Considering this news, I thought it would be appropriate to solicit former Yahoo! HotJobs head honcho and current Jobvite CEO Dan Finnigan for some advice. We sat down to talk about how companies can reduce their recruiting spend while still maintaining good recruiters and a solid pipeline of candidates during turbulent times.

Finnigan began by saying that most companies who plan poorly won’t be prepared for what’s looming on the horizon.

“The vast majority of companies will be in maintain mode after they make some cutbacks in this budget cycle,” Finnigan said . “At the end of 2009 they’re probably going to up their hiring a little bit, but they’ll still have a wait and see period. Sometime in 2010 they’ll see the turnover is now real but they won’t have half the budgets.”

But 2011, he predicted, will be the year that companies are back to growth hiring mode. In the meantime, many will need to lower the costs of their own internal recruiting effort by getting better (but affordable) recruiters and increasing the number of hires they receive through referral efforts.

Finnigan outlined three ways that companies can reduce their recruiting spend all while maintaining a solid recruiting department: target your sourcing intelligently, don’t overspend, and act like marketer. If you’re going to spend money, he advised, do the things that are free or come at a much lower cost, and take advantage of the way the Internet works. And most importantly, provide a great candidate experience. Here’s his advice in detail:

The recruiting spend is composed of [a company's] own internal recruitment effort. They have technology infrastructure like an ATS, and then they spend money on job advertising and job events. The second category is recruitment agencies, and the third are referrals.

First, companies can increase the number of hires through their referral efforts or agencies. Second, companies should do intelligent marketing-informed targeting of their opportunities to the right audience so that they can whittle down their spend.

The job boards have been great innovators from migrating recruiting from a print world to an online world (and it’s much less expensive), but perhaps a horizontal job board doesn’t make sense anymore. For one there are many effective niche communities. More people are spending time online professionally on web sites and community user groups and blogs. Those are the places to target the right job for that audience. Once you do that you need to measure the effectiveness of it. Most recruiting efforts don’t do a good job at tracking the results of the spend that they have.

Try to find a niche targeted outlet for the advertising of job opportunities as opposed to the easier-to-do but less effective horizontal job boards.

Companies must get very good at optimizing their marketing online for free awareness and free traffic and free leads. That means there are free or low-cost sources of candidates. Optimizing their career job board to be found by search engines is a smart thing to do.

When creating a job description, put in the words that people are going to use when they search search engines. Hopefully the quality will be better if they’re the right words. This is an emerging practice among the smart online recruiters.

Another practice that we strongly believe in here at Jobvite is social networking. On average 29 percent of all hires come from employee referrals and social networking, and that’s now going up. It’s much easier for people to share information online. You can make that number go up by using the right tools and motivating employees.

Finally, many people are going to apply for jobs that may not be the best fit for them because they want to find a job and it’s hard to do so. It’s really important for companies to provide a great candidate experience for all their candidates both online and when they come into the building.

People’s natural instinct [during tough times] is to retreat. I think that’s the biggest mistake a company can make right now. Now is the time for companies to invest in their products and the time for people to invest in their careers, so that when we do come out of this you increase the value of yourself.

Among the improvements they’re touting include 1) Over 50 percent easier to become a Monster member, 2) Over 70 percent easier to upload a resume to Monster.com, and 3) On average, over 60 percent easier to apply to a job (all tracked by Internal Monster Data 2008).

Well, like you, I just couldn’t wait for January and decided to try and set-up an interview for more information. Granting us the first-ever, official conversation (it must’ve been official, because a PR guy was present), we spoke with Eric Winegardner, Monster’s vice president of client adoption.

All about the job seekers
“Our philosophy at Monster is focused on life improvement,” said Winegardner. “We do what makes sense to the job seeker. A good job equals a good life. This relaunch is a big first step in that direction. Our shift in focus will be around the seeker and the journey they’re on: Focus on the things that were broken and what was the new technology that we could implement to bring the job seeker something that wasn’t there before.”

According to a sales presentation we were able to get our hands on, the Jan. release will bring “New tools that let seekers plan their career paths, giving employers seekers who want to grow with their company. In short, by dynamically improving our seeker site, we’re providing you with better, more engaged candidates—and more impactful ways to reach them.”

Huh?

Winegardner explained the improvements through buzzwords like “career mapping” and “career snapshots.” Imagine you’re a VP of marketing. Monster will begin analyzing the road you took in becoming a VP of marketing. Maybe you were a manager before, and a public relations expert and a tradeshow manager before that. Monster hopes to bring you results, content and resources around that insight. Likewise, a “career benchmarking” tool will help job seekers ready themselves for the future against others in their industry.

Location seemed to be a big part of the new offering as well. Possibly similar to looking at a job description on Jobing, seekers will be able to Google Map their way to the jobs closest to where they live more easily.

What about Trovix?
For those waiting to see the integration of newly acquired Trovix technology, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. Winegardner said those changes won’t start taking place till the first half of 2009. For the foreseeable future, however, the way candidates upload resumes and employers post jobs will not change.

Search should become more algorithmic in nature as well. Traditionally, jobs have been served in date order, but Winegardner says to expect results to begin to be served more based on relevancy and behavior. Social networking and potentially integrating Affinity Labs technology “was discussed” internally at Monster but won’t happen for the Jan. 2009 relaunch. The new look will go live in 24 countries in 30 different languages with a progressive roll out to the rest of the world to follow.

The decision to put so much weight behind this new-and-improved Monster without integrating Trovix’s technology seems like a very risky move to me. Granted, job seekers don’t know Trovix from Plavix, but the industry is watching. And if this relaunch plants the company flat on its face in disappointment, future updates that actually might be interesting could fall on deaf ears.

