It’s that time of the year – leaves are falling, frost is threatening our gardens….and I’m knocking on your door about the online recruiting survey. I'm trying to include everyone in the online recruiting industry: HR and recruiting pros, job…

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The more things change, the more they stay the same – except when they don’t. Now how’s that for equivocation?

The results are in for the 2011 Online Recruiting Survey, and they are intriguing. We had a record 323 completed responses (a 15% increase from Fall 2010!), from three categories: HR and recruitment professionals, job board operators and employees, and job seekers.  We used many…

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There have been a lot of blog posts here over the years – 120, to be exact. Some faded quickly, and some didn’t. So I thought it might be useful to have a roundup of what I consider to be the most interesting and useful (if not always successful) posts. Hope you like them!

• People, Balance & Technology: The…

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Although it may not seem like it at times, the job board industry is a technology-driven industry. After all, it was the combination of a database and the web that gave it birth so many years ago. After a fairly lengthy period of incremental and erratic technical growth, the industry is seeing lots of change – and I suspect that those sites that ignore these changes may suffer.

So, which technologies (and technology trends) are changing job…

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In 2009, the job board industry (and the rest of the world) was deep in the recession’s trough. It was ugly.



With 2010 essentially in the rear view mirror, I think I can safely say that we’re out of the trough. We’re not at the top. We may not even be that far from the bottom – but a lot of things are looking better



Keep reading:… Continue

Is social recruiting a symptom of larger problems in the world of recruitment – or is it a solution to recruitment woes? Let me argue both sides of this…

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If you follow my Twitter stream, you no doubt noticed I spent last week at #truManchester. It was a great experience – I listened to many recruiters and HR pros talk about how they use social media in their recruiting (or hope to), and what they think about job boards. (I also learned that the British have switches on their power outlets, are extremely hospitable, and don’t open their pubs until noon).

A few observations:

• Company attempts to outlaw or…

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Sorry to tell you this – but job boards are businesses. They make money. They produce results.…

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People get bored. This is the number one reason that anything ‘new and shiny’ captures our attention. We get frustrated that what we’re doing is, well, kind of repetitive and doesn’t work the way

we imagined it would. Then something new comes along

and we think: Maybe this time things will be different! Maybe

that software will really work. Maybe this really is the

magic bullet.

Or, maybe…

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Oh, to be the new kid on the block! Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of social media are experiencing that thrill – they’re new, exciting, and can do no wrong.

A while back, job boards were the new kids. No more messy newsprint, no more limits on ad length, immediate results – what was not to like? Recruiters flocked to job boards and, in the process,

made many boards very profitable.

But things have changed. Job boards are old news, like those ugly,…

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By now you’ve probably heard of JobDeck, a modified version of the popular Twitter search application, TweetDeck. A collaboration between TwitJobSearch and TweetDeck, JobDeck has a permanent, specialized search that focuses on jobs. These are sourced from the Twittersphere, based on employment-related keywords, plus additional content from LinkedIn.



Well, it’s gotten the New York Times… Continue

At their core, most job boards are series of one-way communications: employer posts a job; job seeker responds to employer; employer does (or doesn’t) respond to job seeker. Each communication is distinct and separated by both time and method – some might even say fragmented.



Compare to a blog, social networking site, or Twitter: you send out a communication – and built into your communication are methods for readers to respond, as well as the expectation they will; readers DO… Continue

A while back I examined the recruiting value of Twitter and its possible effects on job boards. Since then, Twitter has kept growing at a torrid pace, the economy continues to slide, and most job boards are happy if their revenues are only down 20 or 30 percent. I thought it was time to take another look.



Chris Russell created a very nice ’starfish’ that runs down the various social media tools… Continue