Our business model is to allow everyone on the face of the planet to post jobs and resumes for free. This is catapulting HeadHunter.NET into position as the largest and most popular employment web site on the Internet. Our revenue comes from the Friends program and from online advertising.

For the price, it's not a bad deal. The "Friends" program is an inexpensive scheme to bring your job postings to the top of their database in a search. $250/year gets your postings greater visibility. Advertising prices (for banner ads) aren't specified.

Hype and price aside, we're uncomfortable. We spent several hours with the Headhunter.Net site trying to pin it down. On the one hand, the price is too attractive to ignore. On the other, Headhunter.Net suffers from a number of little flaws that drive us crazy.

We found the Resume database nearly unusable, not because there were no resumes (they claim about 4,000) but because our benchmark searches yielded deeply flawed results. We're wary of any "recruiting firm" that consistently mis-spells the plural of Resume. (It's resumes, not resume's.).

The idea that advertising can carry an employment section works if you're Yahoo!. With solid name recognition and a preexisting advertising sales force, employment listings simply provide more inventory. But, it's a deceptive model that works for diversified content providers like Yahoo!. Headhunter.Net's "Friends" program faces the paradox that if everyone uses it, it's not worth anything.

Bottom line? We're uneasy about Headhunter.Net. If you try it, do so tentatively. Their economic and quality challenges are significant.

Regarding Intranets

From the executive summary:

The Intranet promises to fundamentally change the way workers communicate to a degree not experienced since the telephone. To quantify this impact, International Data Corporation has undertaken a study of Netscape customers to measure the return on investment (ROI) from a corporate Intranet.

Internet technology used within secure bounds as an Intranet offers many advantages, most notably ease-of-use and communication to any hardware platform that supports a Web browser. While most people interviewed during the study felt using an Intranet to support their application was a clear benefit to their company, what is surprising is just how significant the ROI from an Intranet can be. When IDC investigated the returns, the typical company achieved an ROI well above 1000%--far higher than usually received from a technology investment.

http://www.webtemps.com/

What Is The Web?

Whether it's always clear or not, we're all pioneers at this juncture in the Internet's development. We're experimenting, feeling our way, making mistakes and learning from them. In the process, we've chosen some ways of talking about the experience that just might confuse things.

• "Go to our Website at http://xxx.xxx.com", we say in the office on a regular basis.
• "Have you seen what they are doing at 'XXX' ?"
• "My spider crawls the Web"

• "Tune your browser to http://xxx.xxx.com"
• "Have you focused your attention on 'XXX'?"
• "My spider indexes documents on webservers"

The metaphor of place is a useful shorthand that illuminates some things and obscures others. It's deeply embedded in our current ways of thinking. Websites, after all, have addresses. It's terribly difficult to persist in the understanding that websites only exist on the browser of someone who is reading them. They seem so "there".

A new service, MBA Central, got us to thinking about this question. It's an interesting approach that forgoes online database searching. They don't even offer one. A job hunter answers email queries with their special software.

It works like this. Download their software (or fill in the online form and they'll mail it to you). Take about 30 minutes to fill in the material they require. Send in your registration..... Presto! Big companies in search of MBAs will send you email. You simply reply using their software. This gives the companies easy to digest packets of resumes in a standardized format.

At first, we dismissed the idea completely. Online databases provide a form of credibility that make a job hunter's investment of time at least seem worthwhile. Cascading hyperlinks to relevant content increase the sense of friendliness at a website. Then we thought some more about the Net-Temps business model (see yesterday's column).

Essentially, both Net-Temps and MBA Central follow the same basic maxim. Provide distribution and get out of the way. MBA Central takes it to an ultimate extreme.

From our perspective, MBA Central is way ahead of their time, profoundly stupid or terribly undercapitalized. (If you've been reading this newsletter for long, you know that we're betting on under capitalization.)

Assume for a moment, that we're totally wrong. How would you construct a business that used the web simply as a software download mechanism and turned the rest of the operation over to email? Or is that what we're all doing anyhow? Framed as a visionary business model, MBA Central is a useful way to describe how critical (and expensive) the marketing component of Electronic Recruiting actually is.

Framed in the best possible light, MBA Central is working to minimize the importance of "place" as a metaphor in Recruiting.

Recruiting Site Of The Year

As we researched the 3500 Employment sites on the web (for the 1997 Electronic Recruiting Index), several things became clear. Hard statistics on employment advertising performance are impossible to develop. Market effectiveness depends on the market that you are entering. Internet design and enterprise effectiveness are as much "behind the scenes" as they are in the public eye. Each of our "Best In Class" sites (announced last week) and, in fact, all of the Top 100 (announced the week before) are stellar examples of the Recruiting art practiced online. Our jury wrestled long and hard with its final decision.

