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February 15, 1996: NTSA Now Up

The National Technical Services Association (NTSA) has opened for business on the Web. The site features some interesting articles on the industry and an extensive database of member firms. It's a great start.

February 14, 1996: Free Agent

We haven't been big fans of Newspaper entries in the online recruiting world. They've tended to feature 'repurposed' ads taken straight from the daily classified sections. Jokingly, we've told people that the online Newspapers were the only place that one could find an ad for work as an exotic dancer.

Well, just because they're big and well heeled doesn't mean that they're not going to adapt well. A recent look at the San Jose Mercury's Classified Section revealed a pleasant surprise in the Employment Area. While we were looking the other way, they put a front end on Intellimatch's resume front end (Watson). Called Free Agent, the services ties to Watson through a cgi script at the Newspaper's site.

What's most significant about this development is that the San Jose Mercury is a part of the partnership behind Career Path and often serves as their test bed for new approaches.

Like Job Center and Espan, Intellimatch is moving to a position in which they are the employment engine for other content providers. The market is segmenting very rapidly.

February 13, 1996: RecruitAd

Quick apology....when we reviewed WebArranger on Sunday, we neglected to mention that it was a Mac-only product. In the future, we'll be sure to let you know the operating platform of any software we review.

Looking for another market to advertise that hot job? RecruitAd Advertising Inc enters the game this week with an extremely ambitious range of services. They offer a deep selection of services for HR managers that range from Position Advertising to Job Fairs to Retained search. The site is cleverly designed with an "airy" feel.

The Valentine's Day project has become the George Washington's Birthday Project. It looks like involvement will extend to AOL and other big players.

February 12, 1996: Opportunity To Make a Difference

Dave Winer is sponsoring a Valentine's Day project for the Net. Called 24 Hours For Democracy, the idea is to build a distributed Web page of essays about the Net and it's value in your life. As a recruiter, the project offers the opportunity to make a statement and lead potential customers and candidates to your site. Take a look at 24 Hours For Democracy

We're wrestling with the impact of the obscenity legislation on business, as you can see. Is it a good thing, a bad thing or just neutral? Why? Please take a moment to let us know what you think by sending a piece of email to recruit@interbiznet.com. We'll publish any notes we receive as a part of the 24 Hours For Democracy project. If you want your URL highlighted in your note, please include it.

February 11, 1996: WebArranger

If you are regularly using the Web as a part of your recruiting tactics, you need a copy of WebArranger from CESoft. The package (free through February 16) is a combination database, bookmark manager, todo list and contact manager. We have replaced our ACT databases with WebArranger.

February 10, 1996: Jobsight

One way to have content, a searchable database and a changing array of jobs for job-hunters is to make an alliance with one of the large advertising engine services. Jobsight accomplishes this through their arrangement with DICE (the contract recruiting database and posting service). Jobsight's simple website offers a sketch of their corporate services and access to the search engine. It's a simple and very effective model.

February 9, 1996: Tripod

Take a look at Tripod, a clever forum for recruiting so called genXers (the generation after the baby boomers). As a part of a well targeted periodical, Tripod offers services ranging from The Resume Doctor a service that helps candidates write and circulate a resume to The Job Genie where a combination of peers and experts answer career related questions. This issue of Tripod features a pointer to Wet Feet a website by Wet Feet Press who produce "Insider's Guides" for job seekers.

February 8, 1996: Censorship

The Electronic Recruiting community is, in some ways, very insulated from the Net as a whole. Our newsgroups are full of what would be called "spamming" in other arenas. As a result, we can miss some very important questions.

The Web censorship question seems to be taking on the aura of political "litmus test" much more rapidly than we'd imagined. Without resorting to a lengthy discussion of the question (We're generally opposed to censorship on principle), the importance of watching the issue merits a mention.

In Dave Winer's current email (which is delivered to a very influential set of "Netsters"), a fascinating project is damned for not showing the blue ribbon logo. We find the behavior extreme but continue to recommend that you subscribe to Dave's delightful DaveNet. (Just send mail to majordomo@wired.com with "subscribe davenetworld" in the message body.) Usually, DaveNet is a treasure chest of positive ideas about the future and potential of the Web.

