The Electronic Recruiting News - Daily News For Recruiting Professionals

As far as we can tell, the search for the perfect, ready made employee who is both eternally loyal and passionately committed is as at least as old as the discipline of management. The problem may have biblical roots. We imagine Adam muttering to Eve, "Why can't all of the workers be like Abel?".

Gateways II

(January 22, 2001) The job posting and distribution business is bigger than we described in last week's article. A variety of other firms, most notably Vault.com and the Recruiter's Online Network offer an array of supplemental services that distribute jobs around the web. The difference between the various "gateways" appears in two dimensions:

The degree to which choice (targeting) is available, and
The degree to which the Gateway company wants to act as an advertising agency

The carpet bombing approach (number 1) distributes jobs around the web in order to supplement the results provided by a service. Refined to a science by Net-Temps, the approach capitalizes on the fact that there are a huge number of "free posting" sites around the web that can contribute some results. The more targeted version, practiced by IIRC, eQuest, DBK and RON (to name a few) make some attempt to match the "right" job board with the right posting, theoretically improving results. The others take hybrid approaches.

Many of the major job boards (Headhunter, CareerBuilder, CareerEngine, Monster, Vault.com) can funnel postings through internal networks. These networks allow targeting to specific properties. In some cases, the job board directly owns the properties (Monster); in many cases, the networks consist of licensed users of the core technology (Career Builder, Career Engine); and in others, the Job Board provides access.

The inherent flaw in this approach is the degree to which choice (and effectiveness) is limited by the parent company being in the business. As we've mentioned elsewhere, objectivity is singularly important in the media planning and acquisition component of a Recruitment advertising campaign.

The bewildered customer is left with an amazing array of choice and little in the way of guidance.

We suggest the following approach:

Use of a gateway should be governed, ultimately, by the results it produces. All of the fancy talk aside, the simple question is "do my results improve as a result of using one company's services instead of another's?" With the number of competitors rapidly growing towards 50, the customer's ability to comparison shop is virtually non-existent. So, the first line of defense is to rely on Customer Service as an analog for effectiveness:

Does the company listen when you have a problem? Is there a single point of contact for support and issue resolution? Does the damn thing work?

All customers don't have to choose this way, however. Some are just hunting for someone to help spend their budget and, some of the gateways are good at this (we suggest you stay away, but that's another story). Some are in rich formative phases and being an early customer will pay handsome dividends.

It's a complex arena and the ability to generate results is already in decline. Anecdotal evidence suggests that job postings, in general, are only 20% as effective as they were two years ago. So, our most important suggestion is that you stick with a company who is committed to your success, not their internal process. It's very clear that the gateway companies will be the generators of results over time. To the extent that they don't push their own publications and focus on customer satisfaction, they're building a winning culture.