If you have worked as a Recruiter it would have been almost impossible over the last few years not to have received a telephone call, or marketing literature, from a job site offering “THE solution” to your recruiting needs.
When online recruitment first gained in popularity it was seen by some as the only way to recruit in the future and that traditional press advertising was on the way out. The reality is that online recruitment is now accepted as part of the advertising mix, and not the only solution.
However, due to the rapid growth of online recruitment there does not appear to be any consistency in terms of what each job site offers. This can make it difficult to conduct a genuine “like for like” comparison.
So how does a busy recruitment professional decide on which job site is best for their company, and on what information might they base that decision?
The following questions used to help me in the decision making process as a corporate recruiter:
- The first thing to consider is whether you have heard of the job site before? If they claim to cover your industry (and you haven’t heard of them before) how confident are you that they will attract the right candidates for you?
- Is their web site address memorable and distinctive to you and your potential candidates? The well-established job sites have spent a lot of money promoting their brand to get their name well known. Is the job site you intend to use well known and does it have a strong brand?
- Are they a generic or niche site? A generic job site tends to cover most industry sectors (e.g. www.totaljobs.com ) and a niche job site will concentrate on a particular industry (e.g. www.onlinemarketingjobs.com). Looking at the vacancies you are trying to fill which type of site would suit you best, or will you need use both types of job sites?
In both cases it is important to understand their target audience. If you are planning to use a generic site to advertise for a specific sector, ask what percentage of the total number of vacancies that sector covers.
- How easy is it for people to search on their site? Can people save searches and store their CV online? Do they offer a jobs by email or jobs by SMS (text message) service?
One of the attractions of online recruitment to the job seeker is that they only have to register their details once to receive information. They can then start to receive regular information about relevant jobs, based on their own selection criteria.
- Do they offer a banner link to a micro site (a branded profile page) within their site? Will they offer a direct link to the jobs on your web site where candidates can apply directly to you?
A micro site gives the facility to promote, in more detail, your company and your vacancies. This feature can be particularly useful for companies who don’t yet have a careers section on their own web site.
- How long have they been established? What is their track record and reputation like? Who are their backers? Are they part of a media group, recruitment agency or a privately owned company?
With over 1,000 job sites in the UK alone, and more than 40,000 worldwide, there are bound to be mergers and closures as the industry matures. Therefore, before choosing a job site, consider checking their financial stability.
- Are they based in your country? Do they cover neighbouring countries as well? Are they a global operation? Are all the vacancies published on one job site or does a candidate have to go to each country specific site?
- Are their traffic statistics audited? What kind of statistics will you be able to see on the vacancies you place with them? Can they give you a breakdown of the traffic to specific areas of their site?
Traffic statistics can be one of the most confusing areas of internet recruitment. There are normally three types of statistics that are quoted. They are: hits, page impressions and unique users.
The best measurement to ask for is unique users as the figures for hits and page impressions can count people more than once. Unique users is the only measurement that counts the number of different people who visit the site over a specified period of time.
Job sites are coming under increasing pressure to have their traffic statistics independently audited like the traditional advertising press. More and more job sites should now be able to supply independently audited statistics to help you with your decision making process.
- Are your competitors already advertising on the site? Have any other similar companies advertised for similar vacancies recently? If so, is there any feedback available?
- Do they have any reciprocal links with any trade associations or trade magazines on their site? This can be particularly useful to attract passive job seekers.
- How do they advertise their own site? Offline? Online? TV or Radio? Have you ever seen any of their adverts yourself? What was your opinion? What advertising have they done in the last six months? What do they have planned for the next 6 months?
- Job sites need to generate traffic themselves. They cannot rely on people going straight to their site. Ask them if they have any partnerships with any other web sites and search engines to drive traffic to their own site? How else do they attract traffic?
- Do they have a CV or Resume database? Can you have access to it? What is the breakdown of the database by skill areas? How many people in the database have the types of skills that you are after? When was the database last updated?
· How do they currently rank in the search engines for the types of jobs you are looking to fill? Have they optimised their web site and submitted it to the major search engines to generate results?
Imagine you are now a job seeker. Try a search for yourself to see where their job site appears in the results listings. If they don’t appear highly in the results how are job seekers going to find their site and see your jobs?
· Finally, do they have any testimonials from satisfied clients? Ask to see them if they are not already published on their web site.
Whilst the above list of questions is by no means exhaustive it does go someway in helping identify what a job site can offer and help a Recruiter make an informed decision.
Written by Mike Taylor.
Mike Taylor is the Managing Director of Web Based Recruitment, online recruitment specialists. Web Based Recruitment develop and implement online recruitment strategies to help attract job seekers to company Careers web sites, including Web 2.0 recruitment, the use of Search Engine Marketing, Online Audio and Online Video.
For further information visit: www.web-based-recruitment.com
Ó Web-Based-Recruitment.com 2009
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