Please, take the question of your stand on free speech on the net very seriously. We don't assume that we can tell you how to think. We do expect that issue will become increasingly important to recruiters and will be a key component of near term market segmentation. Given the Net's history and mythology, all web businesses will have to make a decision on this issue, one way or another.

As a recruiter, deciding whether or not to display the blue ribbon logo isn't a question that you will be able to dodge for any length of time. The issue is heating up and we fully expect to see lists of "good guys" and "bad guys" circulating around the Net shortly. Like it or not, this issue will effect you. It's a part of doing business in the public arena and is representative of the difference between the "old way" of doing things and life on the Web.

February 7, 1996: Shared Resources

There's a form of joint recruiting practiced by companies on the Web in Europe that we don't often see in the States. Take a look at ComputerWeek Jobs Online. It's a recruiting database (job listings) clearly run by a group of recruiters in South Africa. For some reason, the idea of banding together in this public way hasn't caught on here......yet. Expect it soon. It's a matter of time before one time competitors begin to realize the effectiveness that shared resources can offer. There are several other versions of this approach including Job Serve.

February 6, 1996: New and Changed Recruiting Sites

Once again, the

New and Changed Recruiting Sites

This week features 19 new players including Dunhill Technical Staffing and yet another JobNet. Hard@Work wins the best name of the week, hands down.

Aurand Management Incorporated

Austin Personnel Services

ComputerWeek Jobs Online

DPI Technical Resources

Dunhill Technical Staffing

Middle Eastern Job Market

Resume Magic

Sequelogic

Stenocall Inc.

TAD Resources International, Inc

Texas Job Reports

USJOBNET

WebJobs Nova Scotia

February 5, 1996: What's in a Name

Your address, as a part of your URL, can tell potential clients and candidates a great deal about your operation. Generally, the minimum is having a discrete domain name (like occ.com or recruit.net or yourcompany.org). It lets the world know that you're serious about online business.

There are other alternatives. Webster and Associates, a recruiter specializing in technical writers, uses the WeLL for its home. In this case, the lack of a discrete domain name really works in Webster's favor. The WeLL is nationally known as a "hangout" for writers of all persuasions. The name lends a kind of credibility to Webster and Associates' marketing. In addition, the firm offers training in writing through their Institute. It's a subtle and effective twist on using professional alliances in Cyberspace.

February 4, 1996: Westech's Career Expo

Beginning this week, we'll be moving the listings of new and changed sites to its own area.

The Recruiting business continues to consolidate and Bill Vick's IPA remains the driving force. This week, JobCenter's special relationship with the IPA membership begins.

We got a copy of High Technology Careers in the mail. The paper partner of Westech Career Expo is a great demonstration of the possibilities for paper/website synergy. A closer look made us reconsider whether or not Westech Career Expo belongs in our Top 25. We're increasingly convinced that it does. The paper provides Westech's clients with physical and virtual linkage to candidates. It's a very interesting economic model.

February 3, 1996: E-Span's facelift

Keeping your design lively and changing is one way of ensuring that your customers continue to return and use your service. E-Span has completed yet another face lift. It's fast, bright and engaging.

February 2, 1996: Recruit Media's design

We really like the design approach taken by Recruit Media. Their recruiting site is an interesting attempt to use Architectural metaphors with a door, an entrance hall and so on. They also provide a very clear description of their "CV" requirements, cleverly disguised as advice for preparing a resume.

February 1, 1996: Franchise Insights

If your operation is a franchise, or if you are considering a franchise, you'll want to take a look at The FRANCHISE HANDBOOK: On-Line. It includes a couple of articles that will be of interest to all recruiters:

January 31, 1996: New and Changed This Week

New and Changed This Week

Advanced Engineering Services

David Aplin & Associates

Axis Technologies - Professional Search and Recruiting Bay Area

Chemtech, Ltd

Citielite Resources ltd

Cool Works

Flatley Employment Services

Ian Martin Limited

Integro Temporary Staffing Services

MHC Consulting Services Ltd

Technology Research Laboratories, Inc

Timeline

U.S.C. M.B.A. Student Resumes

January 29, 1996: Recruiting in Cyberspace

Andrew Barbour is the author of a recent book called "Recruiting in Cyberspace: Leveraging the Internet in the Human Resource Function. This month, the Internet Business Journal features a short interview with Barbour. Unfortunately, when we checked, the links to Barbour's organization and resources didn't work.

