JobAdder Blog

Breaking News : Jobs.com.au no longer powered by JobX.com.au

A few emails from eagle eyed industry watchers this morning have pointed out that Jobs.com.au no longer appears to be powered by JobX. It is possible that this is a temporary thing however it does appear to be for real.

The Jobs.com.au site has gone back to a Google adwords powered traffic generation site.

Rumours from industry bods are that the Jobs.com.au domain leases out at $40,000 - $50,000 per month. That sounds like an outrageous amount of money to me but then again everyone was stunned when the domain sold for what was believed to be around $1m.

I wonder what the next big adventure will be for this well traveled domain name?

Hate your job?

No you don't !!

What is your plan of attack in these uncertain times?

I had breakfast this morning in a cafe sitting next to 3 friends who were discussing their jobs and the impact of the world market downturns. Their conversation was fascinating - easily as interesting as the newspapers I was pretending to read.

One of the three friends owned a communications business and said he was noticing a definite slow down in new work. Another one worked for an overseas bank and has been told to have 3 weeks off while they assess their options. The third friend was a french hair dresser. He waved his hand dismissively and said "I am not worried, I am just cutting less off my client's hair so they have to come back to see me more often".

I couldn't help but laugh. If only it was going to be that simple for all businesses.

Australia's heirarchy of needs

According to Google Trends (and let's face it - they should know) the average Australian's heirarchy of needs is:

1. Sex
2. Jobs
3. Cars
4. Property
5. Money

There are 3 particularly interesting things about this for me.

1. In the last 4 years 2008 is the first year when "jobs" searches have outranked "cars" searches.

2. South Australians and Tasmanians search for cars more than jobs. If you've been to either place I guess you will know why. The first car I drove was my Mum's orange Torana in Adelaide.

3. People search for sex less in the ACT than anywhere else in Australia. Is that related to legalised porn, a largely government population or the fact that it is so damn cold?

Job board ads of the year

Here are some of the best job board ads you are ever likely to see. They feature a little Gordon Ramsay and are done by Caterer.com - a job board for the hospitality industry.

SEEK buys 10% of Jobstreet

Today's papers report that SEEK have just purchased a 10% stake in Jobstreet - one of South East Asia's largest job boards.

Following on from their recent investment in Zhaopin this move further reinforces SEEK's plans to be a major player in the Asian region.

FREE job seeker resumes on JobX

In a tightening market anything free is a bonus. If you haven't already seen it JobX are generously giving away free access to all registered job seekers on their site. I bet the spam bots are having a feast so hurry and get your free resumes now while you still can.

Go to the home page, click "Find Staff", enter your search terms and away you go. It displays a clickable email address for each job seeker so you can just email them directly.

100% free.

New job board partner : PropertyRoles.com

We are pleased to announce the addition of PropertyRoles.com as a job board partner on JobAdder. You can now post your property related vacancies to this site through JobAdder.

Property Roles is a new site so here is some info about them from their press release:

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propertyroles.com, a new global online jobs board, has officially been launched and is dedicated to the property industry and tomorrow's property leaders.

With major employers and recruiters already on board and more joining everyday, propertyroles.com is fast becoming the place for tomorrow's property leaders to find their next property role, get daily industry news, make contact with global industry bodies and stay connected with their industry.

Job seekers can search for specific, industry termed property jobs easily and quickly. By accessing the Global Resource Centre they can view tips and information that will help their job search, they can find out more about global industry bodies and their events and they can download daily industry news.
For job seekers, loading a Resume couldn't be easier and it's fast, straight forward and lets employers search for them.

Using the latest online recruitment technology propertyroles.com allows job seekers to choose who sees their profile and contact details, when their Resume is searchable and how potential employers can contact them.
Their name and contact details are always completely confidential, totally secure and controlled by the job seeker. Everything on the site is automated so they can sit back and let the employers and jobs come to them.
For employers and recruiters, propertyroles.com offers an employment solution that is fast, easy, cost effective and dedicated to their industry and target market.

propertyroles.com is a place where their target market will return and connect enabling employers and recruiters to actively and passively source the most relevant and qualified candidates for their property jobs. And with cost effective job advertising options propertyroles.com has solutions for major corporate employers to boutique recruitment agencies.
As with the job seeker functionality everything on propertyroles.com is automated, tracked and logged within the advertiser's secure account.

