Recent Neilson//NetRatings rankings for June 2007 put newcomer Climber.com in a positive light, cracking their Top Ten among career development sites.
On the traffic surge, Climber CEO Mike O’Brien says:
[The increase is due] mainly from online marketing and customers understanding the value we provide. We are also getting a large number of ‘climbers’ from referrals. We added some social light social networking functionality, another ‘climber’ can give an endorsement if they worked at the same company, and they can refer jobs to their career network. We also have 110,000 users and many of them are coming back regularly to check on companies who might be a great work-values fit.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is the site has the lowest amount of time spent per person, on average, at 46 seconds. And if you’ve been to Climber, you know their success is largely dependent on users spending ample time to fill out a profile. It’s about a 20 minute investment. These numbers suggest people are visiting the site. Just not sticking around very long.
O’Brien is undeterred. When asked if he’s concerned:
No, I think most people come to the site out of curiosity, so when they learn that it is going to take them 20 minutes or so, choose to do something else. The 20 minutes is a commitment, but those people who complete the process actually are very interested in the outcome. We are working on this, but I think we are hostage to the process.
Most of the industry’s up-and-comers rely on in-depth profiles and a significant time commitment from both job seekers and employers. Making them feel like they’re not hostage to the process should be a key to success. The other, which Climber seems to have an advantage, is traffic.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Thanks for the write-up. I will say that people who are ready to commit to the process typically need to be in a comfortable location. They do so at home. They may hear about us from co-workers, but in order to commit they need to do so at another time. I believe over the longterm, we will have of these shoppers show up at home at some point in the future.
Additionally, our climber members have requested more information on over 12,000 jobs this month so the ones that complete the process are very open to receiving job offers.
Cheers,
Mike
July 25th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
how does CBDR get away with supposedly having 7 MM more visitors than MNST? I could care less about either as the job board product in general is down the old crapper these days anyhow - but CBDR must add every newspaper they’re affiliated with to get those numbers - I know their product is crappy - I have a job search agent that emails me NOT JOBS - but links to sites that ask me to take Surveys!!