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Superbowl
The question on the table is "will Superbowl Advertising change public perceptions of the two companies, the Industry as a whole, either, neither or both?"
The answer, we think, involves two important variables. Courting active job hunters can be accomplished with passive advertising; the "posting" of bland job descriptions works when the candidate is motivated to search through piles of data. Finding passive candidates (industry shorthand for people who aren't looking for a new job) is another story. In an employment environment that is defined by the acute shortage of active candidates, developing aggressive tactics that reach passive job hunters is the key to Recruiting success.
We see Superbowl ads as a beginning. If site-flipping techniques and advanced Internet Searching strategies are the precision targeted bombs in Recruiting, high profile advertising represents a kind of carpet bombing. While the ads certainly reach job hunters, customers and investors, the majority of the SuperBowl audience is composed of passive job hunters. A memorable, highly publicized ad is very likely to change the overall quality (measured as the percentage of passive candidates) in the job board's database. While it's a drop in the bucket, $5 Million (the rough value of both ads) was the size of the entire Electronic Recruiting Industry just five years ago.
1999 has to bring more agressive approaches to the mining of "passive" candidates. The Superbowl is just the beginning of a new dynamic that will dramatically increase advertising outlays across our sector.
- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.
Several new services have crossed the desktop:
The growth in new services seems to continue unabated. We're looking to see a doubling of online job services in the first eight months of this year. While there may be some ownership consolidations, the number of individual destinations will continue to explode.
One of the major job boards doesn't own its name! They are currently in negotiations to buy the rights. But, success depends on the current owner's continued naiveté.
- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.
We get tons of email from PR "professionals" who think they're giving us the "dope". What we tend to see is the dopey. Here are a couple of examples of the technique:
Getting publicity is critical if you want to develop a profitable service in the Electronic Recruiting (or any) Industry. The way you do it is by carefully considering your audience and telling them a story. The story must interest them.
This principle, caring about your readers, is central to web success. We generally guess that a company who can't write a successful press release stands little chance of developing features that meet the needs of job hunters or recruiters. It isn't always true, but it is a good indicator.
- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.
Meanwhile, fully outsourced staffing solutions are gaining momentum. Recruiting has gotten tough as demographics have shifted. More than a few large concerns are turning their staffing problems over to companies that specialize in Recruiting and Placement. Even so, the primitive idea that one set of tactics and ethics are appropriate for in-house recruiters while another set is the purview of external players continues to be widely held.
We giggle at the sight of companies who imagine that they will set industry standards for job postings while excluding one of these two constituencies. While there is plenty of room for specialized services that serve specific niches, the typical goal of 'global dominance' (the Microsoft wannabes) simply can not be achieved without a broad appeal to all of the players. Unsophisticated views of the market will produce half-useful solutions.
- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.
It's certainly not a universal opinion. The government doesn't think so. Our more independent-minded friends don't think so. We, however, remember the stories of the broad introduction of electricity to the United States.
As electricity began to be installed around the country, there were two competing standards. The General Electric team proposed an alternating current approach which was eventually adopted as the standard. The Westinghouse team proposed direct current (like batteries) which failed to be adopted.
Until there was an agreed upon standard, the national infrastructure could not be filled in. Without a standard, businesses that needed reliable electricity could not even be formed. The dawning of the electric era depended on the broad acceptance of a single "platform". 100 years later, there were still segments of Westinghouse that grumbled about the superiority of direct current.
It's not that one solution is either stable or even permanent. It's just that commerce depends on being able to rely on a range of things. If we spend all of our time working the kinks out between competitors, when do we get to use the technology?
- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.
We've recently added Nicky Gordon to our staff. Nicki is a seasoned recruiting research professional and an acclaimed trainer with extensive hands-on experience solving sourcing problems with the Internet. She will be delivering these customized training programs in which:
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