Social networking and recruitment

Next time you hear someone banging on about the role of Facebook or MySpace in recruitment you might like to point them to this little video. Very funny.

The little tosser just won't go away...

These pics were sent in tonight from a mobile phone in North Sydney train station. This is the main billboard as you get off the platform.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the train station up pops our old mate Axel from Jobs.com.au....

The person who sent this in asked "I wonder how far in advance they pre booked this slot?", but our feeling is they have probably just scraped off a few old ads and accidentally unveiled this old beauty.

(for those who missed this ad campaign first time around this was a series of TV, radio and outdoor ads run by the then Jobs.com.au web site. The site didn't last long but the ads hold a very special place in history...)

Possibly the most unusual recruitment web site yet...

We've seen some crackers in recent times but this one is a Friday afternoon special.

You will need a beer in your hand and your speakers on for this one.

Click on the image below, then click through the pages for more.

Ninemsn enjoys job board threesome

Has anyone else noticed the irony of the recently tangled Ninemsn/SEEK/eBay/CareerOne web?

- Ninemsn and SEEK are CML stable mates

- eBay sits right beside Jobs in the menu bar on Ninemsn

- eBay is in bed CareerOne.

In short we have one of Australia's largest online portals enjoying a threesome with 2 of Australia's largest job boards.

Perfectly acceptable if not a little bemusing.

Keep your SEEK ads at the top of the search results for longer.

Do you know the difference between the "job title" and the "search results title" on SEEK ?

Many people don't realise that there are 2 different titles, or that one is more important than the other.

On SEEK the job title that is returned in the summary results is called the "Search Results Title' in JobAdder. This title can be different to the one that appears on the detailed view of the job ad.

If a job seeker does a keyword search to find a job then SEEK uses (among other things) the search results title to determine the best job matches for the search. If your job ad has those keywords in the search results title then your job will rank higher in the search results than jobs that contain those keywords only in the body of the ad.

When writing your search results title it is important to consider what a job seeker might type in the keywords field to find your job. For example if your job is a Java Developer and they need to have Oracle, SQL and J2EE experience then it would be a good idea to get as many of those words as you can into the search results title.

Below is a perfect example. I typed 'java developer oracle j2ee sql' in the keyword field. Notice the second job that appears is actually 16 days old - yet it is number 2 in my search results.

If you use your search results title effectively then your ads will appear in more searches and therefore receive more applications. This also means you don't need to continually refresh your job ads. Write it once and write it properly and your 30 day ad will remain relevant for the full 30 days instead of 30 minutes.

Note : Don't just keyword load your search results title for the sake of it - your ad still needs to read well and make sense.

Fairfax cutting 550 jobs, joins the cut back club

Fairfax have announced that they are cutting 550 jobs or 5% of the workforce. Not sure if these cuts affect MyCareer but in any case it is not just Fairfax making the tough decisions.

A few other recent cut backs from around the globe:

Air Canada to cut 2000 jobs
HP cutting 5900 European jobs
Embarq to cut 500-700 jobs
Qantas to cut 1500 jobs
Chrysler plans to cut 1000 salaried jobs
Siemens to cut 16,750 jobs
Wollongong Council to cut 50 jobs
Constellation Brands to cut 350 jobs in Australian workforce
Ford announces VIC job cuts
Melbourne Uni Arts faculty face job cuts
Cadbury axes 160 jobs from Hobart factory

But it's not all bad - according to Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner 2 days ago "the employment outlook for Australia remains strong despite the large job losses announced recently at major companies...

