Classified Intelligence has recently published “Recruitment Advertising: Moving in New Directions.” The report was based on a fall 2007 survey of 177 recruiters conducted in conjunction with ERE Media Inc., an online recruitment community.
In a nutshell, the survey says recruiters are gravitating toward networking sites (both social and business) and employee referral programs. Print is dying (shocker!) and job boards are falling out of favor “due to the waning quality of candidates.”
Says Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of Classified Intelligence:
As recruiters move away from print, they are becoming increasingly creative in the ‘war for talent’ – using new ways, even virtual worlds, to find candidates. Newspapers have a very difficult challenge trying to provide new tools for recruiters who report they continue to cut their newspaper advertising spending. Our research even shows online job sites don’t fare as well as they used to.
Notably, the study shows social networking and search engine marketing with the highest increases in future usage (assuming my math is right).
Granted, the increases in those sectors have something to do with the amount of room for growth, but it’s still a positive sign for those of us out there touting innovative ways to recruit, such as HR SEO.
In a similar study done by Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler of CareerXroads, entitled “Sources of Hire,” search marketing is highlighted as “small numbers but high potential.”
In a message promoting the research, Crispin and Mehler proclaim, “We continue to feel that the advantages of various advertising and optimization methods with search engines will drive targeted professionals to develop relationships but measuring its impact as a source will be difficult at best.”
Popularity: 9% [?]
February 28th, 2008 at 10:42 am
It’s a shame Zollman didn’t differentiate between niche and generalist job boards in the survey…
March 2nd, 2008 at 5:11 am
Job boards are indeed falling out of favor but not because of a supposed “waning quality of candidates”. It’s because an advertised job will get hundreds of applicants making the selection process bleak for most job seekers and overwhelming for HR. There’s no personal touch. It sets up the process to have an adversarial tone, like a meat market.