January 27, 1996: The Web as a Tool

In a recent conversation, we were discussing the potential of the Web as a tool for finding the right person for an executive slot in a technology startup. There is little question that, in its current configuration, the Web is ineffective for this classic type of management search. We agreed that using job postings on any of the major job search Websites or the newsgroups would create a flood of the wrong type of candidates.

The Web is currently an ideal mechanism for finding and filling professional and technical slots. It falls down as a means of finding perfect candidates for critical slots. Or does it?

Seeing the Web as simply an aggregation of home pages for Recruiting Firms, Job Ads, Resume Banks and Corporate Recruiters is a very limited perspective on the technology and its potential. From time to time, we're as guilty of this mistake as anyone. The technology is powerful and new; the variation in design and approach make for interesting conversation. In each individual Website, there are examples of strength, weakness, naivete and sophistication. The real power may exist as a consequence of all of the Websites, however.

We get concerned, from time to time, about overly emphasizing the importance and consequence of Bill Vick's Internet Professional's Association (IPA). The IPA strikes us as an evolving harbinger of things to come, rather than a final solution. (If you're not a member, you ought to join!). The key insight that IPA brings to the party is that the Web is a tool for increasing the effectiveness of the industry as a whole. Besides the obvious benefits of information sharing, IPA offers a more profound opportunity. Information sharing leads to the formation of business alliances which, in turn, lead to better management of placements. The Web increases a Recruiter's access to other Recruiters and creates a synergy in the industry that geography used to prevent.

At the same time, the barriers to entry in the industry are dropping. Shawn's Internet Resume Center is a fascinating example of the transformation. Begun as a smallish Website of job related links and a few resumes, Shawn's has matured over 18 months to become a profitable Resume bank and placement center. Telling just who is a publisher, who is a recruiter, who is an advertiser or who is a job bank is increasingly difficult. And, it changes regularly.

In other, more centralized industries, the near term Web Shakeout is beginning to be noticed and commented on. The general sense of those forecasts is that the Web will retrench and become increasingly an internal function (behind the "firewall"). The very nature of Recruiting implies that the change will be experienced differently in our industry. We imagine that Web based recruiting will expand and that the IPA, or some similar, competing organizations will begin to deliver candidate information through the firewall. Pieces of these kinds of alliances are already in place in operations like OCC and JobWeb

Back to the original question -- is the web a useful tool for filling critical slots. It turned out that the four of us in the conversation had met through the web. While we were discussing the question, we filled two key slots with a series of phone calls and emails to other Web based associates. The opportunities and candidates would have never come our way if we hadn't been in the Webbed end of things. So, the answer, we decided, is yes though we never actually used a Website to accomplish the transaction.

January 26, 1996: On-Line Career Center

We took another thorough look at the On-Line Career Center. They remain entrenched as the largest and most heavily trafficked employment site on the Web. There's good reason.

Take a close look at their design. It's pared down to the point that there is very little between the user and the data in OCC's huge array of links, job ads, sponsors, recruiting resources and career information. If you want to see a working demonstration of the fact that "Less is More" on the Web, stop by the On-Line Career Center and admire the work.

January 25, 1996: Browser Technology Decisions

See today's 1st Steps: Cool Marketing Resources and Tools for a short piece on browser technology decisions. The plug-in technologies for Netscape 2.0 are starting to be available. They will change the way you think about your Website.

You may have noticed that HotWired was listed as one of the sites in yesterday's review of new/changed jobsites on the Web. We were hoping that they were moving towards establishing an outpost for recruiting. No such luck. An enterprising job-ad provider would do well to solicit a partnership with the cutting edge folks at HotWired. We can't imagine a better advertising and recruiting platform at this stage of the Net's development.

Building traffic to your site is a difficult and time consuming process. It really does take about double (sometimes triple) your initial development costs. We built PROMOPHOBIA as a do it yourself kit of posting tools and recommend that you use it. Your competitors have between 300 and 900 inbound links from other sites. The only way you can be found on the web is if people know you are there. That means going through the effort to understand the market and making sure that you are widely linked.

January 24, 1996: Kelly Services, Online

The conventional wisdom, here in the Web Fishbowl, is that the big players will enter the Web at a disadvantage. Size, prior assumptions, internal politics and pride are assumed to be the risks inherent in being a success in the transition from corner office to Web office.