The overall employment figures are still very robust, we anticipate that they will continue to be in good shape," he said. "It's important to note that bad news always sells well in the media."

Media scaremongering or government propaganda?

More snakes behaving badly

Another story this morning of a snake behaving very badly...

This is why we didn't call it JobPython.

Clearly all the good candidates are on Facebook

Recruiters - be very careful how you treat your ~~rejects~~ candidates lest they turn evil and flame you on Facebook...

A Facebook group called "I F#CKING HATE Recruitment Agencies, they don't help u, they r useless" is using Facebook to showcase their superior literacy and vocabulary skills by articulating concerns with recruitment practices online.

A few classic quotes from members of the group:

"all i want to say is arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhrrrrrrr. worse than public transport, worse than politicians, worse than rude bailiffs who threaten small children and worse than traffic wardens...yes it's job agents. patronising, cloth eared, two faced liars. the (almost) lot of them"

"god damn vampires. i swear if they tell me "sorry, its all a bit quiet" or "just put your name on the availbles list" thats already got like 10,000 names on it once more i WILL kill one of them useless pricks."

Given that recruiters now commonly check out candidates on social networks during the recruitment process I would think these gifted individuals are not doing much to help their cause....

New job boards added to JobAdder - Expat Jobs, TotallyLegal.com.au, Brand Republic Asia...

As always we have been busy integrating new job boards into JobAdder.

The latest batch off the production line are:

		Expat Jobs consists of 9 separate job boards covering engineering, mining, teaching, medical, IT and finance
		TotallyLegal.com.au is a leading legal and law recruitment website specialising in legal jobs for professionals in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
		Brand Republic Asia Jobs is the leading specialist jobsite for marketing, advertising and media jobs. Brand Republic Asia Jobs has positions available across all levels from marketing director to media sales, from account manager to copywriter

Job ads processed by JobAdder up 54% in July

In going through the July stats on the weekend we were pleasantly surprised to see the number of job ads distributed by JobAdder was up by 54% in July.

JobAdder has been growing steadily month on month since launch but a leap in significant new client acquisitions in June resulted in a big increase in the number of job ads distributed in July.

Expect free job boards to flourish during a downturn

In an economic downturn free job boards should flourish.

Advertisers know they need to keep advertising even when times are tight however constricting budgets will mean they will be looking for more cost effective solutions.

This does not include startups who hope to attract advertisers with $10 or $29 or $79 job ads. Startup job boards heading into the next 12 months should be frantically revising their strategies because job advertisers are even less likely to be taking punts on start up job boards now, no matter what the price per ad.

A fascinating article on Interbiznet today reinforces the importance of continued advertising during a downturn. You can read the article here but some of the highlights are:

Maintaining a company's advertising during an economic downturn will give the image of corporate stability within a chaotic business environment, and give the advertiser the chance to dominate the advertising media

Economic downturns reward the aggressive advertiser and penalize the timid one

When times are good, you should advertise; when times are bad, you must advertise

Not everyone can afford to increase or even maintain advertising budgets through a downturn so this is where free job boards will become a great option for those looking to maintain branding and awareness when times are tight.

SMSpelling DNFB in job ads...

AFAICT TXT LNGE DNB IN JOB ADS. AOAS IT S2B OK FOR PPL TO PUT TXT IN2 JOB ADS. @TEOTD IT IS NTEOTW AND IT IS PAND THO A PITA IF U R A NOOB. OMG WE !!

OK I am exhausted - that really took it out of my 30 something year old brain! Kiddies please bear in mind WDASURL (old person guessing the SMS for "We don't all speak your language". It's probably a real one but WCFBB checking :)

It was an interesting exercise to check a few SMS words on major job boards to see how often some of these words are appearing. Unfortunately a little too often for my taste.

Below are a few real life examples from Australian job boards....

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Anyone interesting in learning a new language can visit the SMS Dictionary here.

Job ad of the week....

This week's well written job ad of the week is from Retail World Resourcing. This is another great example of creative ad writing that catches the eye and captures the imagination. I found myself thinking about firing up the BBQ....

