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Permalink Reply by Kyle Smith on October 3, 2008 at 12:43pm

IMHO they have never been great, but now with a slowing economy it is way too risky to put a resume out there. People are scared to look for a better job right now if their current one is OK. They will come back to all their glory in short order. You are as likely to get rid of Fast Food as you are big job boards: you know the quality is awful, too much of it is really unhealthy, but it is convenient and fast.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Horst on October 3, 2008 at 12:45pm

I love the fast food comparison!

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Permalink Reply by Rithesh Nair on October 3, 2008 at 5:52pm

backlash why? its hard times for job seekers; I would say jobboards would be more in demand than ever.
I think they should revamp and connect with seekers and recruiters in better way.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Johnson on October 3, 2008 at 6:13pm

They've been raising prices and going to a pay per resume "view" model on the database search which is causing some backlash. When you're big, growth can quickly stagnate, especially in a tough economy, so you need to figure out ways to get incremental revenue growth. Hence, the new model and increased prices. I'm sure the noise will die down soon enough as people get accustomed to it. The fast food example is outstanding BTW.

Mike

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Permalink Reply by Slouch on October 3, 2008 at 6:16pm

and it tastes good

Kyle Smith said:

IMHO they have never been great, but now with a slowing economy it is way too risky to put a resume out there. People are scared to look for a better job right now if their current one is OK. They will come back to all their glory in short order. You are as likely to get rid of Fast Food as you are big job boards: you know the quality is awful, too much of it is really unhealthy, but it is convenient and fast.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on October 4, 2008 at 12:08pm

I used to drink way too much until I decided - cold turkey - to stop drinking my beloved ales, porters and stouts. It became easier to keep my weight, I no longer felt the urge to snarf those post drinking fat meals - not necessarily fast food but lots of any food - although I found that fast food urges also left. Going out with my friends meant I could actually hear in bars and I certainly wasn't making stupid comments that one always makes when drinking. Waking up the next day was no different than the day before.

But people will still drink too much and big job boards will still prevail because (a) when recruiters talk about their fav niche boards, pretty soon word gets out and they become far less niche - popularity always breeds contempt; (b) most job seekers are not savvy enough to recognize that smaller sites, on-going social networking, and personal branding are better tools for the long run; and (c) most recruiters just don't know any better.

As far as being scared to look, there's always anonymity; the greatest downside to this is that many recruiters simply dislike dealing with anonymous job seekers.

Finally, larger boards have larger marketing budgets that are useful in convincing both recruiters and job seekers that bigger is better. So do the 16% of recruiters who are better than average to superior really want the rest of the world to know about their secret sites? So long live the large job boards!

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Permalink Reply by Ken Horst on October 4, 2008 at 1:37pm

The reason I brought this up is that I work in an office with 9 other account execs and we are all talking to corporate recruiters all day everyday. One of my peers shared with us the last week that in all her years in the recruiting business, she can't remember a time when she heard so much smack talk about the big boards. The interesting thing is that while many are saying they hate them, most of them are also saying they don't know what else they can do, so they just keep doing the same thing. Anybody got any thoughts on other things recruiters can do to find qualified applicants?

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Permalink Reply by Susan Kang Nam on October 5, 2008 at 10:04am

This is a great question and something I have been thinking about lately as I am interested in learning more about what corporate recruiters feel about job boards per se. Back at Harvard, few years back.. we utilized various "hot" job boards i.e. Monster, Careerbuilder, hotjobs, niche boards i.e. dice for tech, craigslist, flipdogs, boston.com etc.. however now I see a trend now forming.. I suspect that with the current economic crisis among others, I don't see many candidates utilizing job board as a priority (unless they are willing to change at the moment.. which I am not sure how many "would" be). With the current popularity utilizing social technologies (i.e. facebook, twitter, myspace, linkedin and ning sites), I suspect that to "reach" passive candidates, we will need to "be" on these sites to develop relationships first and continue building the foundation with some of the hot talents out there. I have been reading Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff's book "groundswell" after hearing about it via Dennis Smith and few others at Recruitfest .. and I can't agree enough that for recruiters to reach the best talents out there... (even corporate recruiters), they will need to utilize the social technologies (varied I am sure) to keep upto date with these tools to follow the candidates. My 2cents input this morning. Thanks for the post. Best wishes ~ Susan Kang Nam (on facebook, twitter, Ning sites, friendfeed, LinkedIn).

