All Blog Posts Tagged 'experience' (42)

It’s been a busy couple of weeks – first we discovered that Recruit bought Indeed, thenDoostang bought JobFox, and then many of the heavyweights in the online recruiting world rolled into Chicago for …

It’s been a while since I took a look at how you can screw up your job board, so I thought it was time to revisit the subject.  After all, if you’re going to spend time on your site, why not make money instead of losing it?

Most job boards generate revenue from employers (yes, some such as…

Talk to job seekers about looking for jobs, and you get an earful. Talk to employers about finding candidates, and you get another earful. Both sides are looking for each other, and both sides have problems doing so.

Problems are almost always expressed in the negative: “No one ever responded to my application.” “The candidates sucked.” “The site is too expensive.” “I couldn’t understand how to use it.” And so on.

Observation #1: No employment site or service…

Back in the olden days, a person built a web site, did various things to attract visitors (ads, blimps, billboards, TV – you name it), and then monetized those visitors. The web was all about driving traffic to a web site.

No category of sites were better at this activity than job boards. Remember those wacky Monster, TheLadders, and…

I recently had the privilege of hosting #HFChat – the HireFriday Tweet-fest organized by @HRMargo and @CyndyTrivella.  HireFriday is all about helping job seekers find work. Recruiters, HR professionals, and the occasional job board doctor pose and answer common questions about the job hunt. It’s a wonderful event for all involved.

My subject – surprisingly enough! – was “Making job boards work for you”. The conversation ranged from the basics (setting up job alerts, using job boards…

Hey folks, I recently did a webinar and was bombarded with questions - so many that I couldn't get to them all during the session. So instead, I'm answering them on my blog. Check it out!

(thanks also to everyone that attended, and to RealMatch for sponsoring it!)

Depending on who you talk to, the phase of the moon, and the price of corn in Iowa, there are roughly50,000 to 100,000 job boards out there. Yes, really. Why so many? There are a lot of reasons (low barriers to entry, continued demand, margins), but what this really means is that if you run a job board, you havecompetition. Above you, below you, next to you – you could argue that the online recruiting sector reflects capitalism at its most…

Another week, another ‘job boards are dying’ blog post. If I had a dollar for every post like this, I’d be a (moderately) rich man. Truly.

I try to avoid the ‘job boards are dying’ discussion because (a) it’s a flamer’s game (not unlike arguing with those who disbelieve climate change), and (b) those of us in the biz know it…

NetFlix has been busy in the past few months. First they effectively jacked up prices by charging separately for streaming and traditional DVDs. Then they launched a 2nd site for those of us who chose to continue receiving DVDs.

Um, what? Did I ask for any of this? Did they even try to break it to me softly.

Nope.

So I did what hundreds of thousands of others did. I dumped streaming and started looking into…

“You say you want a revolution, well, you know, we’re all doing what we can.” – The Beatles

“We’re pinheads all, jocko homo.” -DEVO

These lyrics really get to the two extremes of what recruiters, employers, and job seekers think might happen with job boards. On the one hand, there are those who think job boards are on the way out, ‘devolving’ into lowest common denominator sites that carry fake jobs and offer little…

One problem with the internet in general and social media in particular is that you have fewer reasons to leave the office. After all, if I’m swapping Tweets with @Animal or @HRMargo all day, do I really want to spend ‘real’ time with them?

Well, actually, yes. It’s fun to meet the living, breathing version of these virtual friends. And what’s even more fun is to learn new stuff and hear interesting news and gossip.

That’s where the …

I continue to be amazed at the pace of start-ups in the job board sector. No matter that we’re in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression; no matter that companies are shedding workers like cat fur in the summertime. Those job boards just keep coming (and mind you, I’m not upset, as I get the chance to work with some of them!).

Although many of these new sites resemble existing job boards, a number of them keep trying different ways to…

Ever wonder how the financial markets might affect your job board? Well, wonder no more – Monster, Dice, and 51Job all experienced double-digit drops in the wake of S&P’s downgrade of the U.S. government. (And this was after reporting some very strong Q2 earnings a week ago). Kind of makes you glad you’re not a publicly held…

My favorite weather site is WeatherUnderground. For some obscure, probably cookie-driven reason, I tend to see a lot of HR-related ads there. A few SHRM and iCIMS ads, for example.

The other day I noticed a corporate blue banner that said “Job Boards Are Broken”. It led to TheLadders.

This had me scratching my head, because: a) TheLadders is a job board.…

I recently spent a very pleasant 2 days with my family at an alternative music festival. Apart from hearing some great bands (check out Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band and Bear Hands), I spent quite a bit of time observing 20- and 30-somethings. It was fascinating – and it really drove home a (what should have been…

Monster has made a big splash – and some waves – with BeKnown, its job seeker app for Facebook. It’s the latest (and boldest) move into social media for the job board, and I think it has some lessons for…

Do you ever feel like your head will burst if you have to create or remember another login/password combo? Sure, your browser tries to help (at least mine does), prompting helpfully to ‘remember’ the login – usually. But that’s specific to your computer. What happens when you’re away from it? If you’re like me, you try to stick to a few combos and keep them in your head.

So what does this have to do with job boards and career sites? Plenty. If you use…

The times they are a-changin’ – and Mr. Zimmerman never even envisioned the internet, much less job boards. One way or another I end up looking at a lot of online recruitment sites – some aimed at employers, some at job seekers, some at who knows what. Examining sites is, in my opinion, extremely worthwhile – there are always ideas to ‘borrow’ and ideas to avoid. So, without further ado, let’s go on a

magical mystery job site tour:…

Why do job seekers go to job boards? Ahem – to find a job.

I might add that’s why they network, Tweet, post profiles on LinkedIn, and troll through company career sites. They just want a job. Right?

Well, no. Not exactly. They want a lot more than a ‘job’. They in fact have an entire laundry list of desires:

• work that fits their skill set
• work that pays well
• work that lets them…

There has been a spate of articles recently about TheLadders – specifically, how the site is a bad deal for job seekers. To wit:

when I see the new commercials for The Ladders, I want to puke on my shoes…the jobs on The Ladderscan be found on sites like LinkUp, Monster,…