Well, if Kelly Services is any indication, the conventional wisdom is wrong. Clearly, they thought long and hard before making a serious investment in the technology. Their sleek graphic design is wrapped around a super-fast search engine and a couple of well chosen, unique links. If they choose to emphasize marketing in their roll-out, they'll be a real force in the marketplace. Currently, they appear (according to Altavista) to have no meaningful inbound links.

Watching their development will tell you a lot about the marketplace.

With the widespread news that AOL and Netscape are making an alliance, it's time to think about upgrading your recruiting site to Netscape 2.0 standards.

January 23, 1996

New and Changed Sites For The Week

Employment

Training

January 22, 1996: The Haystack Group

A solid recruiting Website is a balance of ingredients. Most fall short in the area of links to external resources. The Haystack Group errs in the opposite extreme. A solid review of their links to external resources is well worth your time. The links seem to be carefully chosen with the job seeker in mind. They are not cut from the same set of obvious material but offer value in and of themselves.

The "home" page is a huge file that takes what seems like hours to download (We made coffee while waiting). And, it's done in black which obscures at least some of the materials readability. The links are so good that we never quite got around to reviewing The Haystack Group's business material. We'd guess that others will have the same problem.

It's pretty interesting to us that few Recruiting sites offers useful links for clients. As wonderful as job hunters are, and as nice as it is to have piles of Resumes, clients pay the bills.

January 20, 1996: Internet Sleuth

If you are searching for people, stop by The Internet Sleuth. This astounding site contains over 900 search related "forms". You can search the net at your leisure from this resource. Since it includes pointers to the sources of information in its search engines, you can rapidly become sophisticated enough to find the folks you're looking for.

January 19, 1996: Alliances

Really, alliances with professional associations (and Websites that reach your target audience) are fast becoming the key to successful recruiting. Take a look at Editor and Publisher Interactive which focuses on the blossoming online newspaper industry. At the bottom of their "home" page is a link to related employment opportunities in the field. Jobs and finding work are a part of the professional rat race, not a separate activity.

January 18, 1996: Higher Standards

Bill Vick tells us that the Internet Professionals Association (IPA) is developing a Recruiting Industry Association page and is offering free links to the various pofessional groups online. Email him at vick@Onramp.NET for more detials.

We occasionally get mail from Recruiters who are gleefully announcing their new Websites. But, they forget to give us the address so that we can tell you.

Our expectations of the final quality of the new product are somewhat influenced by this type of promotion. Make no mistake about it, the Web is a real business world and all of the standard requirements for success apply here, and then some.

We also see a fair amount of traffic from would be Web Recruiters whose offerings are downright awful. With over a thousand firms using the net as a Recruiting tool, the requirements for a successful Website are constantly evolving. The standards get higher every day.

The "final" Netscape Beta (version 2.0b5) is available. If you're not using it, stop what you're doing and download a copy. With the rapidly multiplying sets of "Plug-Ins", the face of the Web is undergoing a profound change, again.

We're starting another daily newsletter, targeted at the Job Hunter. You can get a sneak preview of 1st Steps In The Hunt before we open for business on Jan 22. We're expecting high volume traffic and are offering a variety of sponsorship opportunities to the Recruiting Industry (you'll see a couple of our charter sponsors on the opening page). It will be a fantastic place to build traffic to your site.

January 17, 1996: The Project 2000 Resource

Donna Hoffman is the Vanderbilt professor who is nearly single-handedly defining the theoretical view of the Web. We've mentioned her often. Her recent article Commercial Scenarios for the Web: Opportunities and Challenges offers a detailed, if somewhat intellectual, look at the pieces of an effective web site. The piece is laced with examples and makes quick reading for a scholarly article. Dont't forget about the amazing wealth of Marketing information available through her Website: Project 2000

The material in Donna's growing portfolio will help you think about the components of a successful Web based enterprise.

January 16, 1996: Past Week's Changes

New and changed sites in the past week

Recruiting

Training

Besides our industry analyses and newsletters, we help recruiters integrate this new technology into their operations. We've added a detailed description of IBN to the website. We'd love to help you.

Contacting Us

Call, fax, write, email. We'd love to talk about your project.

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