Confusion in the job-board-in-a-boX space

There is some confusion in the job-board-in-a-box market at the moment over the similarities in name between Jobbex.com, a leading job board software solution in the US, and JobX.com.au's white label job board brand.

There are huge differences between the products but the names are almost identical, especially when pronounced.

The JobX.com.au solution is really just mini branded versions of JobX.com.au, whereas the Jobbex.com solution is a true configurable job board in a box product. A nice example of an Australian careers site using Jobbex.com is www.hrcareers.com.au.

Do your job ads deserve a bullet?

Last week I wrote about the importance of displaying salary details on your job ad. This week is about my second biggest bug bear - bullet points.

Most companies now utilise the 3 bullet points on their SEEK templates (and most other job boards) to the point where 3 bullets at the top of a job ad has almost become the industry standard.

The problem however is that bullets have become so "the norm" that most people don't put any thought into them - the result being boring, pointless drivel that detracts from the job ad.

I don't care how amazing the role is or how much time you put into crafting your job ad if your bullets are mindless your job ad probably won't get read.

Some real life examples I found today:

Every job has a location and every job has (at least in your mind) an "impressive", "excellent", or "competitive" salary". You might as well save yourself the trouble and write:

My client has an office
You come to work on a train
You get paid, you go home.

Bullet points can add tremendous value to a job ad but they are also one of the first impressions a reader has about your job ad. Put the time into writing useful and creative bullet points and more people will make their way down to the bottom of your ad, where incidentally the Apply Now button usually sits :)

Show them the money!!

In today's job market it is vital to list salary details on your job ads whenever humanly possible.

With the number of job ads currently listed on job boards it is imperitive to list salary details on your job ads so that candidates can more effectively determine if your position is suitable or not. Salary is easily one of the most important criteria that candidates use to decide if a position is of interest to them.

An analogy I find interesting is that of property. My wife and I have been looking for a house to buy or rent for the last few months and to assist us in our searching we have been registering for alert emails on all the major real estate sites. One of the things I found interesting is that after about a day of looking I stopped clicking on houses that didn't have a price listed. Even if the houses were in the right suburb and had the right ticks in boxes I found it too frustrating to then have to phone real estate agents, leave messages, never hear back etc etc. So in the end I used listing price as the key criteria in determining if a property was worth even clicking on let alone visiting.

Job searching is the same. Job seekers have hundreds of thousands of potential vacancies to look through so why would they go to the trouble of clicking on your job if they don't know what the salary range is?

I know all the reasons why recruiters and corporates sometimes don't like advertising salaries but on the balance of things you are always going to be better off listing a salary. Job boards like SEEK and MyCareer know how job seekers behave and have been encouraging us all to list salary details for years. If you are not doing it yet then think about starting today.

Spotted in Sydney this morning...

This tinytinytiny JobsJobsJobs car....

17 mistakes start ups make

There is a great post on Valleywag today titled "17 mistakes startups make". In my job I am lucky to get to speak to dozens of startup recruitment agencies and recruitment related businesses. With that in mind I thought this article is worth considering...

"In 1999 John Osher started Dr. John's SpinBrush to sell a $5 electric toothbrush. In 2001, he sold the company to Procter & Gamble for $475 million. Here are his "17 mistakes start-ups make" in 100 words.

Failing to spend enough time researching the business idea to see if it's viable.
Miscalculating market size. Entrepreneurs say, 'The market size is 50 million people. If I only sell to 2 percent, I'd be selling a million.' But most products sell less than 1 percent.
Making a commitment on sales projections that were wrong. Created costs that require those projections to be met. Run out of money.
Overprojecting sales prospects.
Making cost projections that are too low.
Hiring too many people and spending too much.
Lacking a contingency plans.
Bringing in unnecessary partners.
Hiring for convenience rather than skill requirements.
Spending half their time doing something that represents 5 percent of their business.
Accepting that it's "not possible" too easily.
Focusing too much on volume and company size rather than profit.
Looking for somebody to tell you you're right.
Lacking simplicity.
Lacking clarity of your long-term aim and business purpose.
Going after too many targets at once.
Lacking an exit strategy."

