Why are radio stations creating job boards?

12 Comments

Comment by Eric Shannon on June 9, 2008 at 10:43am

that is a very interesting story Chris -- and I think it is the tip of an iceberg. I would love to know the inside story behind RHW. Perhaps someday cumulus will be in the market for a real job board network. I want to see the Cumulus website but it is taking too long to load.

Comment by Chris Russell on June 9, 2008 at 11:05am

they'll probably kill it within a year...radio stations cant run web sites, especially job sites

Comment by Bob Etheridge on June 9, 2008 at 12:38pm

If this is their strategy, I hope they get a better name. Ask 10 people to spell Cumulus.
Remember CareerMosaic, no one could spell MOSAIC either.

Comment by Christy Correll on June 9, 2008 at 1:26pm

Yes, RegionalHelpWanted.com (www.regionalhelpwanted.com) is not only up and running, but is expanding its reach into regional job markets exponentially. Currently, RegionalHelpWanted owns and operates over 350 local job boards across the U.S. and Canada in strategic alliances with local broadcasters.

onTargetjobs (www.ontargetjobs.com) acquired RHW in February of this year. onTargetjobs invests in leading niche internet job sites that serve a defined geographic or vertical industry or job function. In addition to RegionalHelpWanted, onTargetjobs is also the parent company of BioSpace.com (www.biospace.com), Hcareers.com (www.hcareers.com), HEALTHeCAREERS.com (www.healthecareers.com), MedHunters.com (www.medhunters.com), JobLoft.com (www.jobloft.com) and CareerBank.com (www.careerbank.com), providing online career services to the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, hospitality, restaurant, healthcare, accounting and finance markets.

Comment by Julian Stopps on June 9, 2008 at 2:55pm

Hi Chris, I'll throw my UK hat into the ring on this one.

I interviewed Jonathan Turpin of Emap Radio for born back in January (interview) just after the company had launched Key103Jobs, a combined radio and web job board service.

The thing that really stuck in my mind was the fact that radio drives people to web sites, in a much strong way than TV for example. This is because a reasonable percentage of people listen to the radio while online, so they hear an advert then point their browser at the site mentioned.

I can't comment on whether radio stations can run web site or not in the US, but in the UK there are some fairly impressive web sites that have been put together by media business that have big radfo properties.

I think we'll see a lot more radio + web partnerships over time, particularly as web based broadcasting grows.

Comment by Eric Shannon on June 9, 2008 at 3:53pm

in our experience, radio has not been very effective at driving traffic. I think what drives the radio connection is simply that radio stations have unsold inventory. its inefficiency doesn't matter if its cost is zero.

Comment by Julian Stopps on June 9, 2008 at 5:32pm

I've taken a recent look at the UK's radio/job board deals and it looks like the ones that have recently been extended are those that are with radio companies who have online presences.

As an example Totaljobs recently extended it's arrangement with GMG, but focused on the company's new listen online functionality. This suggests it's the online portals and traffic the job boards are after (i.e. driving online listeners to online sites).

I suppose this makes sense, people who are listening online are more likely to convert (or click) than people listening via traditional radio sets.

Eric - has your experience been with online stations or off-line ones (am I barking up the wrong tree with the online off-line assumption?)

Comment by Eric Straus on June 9, 2008 at 11:10pm

Hi. this is Eric Straus, CEO of RegionalHelpWanted.com. First of all... I think it is SOOOO cool to see people blogging about my baby!!!! Thanks for all the comments!!! Here at RHW we are advertising on over 2,000 radio stations around North America; enjoying over 50 Million page views a month and ALL because of the power of radio. Employers know (or find out) that their help wanted ad posted on their local RHW site... is read by a LOT of job seekers; thanks to the continuous promotion on local radio. (P.S. just wait for our next batch of radio commercials... you're gonna LOVE em!)

Individual Radio groups have tried to start their own job sites in the past; and each one has failed.That's because, (in our view), one radio cluster in a market can't create a powerful enough job board BRAND all by itself. Here at RHW we work with multiple broadcasters in a market... and have found that TOGETHER.. we CAN build a brand that WORKS for our customers (job seekers and employers) .A single radio group can't do that.

Thanks for your comments... 'Look forward to reading more!

Comment by Eric Shannon on June 10, 2008 at 8:51am

off-line - i think you are probably right julian...

Comment by Eric Swanson on June 10, 2008 at 1:07pm

Eric when are your new radio commercials going to be done?

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