JOHN SUMSER,
E D I T O R
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NATSS
Staffing Industry
Employment Mgt
HR Net Gateway
HRSP
NTSA
Personnel Journal
SHRM
DejaNews
Reality
is more
complex
than
it seems.
John Gall
It's better to
do a few things
really well than
than to do
a lot of things
badly.
If you can't
make the necessary
commitments of
time and energy
to your
electronic
marketing
efforts
scale back
your plan.
John Sumser
Everything required
to move from
the Industrial Age
into the
Knowledge Age
has been invented
and will soon
be put into place.
Redgate
Programmability
underlies diversity
which gives
the consumer
more options.
Regis McKenna
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Security
(January 11, 1997): We've mentioned Steve Outing before. He's a regular columnist for Editor and Publisher Interactive. His "every other day" pieces (Stop The Presses) are well worth following.
In today's column (it will be archived here), he talks about the impact of "email bombing" on journalists. Having a visible Web presence makes you a journalist of sorts. You can be subjected to the email bombing treatment by a disgruntled visitor or an unhappy client. The result is that any business you have that's dependent on your email address is shut down for at least a couple of weeks. The column offers clear advice on preparations you might want to make in quiet anticipation of a problem.
The most important piece of advice? Have a second email account that you don't publicize. Additionally, the column suggests that the major online services (AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy) are ill equipped to handle email attacks. Full-featured software (like Eudora) used in conjunction with the services of an Internet Service Provider gives you filtering tools that make handling damaging volumes of email easier.
One of the pieces of having a Web presence is that it actually changes the nature of your business. With a site, you're a publisher and have other publishers as competitors. You need to think about some of the problems that they face.
Stop The Presses is a good way to stay abreast of the question.
A Resume Plug-In
(January 10, 1997): Here's a new smart idea. Resumail, a Texas based service, is offering a browser plug-in for Resumes. One of the tough problems in current online recruiting is that resumes can pour in from all over the world in a huge array of formats. The Resumail idea is to provide job hunters with a standard interface. Companies (and recruiters) who have the Resumail software on the receiving end get standardized inputs for review.
You can easily sign your company into the process and use the Resumail software to manage a variety of recruiting tasks.
The Resumail solution is one of two possible solutions to the resume standardization question. At the other extreme, Net-Temps uses OpenText to sort and parse Resume data into standardized documents. With a large enough base of employers, Resumail could become a standard. With a smaller set of employers, the tool would become a required component of the job hunter's toolkit. The advantage that the Net-Temps approach offers is reduced burden on job hunters. The plug in approach has a dimension of portability between service providers that makes it worth considering.
Regional Niches
(January 9, 1997):Part of the problem with job hunting on the net is that the number and kinds of sites with employment advertising changes very rapidly. This year, there will be a lot of growth in sites that focus on the combination of region and professional specialty.
The Chicago Software Newspaper is a great example. With articles about the industry, a directory of suppliers, employment advertising and a directory of placement firms, the website covers all of the bases for employment searches and research in the industry in the region.
Over the course of the next year, we expect to see many similar offerings from other industries in other regions. The competition in these regional niches is going to get fierce.
Buzzwords and Opportunities
(January 8, 1997): Over the course of the next year, the hot concept in Internetworking will be the "Extranet". Essentially, xtranets are the ways that companies reach out to embrace their suppliers and customers from their Intranets. Make sense?
One of the key underutilized benefits of web technology is the ability to focus information to very specific targets. In the commercial Internet space, this is often called personalization or target marketing. That's not the point of the extranet. Rather, the idea is to standardize reporting, purchase order requirements, invoicing and accounts payable functions in the "web" of suppliers that make a given company what it is.
In some cases, this means that the pressure will really be on recruiting firms and HR Recruiters to get web savvy quickly. The benefits are pretty obvious...using the web as a tool for communication and reporting within the subcontractor community has the potential to reduce all those phoine calls and meetings to discuss status and progress.
It also makes outsourcing a lot easier. The opportunities for unheard of closeness between HR and Recruiters comes with the territory. If you're still unsure of the impact of the net on the recruiting function, keep your eyes and ears on news about extranets. It will be the buzzword of 1997.
Along these lines, you might be interested in the latest offering from the ITTA. Called the Electronic Human Interchange, the service offers HR Managers the ability to manage multiple vendors of computer temporaries and offers temp firms the ability to be a part of yet another network. We've included their full press release describing the service in our archives. The service is sort of an "Instant Extranet" for the HR function.
If you're thinking about purchasing banner advertising, be sure to read today's 1st Steps: Marketing and Design Daily
Searching
(January 7, 1997): The real experts in searching the net are librarians. LEO (Librarians and Educators Online) have created a free resource sit called Search Insider which provides search tips, news, reviews, and advice related to searching the Web. Search Insider also covers new search sites and developments to existing search engines that can be important to recruiters. The bulk of the information on this site covers tips and tricks for effective searching or analysis of which search engine is best for which task.
Free Is Not a Marketing Strategy
(January 6, 1997): Two interesting entrants, same strategy, same company name
- Headhunter.net is a product of Software Technology Corporation
- ICE (Internet Career Exchange) comes from Soft Tech Corp
A job database will only be successful if it is totally free and totally automated. We intend to make money on advertising.
Slightly more subtle, ICE is designed to showcase the application development prowess of its parent company. Both services offer interesting interfaces and several unique features.
Headhunter.net cross posts all jobs submitted to its service to applicable USENET groups. This is nothing short of unique in a free posting service. They also have a fascinating addition to their job search page that offers mileage from the job hunter's town to the town with the job. Searches can even be pegged to a geographic radius. ICE, on the other hand, offers more traditional post and search capabilities. Both services demonstrate the possibility of standalone, automated services. We wonder, though, about the idea that "free" is somehow a useful marketing strategy.
Last week, we reviewed Dave Winer's Web Professionals which is a much less ambitious technical project but a significantly more effective business proposition. Winer is positioned to optimize the intersection of marketspaces that he occupies. People have a reason to visit Winer's site and then look at the help wanted ads.
Basically, unless you've got a franchise like Winer's, you need a marketing and sales function. And, there's no way that advertising can offset these costs. So, while we encourage you to post job openings through these services, we caution you against thinking that their strategies are necessarily very smart.
We've Added Daily News
(December 14, 1996): We think you'll like this one. In partnership with Individual, Inc (the news providers), we're now offering a section of daily headlines for recruiters. Check it out.
Recruiters' Internet
Survival Guide
(AUGUST 01, 1996): It's here and we're proud. Staffing Industry Resources has published the Recruiter's Internet Survival Guide by our editor, John Sumser.
Order your copy today.
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