This year, we're pleased to announce that Net-Temps is our "1997 Electronic Recruiting Site of the Year". With legendary customer service, rapid features roll-out and an unyielding market focus, the Net-Temps team is clearly and successfully focused on helping their clients make placements.

Their resume database, developed as a site demo for Open-Text, is the result of a finely tuned combination of spider technology and the huge traffic Net-Temps has developed in their partnerships with Yahoo! and other major net distributors. Searching the database is facillitated by hotlinks supplied to surround the keywords of your search. (We wrote about this feature in our November 2 Article: "Doing the Resume Sift"). Once candidates have been selected from the search process, Net-Temps produces an online call list so that recruiting can begin.

Jobs advertised on Net-Temps receive very broad visibility. All ads are placed weekly in targeted Newsgroups and on Yahoo!'s series of regional websites. So, a Net-Temps posting is seen widely. By combining multiple channels, Net-Temps ensures that their clients' requirements receive the widest distribution possible.

All of this is accomplished from a single disk supplied by mail. Net-Temps is using the America On Line marketing strategy. They focus on direct mail as a business builder, delivering free disks and a 30 day free trial to their targeted audience. This enables them to control their growth so that they can consistently deliver the highest quality of customer service we've encountered.

A flat decision making structure and a focused service system enables the Net-Temps customer service representatives to fix problems on the spot. They've managed to hire and retain staff who are both technically competent and successful at customer service. You don't spend time waiting for return calls or being passed around the phone lines. They simply fix, explain or both.

If you look around the Net-Temps website, you won't find much: A job search interface, a resume depository and passworded members areas. Decidedly missing from the standard fare are job advice and recruiters tips. The company focuses instead on pure recruiting muscle: advertising distribution and placements.

If you're a third party recruiter, we strongly suggest that you invest immediately in a Net-Temps membership. We don't make this sort of reccommendation lightly.

Congratulations are in order for the Net-Temps team. We're very proud to name them the "1997 Electronic Recruiting Site of the Year"

If you're considering taking your third party recruiting firm (Contract, Permanent placement or Executive Search) online, we highly reccommend two initial actions.

• Join Net-Temps for all of the reasons we've described above, and,
• Join the Recruiter's Online Network.

The combination of the two will give your introduction to Electronic Recruiting the sort of Jumpstart you need to be successful. The two services are quite complementary. Net-Temps will give you reach, distribution and muscle. The Recruiter's Online Network will provide social structure and synergy with other firms.

Biz-Chat

It's a good bet that you will at least consider the possibility of integrating a "chat" feature into your web presence this year. The raw technology is inexpensive. Managing it is another thing entirely. Selzer's compact and informative article, How to Make Business Chat Work describes the ins and outs of living with a chat feature. Like most interesting web technologies, the expense and hassle are in maintenance and execution.

We have nothing but the highest praise for Selzer's "The Alta-Vista Search Revolution". Written by insiders, the book tells you how to optimize AltaVista searches and design your site for optimal indexing. If you use the net as a research tool, you need a copy right next to your workstation.

1997 Electronic Recruiting Index

• Detailed planning for placing online Employment ads
• A section written for managers of Internet Projects
• Pricing comparisons of 75 key Recruiting sites
• A detailed analysis of the Top 100 websites
• A Directory of over 5800 Online Recruiters
• A solid look at the Recruiting Industry in 1996
• Forecasts and Trends for 1997and beyond
• The Impact of Demographics on Recruiting
• Motivations and Entry costs for the Various Market segments

• In the business and considering a change in strategy,
• Considering entering the business, or
• Trying to stay abreast of the changing landscape

Recruiters' Internet
Survival Guide

"Recruiter's Resolutions For 2003:

1. Finally, clear the resumes off my desk
2. Take a speed-reading course to get through resumes faster
3. Find three new places to source good people
4. Lower cost-per -hire (make that, determine cost-per-hire...then lower it!)
5. Find a talent Management system to help with all of the above.

We know what you're up against. And we've got the answer.

Hodes iQ, brought to you by Bernard Hodes Group. From adopting our talent management system or enhancing your own system to providing new sourcing strategies on the web, we have proven solutions to make your recruiting enterprise better. Find out how Hodes iQ and Hodes iQPost can help you in the new year and beyond.

Put Hodes iQ to the test.

Call 888.438.9911 or visit http://www.hodesiq.com today.

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