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Permalink Reply by Kent Sims on October 17, 2008 at 3:17pm

I disagree completely. Most of my best leads come from online job boards, or from my personal database that was highly developed from the online job boards. That's not saying I place everyone I find on a job board...in fact (often-times) I find leads to OTHER people not on the job boards by calling those that ARE posting their resumes online. So (for me)...it's a great tool.

I hear people talking about all the "alternative" ways to recruit. All these social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc...) are always mentioned, and it almost sounds like all these people WANT the online job boards to fail so they can utilize a FREE resource instead of having to pay the ever-increasing costs associated with online job boards.

Let's FACE IT...online job boards are not going anywhere. If a firm doesn't want to fork over the thousands of $$ it takes to subscribe to an online job board...that's fine, but the job boards aren't going anywhere (IMO) as a highly regarded tool for Recruiting.

It's all in how you use them that will make the difference in your success.

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Permalink Reply by Kent Sims on October 17, 2008 at 3:24pm

Also...more and more Recruiting Professionals keep switching over to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc... to use these "alternative" sources. This is flooding those "alternatives" with Recruiters and much of the professional community is beginning to form a disfavorable opinion of those sites.

I am not very active anymore on LinkedIn because I was personally sick of Recruiters trying to connect to me. I would have 5-10 new requests per freaking day and it got old. Random requests for NO apparent reason other than because I was also a Recruiter. Honestly...I don't need 150-200 connections to other Recruiters. That's just ridiculous.

So as you continue to flood these "alternatives methods" what was (again) once niche is now becoming mainstream. How is that any better than the way you were Recruiting before?

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Permalink Reply by Susan Kang Nam on October 17, 2008 at 3:34pm

I recently had a discussion with someone who just started a job board online.. in pharma industry.. here in Boston.. through a summit that I attended via Chris Brogan called "New Marketing Summit". All I am saying is that, I think it's important to utilize "ALL" tools out there to find that "BEST" talent.. Obviously if you have ### Req, it may be easier to look into job boards (esp. now with the economic hardships, layoffs and businesses closing down.. many candidates will go and post their resumes online).. however if you take a look at the social media trend lately.. you'll understand why I mention these social media tools. It's helping candidates to build relationships on a closer level more than ever.. and of course with the time restraints and other factors, this may not be the 100% way to go.. however it's important to look at the personal relationships in anything.. and I personally don't believe that job boards are doing much (at least for me ~ it will all depend). Just an opinion.. I believe in lately. Also, relying on "one" source is never great (i.e. LinkedIn ~ there are others out there -i.e. facebook you can start to utilize - strategically - along with twitter... and more seem to be surfacing..

Not sure if online job boards are not going anywhere comment.. looking at where things are going.. I believe many of these job boards will need to change according to the trend it is heading... not sure what you mean by when you say you think people "want" these job boards to fail.. well, if there "must" be a reason why some candidates don't post their resumes on the job boards anymore. I don't think those hard to find talents will just put their resume on major job board thinking that they will get a recruiter calling... I was only talking in perspective to finding that "Passive" and "TALENT".. that was my point~

Best wishes ~ I agree. It's all about developing that relationship. It doesn't matter what you use.. if you are not able to establish a rapport or common ground and follow through.. there is no hire. there is no recruiting.. in my perspective... my extra 2 cents as I continue to research, explore and observe the recruiting, social media trends online/offline.

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Permalink Reply by Susan Kang Nam on October 17, 2008 at 3:39pm

All I can say about this.. is that it's better to be transparent, open with tools out there to see what will be the "best" practices when it comes to recruiting. That's my persepective on that.. and also as for LinkedIn ~ will that's another post... as I have my thoughts on LinkedIn as well. Best wishes.

Kent Sims said:

Also...more and more Recruiting Professionals keep switching over to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc... to use these "alternative" sources. This is flooding those "alternatives" with Recruiters and much of the professional community is beginning to form a disfavorable opinion of those sites.

I am not very active anymore on LinkedIn because I was personally sick of Recruiters trying to connect to me. I would have 5-10 new requests per freaking day and it got old. Random requests for NO apparent reason other than because I was also a Recruiter. Honestly...I don't need 150-200 connections to other Recruiters. That's just ridiculous.

So as you continue to flood these "alternatives methods" what was (again) once niche is now becoming mainstream. How is that any better than the way you were Recruiting before?

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