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(October 29, 1998) Generally speaking, we do the best fact checking we can. We don't always get it right, but we try where we believe it appropriate. Our inboxes overflow with tips and letters to the editor that point out shoddy practices and intra-industry rivalries. Recently, we got a letter that was so passionate that we wanted to showcase it. Rather than evaluating it on a factual basis, we've eliminated most of the identifying information. It demonstrates the passion and sincerity that drives the work of many small entrepreneurs in our universe. Unfortunately, we still can't figure out what the letter is really about. Mining and repurposing job ads is a conventional practice and covered (we think) by the fair use doctrine of the copyright laws. If not completely legal, the practice is so universal that it may as well be. If we were competing with a big software company for the same employees, we'd certainly be interested in the kinds of people who responded to their ads how that differed from those who responded to ours. Current (artificially low) price points for internet job ads make a lot of things possible. (Disclaimer: we're not lawyers and don't offer usable legal opinion in any way.) From a Recruiter's perspective, a job ad never exists on its own. Rather it is a vehicle for grabbing eyeballs in a larger database. The actual content is only a piece of the question. The content is useless unless it is placed in some sort of context. Maybe the article is about the volume of venture capital that has recently swamped our industry. We hear a lot of complaints from small entrepreneurs who complain about the "fairness" of competitors with backing from VCs. We generally think that they are their own worst enemies. If they'd ever endured the process of getting VC funding, they wouldn't be at all jealous. Anyhow, here's the letter. We imagine that you will be struck by its passion in the same way that we were. Like most published "Letters to the Editor", we agree with some of the points and disagree with others. From our perspective, the most shocking detail in the letter is the notion that a Job Board would give out customer contact information over the phone without a legal proceeding.
What do politicians and some Internet job sites have in common?What do you think?
- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved. (October 28, 1998) Picasso used to paint portraits in the dark with his eyes closed. He wanted his body to have memorized the details. As a result, he could capture the essence of an image with a single continuous line. In cooking, reduction is the process used to distill a soup stock to its flavorful essence. You begin with a lot of stock and end with a smaller amount. The finished product contains the essence. Simplicity, the essence of an effective web communication requires extraordinary effort. It's a slow process. Picasso often delivered 60 or 70 variations on a theme over the course of a year. Reducing stock takes hours of simmering. Capturing the essence of a message and conveying it with a few strokes requires study, patience and repetition. Like most enduring work, a web endeavor requires constant refinement. Unfortunately, most offerings are like JobAuthority, an unfortunately named and ineffectively executed new entrant. Poorly conceived, the site never bothers to reconcile its central metaphor with its graphic delivery. It makes the simple tragic mistake of soliciting both Job Hunters and Recruiters in a single opening sentence:
Grasp the Authority to seek a career opportunity as an applicant or post a job as an employer. Meet our Job Coach who is on hand to help shape up your search. We thought about the name and simply couldn't figure out the relationship between a "coach" and the name of the operation (Job Authority). The graphic shows a picture of a fellow wed describe as "least likely to be solicited for career advice". Although the coach is badly formed as a representative character, he does have a short speech (the search interface):
Okay team, this is the first step we need to take to find you a job. Below are some preferences you need to define in order for us to locate a Job suited just for you. So select your preferred category, company, region, salary range, and if you'd like, enter a few keywords. When you're ready, click the Search button to see what we have. We wondered just what team was being addressed. Job hunting is anything but a team sport. The coach goes on to deliver an additionally confusing message:
Let's see what our intensive database search turned up for you. Take a look at the below records and place a check mark next to those jobs that you want to see more about and press the Job Detail button. If none of the jobs interest you, or else you'd like to start over, use the New Search button.The term "our" is a possessive plural that could easily refer to the "team" identified in the earlier soliloquy. Unfortunately, it appears to refer to the company's offering. We could pound the ineffective execution into a fine powder. But, since the firm behind Job Authority didn't bother to include contact or pricing info on the site, we're reasonably sure that they aren't really in the business. We took the time to review these badly delivered bits and pieces in order to underscore a point .... Simplicity (and effective execution) is a studied accomplishment. Its results show in internal consistency of the final product. If you are developing an interface, do it again and again.
- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved. (October 27, 1998) We're hearing consistent rumblings about placement operations who are asking for (and getting) fees in the 35% to 40% range. When combined with the growing trend to give signing bonuses to retail clerks who work through the Christmas season, it is becoming clear that the labor shortage is beginning to drive transaction values upward. Placing a candidate in a job with a $30K salary is a $10K transaction. A business that makes 100 of these placements has a million dollar cash flow. It only takes 50 (one a week) low end IT placements to generate the same volume. While there are certainly a range of HR based recruiters who will complain about the growth in fees, the fact is that you pay more for anything that is in short supply. A realistic look at the total cost of an internal placement always generates a higher number. (We're constantly amazed by the folks who publish and believe cost-per-hire figures in the mid four figures.) The times have changed. Even with the layoffs that are driving Silicon Valley unemployment rates up to 3.5%, the problem in recruiting has become increasingly expensive. Against this backdrop, the constant struggle to become the "biggest, fastest, best, most premier" job board becomes extremely absurd. The web is at its best in small, customized transactions. It is a perfect medium for recruiting with its emphasis on direct marketing techniques and personalized communication. While having a "system" that can "handle" 150K resumes, 4 kajillion visitors and 25K paying customers is interesting from a technical perspective, the real fortunes are being made by the players who make an additional 50 placements per year. Advertising, the basic product of most online recruiting endeavors, is a small piece of the puzzle. We enjoy the energy put into the drive to make things bigger. But, the value is in things that are small. We're waiting for the emergence of an entity that focuses on individual transactions. That's where the real profitability and effectiveness improvements lie.
- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved. (October 25, 1998) Heightened competition for a dwindling pool. That's the basic premise of most of the efforts going on in the industry today. Chasing the active job seeker, a carryover from our roots in classified advertising, is a part of the question. It is not the most interesting part, however. As the pandering intensifies, the cost to acquire an active candidate (getting them to visit your website or read your job posting) is starting to approach the cost of ferreting out a passive player. While the costs are becoming similar, the tactics are very different. The active job hunter is in a risk taking posture. The passive player is (almost by definition) risk averse. The same tactics that attract a person looking to put better food on the table can frighten a player who is (at least somewhat) happy with the current grocery quality. One way of thinking about the issue: the happier a person is in their current job, the more relationship is required to pry them out. Trust and security, which are relatively minor issues with active seekers, take precedence with the passive player. Delivering trust and security online is very different from delivering a database of jobs. It takes reliability, a constant stream of changing value and some form of personal connection.
- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved. All material on this site is © 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998
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