Creative job ad writing at its best

I came across this job ad on SEEK today. This is a classic piece of creative job ad writing and well worth sharing.

Jobserve launched new JobG8 product this week

This week Jobserve have announced the launch of their new JobG8 job distribution system.

Founder Robbie Cowling says "In a nut shell JobG8 creates a network of job boards who whilst retaining their complete autonomy are able to harness the combined effect of all of the job boards in the network. And, it operates a true Pay for Performance business model so whoever it is in the network who adds the value, get the reward."

As I understand it JobG8 allows job boards to distribute their client's jobs to a range of other job boards and other web sites that jobs are advertised on. The job advertiser pays their job board to list the job in the normal way and the job board then has the option to have the job ad sent to a broader range of job boards to increase the job's exposure. The original job board then pays for each applicant received through the network.

I quite like Robbie's idea in principle but there is some serious rocket science required to make this work. For example the P4P aspect is very complex as there are potentially multiple people in the job supply chain all with their hands out for a slice of the action. From the tone of the press release they sound very confident in their product so I guess we will know more when we see it in action in our local market.

Is Monster really returning to Australia?

The Australian newspaper reported yesterday that Monster is believed to be returning to Australia

"FIVE years after it pulled out of the Australian online job market, US giant Monster Worldwide is understood to be assessing a return to Australian shores.

The company, which is in the middle of a fierce rearguard action in the US and Europe to protect its interests, is believed to have begun looking at a return to the Australian market in a bid to help its operations in Asia, where it has maintained a presence."

This rumour has been going around for a long time now and we haven't seen any real evidence that it could be true. Nor has anyone with any credibility been quoted in support of the story. Part of me feels this is just industry gossip that someone stirs up every few months for a bit of a laugh.

I think Monster can make a profit in Australia and I think all positions except # 1 are vulnerable. (I know my opinion on that will be howled down but that's ok). If Monster are happy with position 2 or 3 and believe they can run a profitable business here from that position then the rumours might just be true. The biggest issue I see for them is pricing. Monster's pricing in many of their overseas markets is way above what the Australian market will wear. If they can get their prices in line with the standard $150 (ish) per job here then there is chance it could work.

One of the biggest assets Monster have is their international network and I think there is a real interest in leveraging that here in Australia. With candidates in most markets in high demand Australian recruiters desparately need reliable avenues for sourcing overseas candidates. If Monster are willing to invest in this market and can get their prices right then it could be interesting....

Some random interesting stats from JobAdder for May

May was a very interesting month in JobAdder as numbers of jobs, users and jobs boards continue to grow strongly across the site. Here are a few random interesting stats.

74,560 job ads were posted through JobAdder in May

63% of all applications received came from SEEK

Job boards with the highest average number of applications per job were (in order)
1 SEEK
2 JobsJobsJobs
3 MyCareer

The job boards with highest month on month growth in average number of candidate apps per job were:
1 JobsJobsJobs
2 Linkme
3 FinancialPlanningJobs.com.au
4 Gurus.com.au

Best day for ad response : Tuesday

19 % more people applied for jobs on Sunday than on Saturday.

23 % more people applied for a job on the weekend than on a Friday

More people applied for a job between 11am and midday than in any other hour

Between 10am and 10pm the WORST time to list a job is 6pm

JobX throw themselves into niche and white label sites

In what appears to be a very big move away from their original generalist job board strategy JobX are going all out with a new white label job board network. This appears to be a move to broaden their job distribution network and apparently not so much about generating revenue as they are only charging a few hundred dollars a month for the service.

Under the heading "What’s in it for JOBX?" in the slide show they say "We believe our technology is the best in its breed. Sharing our leading technology with our White Label partners increases JOBX’s profile and ability to promote our jobs to a wider audience."

