It's this sort of emphasis on profitability in small niche settings that will be the standard for most future endeavors in our space.

Recruiter's Network, The Association for Internet Recruiting, conducted a recent poll on Internet Recruiting practices.

• 34.2% of companies with over 10,000 employees had at least one recruiter dedicate strictly to Internet recruiting.
• 71% of companies will be spending more next on Internet recruiting. 23% will be spending roughly the same and 6% of the companies will be spending less.
• 71.3% of the companies polled spent 1-20% of their recruiting budget this year on the Internet. Almost 10% of the companies allocated 50% of their budget to recruiting via the web.
• 45% of the companies polled had 1-20% of their hires come directly from Internet Recruiting. Roughly 1% had 0 hires and over 10% of the companies hired more then 50% of their staff from the web over the last year.
• 83% of the companies had an employment section within their companies web site.

- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.

1-Jobs.com

1-jobs.com is owned and operated by 1st Communications, an Ohio based Trade Show and Events Management Company. 1st Communications has had the foresight to open an adjacent advertising agency (a step we're certain is in the future of a variety of online job services). The company seems to be coherently organized around the principle of providing as much value as possible to its customers. This stands in stark opposition to the widespread strategy of amping up the equity value of a company by focusing on the Internet component. Again, this is a trait shared by Westech.

1-jobs.com appears to be having the same impact on the parent company that VJF and Monster have had on theirs. The exploding value and utility of the web endeavor, originally conceived of as an ancillary function, is modifying the company's perception of itself.

Although the transformation is difficult to manage, it's an enviable position. By investing in the web enterprise, 1st Communications is allowing the market to drive its evolution. It's a model worth considering.

- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.

Letters, We Get Letters

Please forward this message to RON(they don't disclose an email address) and tell them their NEW AND IMPROVED website SUCKS ...as well as the fact that it doesn't work and produces GARBAGE for searches.If it ain't broke....

• We found it interesting that RON now thinks that Job Hunters need software like PCRecruiter or EZ Access (headhunting tools) and that Resume Writers means "books about resumes", not people who write and edit them. (Each of the links in the last sentence are as presented in the RON website today.)
• The new brochure-like website describes the Recruiting network as being divided into 67 specialties and 73 specialties in various places. Unfortunately, the specialties seem to be company name, city and state (according to the search engine interface).
• The website offers a great service called Smart RFP which, unfortunately doesn't appear to work. (Smart RFP purports to allow an employer to submit requisitions which can be serviced by the network as a whole.)
• A very close reading of the Membership benefits page will give you a picture of the depth of tools and resources offered to the third party firms in RON's membership. Unfortunately, you'd need an advanced degree in calculus or astrophysics to make sense of the offering at a glance.
• Sadly, it's true that you can not find a phone number or contact information for the company anywhere on their site. Not including contact information raises all sorts of credibility issues. (For future reference, you can always gather contact information about a website by using Websitez or Alexa which is part of the 5.0 version browsers.)

It looks like the team at RON went over the edge with a mandate to produce a simple interface. In total, the public website has no more than 15 or 20 pages (most devoted to describing the broad array of services available to recruiters. Unfortunately, no one bothered to produce a one page summary. The prospective user is left to drown in a sea of details posing as a simple interface.

Developing a really effective tool for delivering your message online is an expensive proposition. It requires extraordinary attention to detail and the ability to create a message that rivals the best advertising copywriters. When botched, the result can sabotage your business objectives. This will happen even when (as we think is the case with RON) the underlying service is a very strong offering.

- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.

Trade Shows

At IHRIM, every vendor had a Recruiting pitch. While the typical SHRM vendor sells a component of an overall Internet Recruiting Strategy, the IHRIM vendors all saw the need for a comprehensive "end to end" solution. Unfortunately, not one of the offerings actually solved the problem. Meanwhile, SHRM is beginning to behave like a grocery market (minus the quality control). A customer could pull a comprehensive solution together from the various pieces represented in the vendor boots. The sad problem is that no one is really offering a one stop shopping service that mitigates customer risk.

Besides the Monster Talent Auction (covered in depth last week), only a few announcements really grabbed our attention.

• CareerBuilder has inked a long term agreement to provide services for NBC and all of its affiliates. This gives the recently-gone-public company a foothold in nearly 100 regional markets. The move is a significant move forward for CareerBuilder's strategy.
• Headhunter.net announced the ability to take credit cards online. This is a good thing that should be widely copied (sad that it isn't a standard feature). We don't know how much this will help with the company's shift from a free site to a fee based site. We imagine that their traffic and results are in decline just as they try to move their IPO forward.
• HotJobs announced an agreement to partner with About.com and TechRepublic (an IT community) for "content". The move signals a broad move throughout the industry to supplement Job listings with relevant information (not just career advice).
• In a similar vein, Westech announced a content partnership with RemarQ. Westech has been quietly amassing a distribution powerhouse with key properties like The Street.com and SFGate. The network rivals CareerBuilder's entry.
• Yet another consulting firm published a misguided view of our industry. Citing a whopping 300 employment websites, the report marvels at the problems caused by getting a lot of email resumes. Can you spell "look closer"?

We're starting to bet that the next 12 months will be a time for new features.

- John Sumser, © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.