The game is significantly different depending on whether you are a customer and from which customer segment. Customers vary by industry, region and size. Size variations are, in and of themselves, profoundly interesting. There is virtually no commonality between a Global 2000 company and one with 100 or fewer staff. Where these two types of companies try to understand each other, they come away baffled. Management styles, techniques, goals and objectives vary radically by industry and region as well.

And, don't get us started on non-profits, governments or religious institutions.

Candidates vary along similar lines with divisions that include job hunting status, industry, education, seniority, lifestyle, technical savviness, region and industry. Aggregate pictures of candidates are silly exercises. People who like working in Big companies often hate working in small environments and vice versa. Candidate acquisition costs vary along these dimensions.

While we are certain that a given recruiter can be effective in a given niche, we see little effort to provide tools that transcend this or that segment. It simply doesn't make sense to deliver the silly proposition that one tool can be a sort of Recruiting Swiss Army Knife.

From the very beginnings of this industry, we have faced a paradox between the two segments, customers and candidates. Customers think that they hire 70% of their workers from advertising. 30% of job hunters think that they got their job through advertising.

This is not a reconcilable difference in perspective. The two groups are experiencing different realities. 

From here that sounds like good news for the teams of startups that we're starting to see. The overall market is huge in the aggregate and, huge in the individual sectionso of the market. This means lots of opportunity limited only by market definition and the imagination of the people who sell to the market..

 -John Sumser

Workstream Recruiting Systems - Make the right choice!