This is an interesting strategy and time will tell if it will pay dividends. White label job boards are an extremely support intensive and complex business (if done properly) and I wonder what the potential impact of this could be on a startup business.

JobX are up to some interesting stuff lately. This white label strategy appears to go hand in hand with their recent partnership with Adlogic to create a network of niche job boards that all cross post to each and share revenue. If the concept gets off the ground job advertisers will be able to post job ads on multiple job boards from within any of the participating niche sites. Eg from within JobX you would be able to post a job to JobX as well as to a handful of other niche sites. This seems remarkably similar to Jobserve's JobG8 product which is also launching in June. It will be fascinating to see how that all plays out.

Has the Job Adder been holidaying in Cairns?

Our friendly adder would NEVER do anything like this. The story below is in today's Cairns Post.

Deadly snake bites man's penis

Thursday, May 29, 2008

A ROADSIDE toilet stop ended in pain, embarrassment and almost death for a tourist when a highly venomous snake bit the end of his penis.

The deadly brown snake slithered between his legs and lunged at his manhood as he crouched on a roadside near Laura, 300km northwest of Cairns, about a month ago.

Details of the incident only came to light yesterday after they were confirmed by a paramedic.

"It certainly had a swipe at him," an ambulance spokesman said yesterday.

"But it didn’t envenomate him.

"As it came through it must have got a bit of a shock."

The snake beat a hasty retreat, leaving its victim with a scratch, vomiting and abdomen pain.

Emergency workers raced to the scene to treat the man.

The wound was wrapped in plastic in case poison had penetrated the skin but medical staff gave the man the all-clear after conducting tests.

He was taken to Cooktown Hospital where he spent a night recovering.

The ambulance spokesman described him as "lucky", given his near encounter with one of Australia’s most poisonous snakes.

"I think he was a bit shocked and embarrassed," he said.

Is there room for more job boards in Australia?

The answer of course is yes, but check out these numbers to get an idea of just how much potential there still is:

There are currently estimated to be around 40,000 employment sites in the US. The US has a poulation of around 304,000,000 meaning there is 1 job site for every 7600 people in the US.

Applying the same ratios to Asia, Australia and New Zealand we get the following:

Australia
Population 21,000,000 - so if we had a job board for every 7600 people we should have 2763 sites.

Asia
Population 373,000,000,000 therefore > 49,000,000 employment sites

New Zealand
Population 4,500,000 therefore 592 employment sites.

I don't want to hear 101 reasons from the big job board players about why these stats don't hold up. My point is simply this:

If you assume Australia is a similar market to the US (albeit obviously smaller) and experiences similar demographics, employment conditions, internet connectivity etc, then statistically speaking Australia can support more than 2700 job boards. By our estimations there are currently less than 150 job boards in Australia.

Can we support more job boards in Australia? Heck yes.

Does your job board take it for the team?

This one is too good not to share. The oft criticised CareerBuilder.com briefly re-released this controversial but very funny promotional video this week. Thanks to Cheesman for this little pearl.

Click the pic below to watch the video...

Can you imagine one of the stodgy old Australian job boards putting out something like this?

Now Hiring sells job board business to Counting Jobs

Some of you may have seen the Shortlist article last week but for those who didn't we are extremely pleased to announce that we have successfully finalised the sale of our Now Hiring job board business to Counting Jobs Pty Ltd.

Last week's Shorty article sums it up pretty well so you can click here to download the article.

Our reasons for this move were simple. We want to focus all our financial and human resources on JobAdder.com.

We are extremely fortunate to have created 2 successful businesses in their own rights - JobAdder and the Now Hiring job boards. As each business continues to grow it was clear we had a choice to make - ramp up resources on the job board business to accommodate the growth or find a new home for it.

All things considered it made most sense for us to find a good home for the job board business and focus all our energies on JobAdder. JobAdder is growing rapidly and we are very excited to be able to now give it all the attention it deserves. In just one week since the sale was finalised there have been a whole raft of improvements made including the integration of over 6 new job boards. JobAdder customers will benefit from a dramatic increase in functionality and job board integrations and as a business we feel the timing is strategically perfect.

