I’m not surprised to hear Jobster’s Jason Goldberg question the direction of Jobster-owned Recruiting.com. Its Digg-inspired offering has followed the same path of the few dictating the content of the many. As a result, “top” content tends to be a hodgepodge of the flamings and clutter of about a dozen users.
For recruitosphere zealots, it’s an intriguing playground of me-firsts, mischief and I’m-rights, you’re-wrongs. For the casual observer, it’s simply becoming an insider’s storyline not worth following. No doubt the site has tremendous value and even greater upside, but the road it’s now traveling does not seem to be one of greatness and big-time profitability.
In no particular order, if I ran Recruiting.com, here are some things I might consider doing:
- Be a spambuster. Restrict the number of stories an account can submit daily. Sure you can spam this too, but it’s a bit tougher. And don’t be afraid to axe accounts who abuse the system.
- Jobster’s social networking technology. I’m not sure why Jobster hasn’t plugged in their social networking technology into Recruiting.com. I’d move to do so.
- Wiki time. Launch wiki.recruiting.com and give people and organizations good reasons to participate in adding content.
- Secure and promote authors. There’s a nice array of writers who contribute to Recruitng.com. I don’t think they get enough attention. I would explore the option of creating more structure around the writers. Each one might have a day-of-the-week they contribute. I’d also look at retaining unique content and participation from well-known writers in the industry. Recruiting.com has lost its face. Time to get it back.
- Video. Produce a regular broadcast on what’s going on. Think Rocketboom for recruiting.
- Education. Provide ongoing, up-to-date resources to recruiters that may help them do their job better.
- Conferences. I’m sure this is on the radar, but the poker tournaments have been a nice success story. Take it on the road. Make them a bit more inclusive, however. Not everyone plays, or even likes, poker.
- Money talks. Figure out a way for the publishers (bloggers, job boards) who are loyal to the site to make money from it.
In short, balance the insider appeal with attracting a broader audience. There’s no reason Recruiting.com can’t be an even more important player. And no reason Jobster can’t leverage such success to advance its own interests without crossing lines of intrusion.
It’ll be interesting to see where the site goes in the coming months, since it certainly looks like some changes are coming. I’ll be cheering for the status quo to go down.
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March 19th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Joel I like your take on this. I agree that as of late there seems to be a lot of bickering, he said-she said, and hard feelings. I’m part of this too so I am not excluded - we all have feelings about certain topics that fire us up. I think debate is healthy as long as there are not personal attacks. I think especially there is something to be said about being a spambuster. If one person is that interested in posting a gob of stories, then they ought to start their own blog. I remember something Animal said awhile ago about voting categories for the worst blogs - that one of the categories should be the most number of shamless self-promoting posts which I found amusing, but so true! Granted, we all want people to look at our blogs but I think having relevant and interesting content will accomplish that.
I think a broader audience does need to be reached. Here’s a great analogy I heard awhile back: why do churches hold bake sales to raise money? Usually the only people who come to buy baked goods are those who baked something to begin with or those who attend the church, so why not take the money used to buy the ingredients and just give it to the church instead of wasting the time and effort to put on the bake sale? Reach beyond your own community. We need to reach beyond our small little blogging community and welcome others in to let their voices be heard. There are lots of intelligent voices out there who may be hesitant to participate because they’re afraid of getting judged, chewed up and spit out for having a thought or opinion that is a little different.
Can I offer any suggestions? I think you brought up some great ones. I think looking deep into some of the blog rolls of the regulars we may find some obscure recruiter or researcher with a great idea. I think just reaching out to others through our own networks and (genuinely) expressing interest in their knowledge will help this out. Having the attitude that ‘I know everything and there’s nothing more that I can learn from anyone’ is the surest indication that there is much more to be learned :) I think in addition to that, there are some folks in related industries that can contribute. I’ve noticed a lot of good articles on http://www.recruiterlife.com that are sort of related to recruiting but maybe a degree or two in another direction. There’s lots to be learned there as well.
Thanks again for pointing this out. As always, I respect you and your thoughts very much!
March 21st, 2007 at 4:53 am
World University rankings not related to this post, but really interesting to look at.