up — and your database is not worth defending. Let’s talk about performance. Since 2001, Monster’s success rate — the percentage of hires that companies make using Monster’s data base — has not changed appreciably from about 3%. In fact, between 2008 and 2009, Monster’s success rate has dropped. (Source: CareerXroads Source of Hires Study, 2008.) The other big job boards have fared no better.
In 2008 HR departments bought $1.3 billion worth of resume swill from Monster and got a less than 3% success rate. That allows you to claim huge revenues, but that pile of revenue does not prove your product works. It just proves that HR on the whole is inept or corrupt. Those HR departments need to be called to task for wasting their investors’ money. One extremely frustrated HR vice president at a Fortune 50 company complains to me that, “The big job boards aggressively wine and dine our top executives, who sign up for yet another year. Virtually our entire recruiting budget goes into the job boards, with the result that I can’t get any money to spend on going out to actually recruit good people.”
Matt, your success rate has dropped, not gotten better. What does it matter how many resumes you own? I believe it was George Carlin who explained extreme volume: “Imagine you could have everything in the world! Where would you PUT it??!” Monster has all the resumes in the world. So what? That’s not a metric. How much HR spends on your service is not a metric. Success rate — that’s a metric.
Your “semantic search capabilities” make great PR, but a look at legitimate research in human cognition tells us that it’s bunk. Matt — printed NEWSPAPER ADS deliver a higher percentage of hires (8%) than Monster does. They have no semantic search capabilities.
See you next year, when we can take another look at your success rates. In the meantime, I think you’re better off feeding this baloney to the HR executives you wine and dine. It goes better with gall than public debate that serves facts and data.
@Steve Rothberg: Come on, Steve. Let’s talk about those statistics. They come from Pete Weddle. The first time I encountered the “very good, reliable source” you cited, I traced it back for details on Weddle’s research methodology. I’ll post you a challenge: You go find the methodology he used and post the details here. And we’ll discuss how he gathered the data and the integrity of his conclusions.
Here’s the problem: Weddle does not publish the data you cite on his own website. It appears on the “International Association of Employment Web Sites” website, which references Weddle’s site, which provides no information. I call B.S. on it. You prove I’m wrong. I’m willing and glad to look at and discuss the methodology Weddle used.
Good luck. You’re gonna need it. Does it occur to you that Weddle’s conclusions are a bit self-serving since he caters to the job board industry? The bigger problem is that they are also suspect. Please: Before you cite a “very good, reliable source,” be ready to disclose the source AND its methodology.
Nick — So you’re criticizing me because you were unable to find a copy of the methodology for Peter Weddle’s study on his web site and you’re assuming because you were unable to find that copy that the methodology must therefore be suspect? Get real. Did you call Peter? Did you even email him? A visit to someone’s web site does not constitute adequate research, so before you call the kettle black…
@Steve Rothberg: I didn’t criticize you. I criticized Weddle. I challenged you. You cited the “very good, reliable source,” Steve. I’m questioning your claim. I could have easily omitted the fact that I once tried to trace the source information you refer to. That’s not the point. The point is that Weddle distributes that report but does not back it up, and you’re using it to make a claim. I can’t prove a negative. Did you call Weddle, since you cited him? Did you know the source of the data was Weddle to begin with? My challenge stands. You cited a report that you emphasized was credible. (The career industry is a bit too fond of basing product claims on “they say that…”) Show me the data and the methodology to back up your staggering claim that “almost 70%” of people find their jobs through job boards. I’ve cited my sources, which disclose their data and their methodologies. All I’m asking you to do is the same.
GL, I work with job seekers. My advice to them is use the job boards as one tool but not the only one. Do people ever find jobs through job boards? Of course they do, but in my own work with clients I have not found it to be the best or fastest strategy. Quite frankly, there is a place for job boards but the strategy and pricing is long overdue for a revamp. As many have mentioned, is it really a service to the client company, or job seeker to provide a cattle call process. I would rather receive fewer resumes of qualified candidates than sift through mountains of paper any day.
Lively debate, but none of the numbers being thrown around are unbiased or reliable regardless of methodology. They are all flawed. The FDA has a methodology too – does that mean approved medications are safe or are the results biased by mountains of pharmaceutical company cash?
The best we can all do is run our own experiments and spend our resources accordingly. Anyone basing their recruiting spend on hearsay or secondhand numbers is gambling on poor odds.
By the way, I didn’t mean to imply that the studies cited by Steven and Nick are flawed based on monetary interests. There are any number of forms of bias and most are unintentional. Online recruiting is still the Wild West. The bottom line is that every employer has to figure out what works based on lots of individual and unique circumstances.
The study from Peter was based on the responses of thousands of job seekers who were surveyed about job boards, how they found their last job, how they expect to find their next job, etc. He uses the same survey to make the annual best job board awards. The job seekers were visitors to Weddles.com and therefore not an inherently biased group like you’d expect to see at a job board or when Fox News surveys its viewers and — surprise!! — “Americans overwhelmingly agree with Glenn Beck!”
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