As the Shortlist article states, we are absolutely delighted to have the Counting Jobs team take over the Now Hiring brand and our job board babies. We have worked tirelessly on the job boards for 5 years so it was really important to us that they go to a business who understands job boards as well as we do and who shares our vision and passion for the business. Mike Thomas built his first job site with his own hands and knows intimately what it takes to make a job board business successful in this market. Mike and his team have a clear focus on the job at hand and have some very big plans so watch that space carefully!

Please also note that we are changing our company name from Now Hiring Pty Ltd to JobAdder Pty Ltd and Counting Jobs will be taking over the Now Hiring name and brand. Please update your address books as our email addresses will now be @jobadder.com.

So JobAdder customers and prospective customers, hold on to your hats as we take the snake to a whole new level.

Jobster gets a big thumbs down

Much maligned job board / social networking / whatever else is cool site Jobster.com has scored a big thumbs down in an article titled "10 'Net services that will succeed, and 10 that will probably fail".

You can read the article here.

Jobster has had $18m+ in investment, has all the you beaut web 2.0 features you could ever want and has had endless press coverage in the US (although not all of it good). Yet here they are 2 years down the track and they have barely made a dent in the job board space. And if this article is to be believed then they are not looking like they will in future.

So why has Jobster not been a runaway success? In my opinion it is simple. If you are looking for a job then you don't care less about social networking, videos, pictures etc. You are there to find a job.
It baffles me why some job boards want to pile all the extraneous functionality on their sites. Can you imagine if Google started trying to sell you a house or a car when you went do a search? Imagine if you had to watch a video ad or scroll past "hot girls seeking hot guys" pictures when you go to do a Google search. It wouldn't happen - you would quickly find another search site to use.

This is what happens when dorks are in charge of the company video production

We have written before about the pitfalls of producing company employment videos and here is yet more proof that you should be very careful when putting together your next you-beaut company video.

If you work with a bunch of dorks and you put a dorky video together that tells the whole world what dorks you are then just bear in mind it may not produce the results you were hoping for.

How do you measure job board success in a declining employment market?

This is not something we need to worry about in Australia just yet however prudent recruiters will be starting to consider these things in light of trends in the US.

We are so used to a booming job market in Australia that many people may not have given much thought to how you evaluate recruitment sources in a down market.

An interesting blog post in the US this month shows huge increases in applicants per job for online job boards from Q1 2007 to Q4 2007. Apps per job ad at Monster for example were up 1275%.

A down or declining job market in Australia would have the same effect. Does this mean the dominance of the top 3 job boards in "apps per job ad" would be watered down relative to other sources? Very likely. So how then do recruiters decide where to spend their ad budgets in a down market?

Some of the key metrics that recruiters will need to be thinking about are:

- cost per placement
- cost per quality applicant (cost of job ad / # of applicants per ad per job board that make it into the database)
- ratio of keepers vs non keepers (apps per ad per job board that make it into the database vs ones that don't)
- cost of doing business. Overall return from a job board vs the cost to your business of working with them. During a down market things like ease of use, customer support, account management, flexibility and minimum length of contract can become important considerations when choosing job board partners.

Do you measure these things now? Do you plan to?

Dust settling in job board land

The dust seems to be settling in job board land as established players and newcomers settle into their respective positions in the market. Aside from a little jostling for second and third there isn't much new or interesting to report. JJJ and JobX seem to have eased up on their gorilla poking, no-one has gone broke yet this year, the top end of town is settling back into normality, there doesn't seem to be anything new or exciting and all is calm.

So what is next? Will it be something new? Will we see consolidation? Will MyCareer and Careerone join forces? Will JJJ buy JobX or other tier 3s to strengthen their bid for outright 4th? Or is everyone battoning down the hatches to see what happens in the US?