For employers
Winegardner didn’t go into how employers would benefit from the relaunch to any great degree, but companies should expect to see greater integration into posting a job and promoting them via the Monster Career Advertising Network (CAN). A press release dated June 23, 2008 says, “CAN is capable of dynamic targeting, driven by a sophisticated set of algorithms that factor in job title, occupational category and location, among other key matching factors. Employers can track value with the ability to monitor the number of job views and job response.”

Pricing for CAN ranges from $475 to $50 depending on volume.

According to a current sales presentation, “Innovative products, such as Monster Career Ad Network, give you the power to showcase your postings where seekers live online. With Career Ad Network, you can extend your reach to those hard-to-find seekers, leveraging Monster and our vast network of diverse partner sites. The combined power of these new Monster platforms will make the recruiting process more productive and cost efficient, so seekers can quickly find their perfect job - yours.”

Aside from the CAN integration, though, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of meat in employer-related advancements. “Our new product platform is the foundation of our Life Improvement brand. This new philosophy is a strategic and powerful approach to managing your human capital sourcing needs.” Um, OK. Guess they’re expecting the job seeker enhancements alone to translate into a better employer experience.

Will it work?
The true test for the “new” Monster will have to wait till next year, when we can all test drive it for ourselves. Attendees at last month’s ERE conference got a taste, but no one we talked with could articulate whether the changes would make much of a difference, which, considering how much chest-beating they’re doing in promoting the Jan. release date, probably isn’t a good thing.

In response to seeing a demo given by Monster, one recruitment advertising agency professional said, “Honestly, it’s a bit hard to tell if it’ll make a difference. The presentation was pretty slick and there are some cool new features but they kept claiming how much easier it was going to be for the candidates, but I wasn’t seeing it. It may be but it was tough to tell from the demo.”

Want more insight? Checkout:
New Monster.com will be an ‘almost 100%’ rebuild, Iannuzzi says
Monster Creates Expo Buzz Over Its Coming “User-Centric” Launch
Monster.com Promises to Revolutionize Online Recruiting on 01-10-09
For a copy of the complete presentation, checkout our Facebook Fan Site under Posted Items.

But these bloggers that I’m focusing on today know the formula for success. They’ve built their blogs around a name that’s become as familiar to some of us in the recruiting sector as toast and eggs are to breakfast. And we go back to them again and again like jilted lovers seeking more tawdry gossip, more stats, more tips, and more spiteful comments from people like ‘ihatemonster86″ and my favorite, ‘thisblogsucks22.’

A few of the bloggers I talked to recently fessed up to a recent spike in traffic, which could be attributed to one of several things: a)the suckfest that is the economy; b)timely, original content; c)a blog that is refreshed daily, if not more; d)a loyal group of readers who help spread the word; e)SEO: or the gift that keeps on giving. As a blogger, it’s your best friend.

Jason Davis, founder of recruiters’ network RecruitingBlogs.com, pointed me to a recent blog post by RBC fan and contributor John Sumser, who performed some analysis on Compete to dig deeper into the site’s forward momentum.

“Over the course of the past year, the number of unique visitors to [RBC] each month has grown by over 500 percent,” Sumser said in his post. “The total number of monthly visits has exploded at a rate of nearly 1,000 percent.”

Sumser said that when you compare RBC with the dominant members of the industry, HR.com and ERE.net, attention paid to RBC is significantly greater. “That means that the industry as a whole spends more of its time here than anywhere else, than the other two combined. . . you’d be tempted to predict that we’ll overtake the industry leaders by this time next year.”

Davis said that RBC, now around 13K members strong, has burgeoned because it was designed to be viral, and ever since he began the network, things just moved to the next level in terms of new recruiters joining, content generation, and traffic.

“I think RecruitingBlogs.com is starting to look like something very real and something that should be watched and taken seriously. It’s not going to go away anytime soon,” Davis said. “I feel the awareness of RBC just seems to be spreading a little, and I think it has to do with with the architecture of the site as well as all of the people involved. . . it is a community, and I respect the community because I get instant feedback from so many people about the things I want to try. It makes everyone involved feel like a real contributor.”

Todd Raphael, Editor-in-Chief of ERE.net, said that the numbers Sumser computed aren’t factual and that his site remains the leader in traffic.

“The numbers are of course wrong,” Raphael said. “Not to get on my soapbox, but a lot of what I read in the media is factually incorrect. Just totally false.”

He continued to say that ERE remains successful because it doesn’t focus on driving traffic to the site and sometimes simply inserts links into a newsletter that will propel the reader elsewhere.

“Today’s newsletter is such a great example. Check it out. It’s mainly self-contained information with not a lot of ‘read mores.’ I sacrificed traffic to save readers’ time. Of course, none of this is in any way to put down RBC - it has succeeded wildly at networking.”

Speaking of networking, one man has made a living out of teaching people how to network: Jim Stroud. He took his advice to the blogs and created The Recruiters Lounge to help recruiters and sourcers more efficiently manage their time and productivity levels and to advance their practical knowledge on things like sourcing on Facebook and Twitter.

“The success of my blog is something that truly confuses me,” Stroud said. “HR is not the sexiest topic around, but people tend to dig what I write about. When I create a post or publish something that someone else submitted, I use the standard of ‘blogworthy.’ What is blogworthy is difficult to explain, but here is a basic formula: it is one-part relevant information, one-part gut reaction to the information, and one-part of it is the mood I am in.”

Stroud’s blog was recently named the number one talent management blog in terms of its power by FistfulofTalent.

He said he hopes to keep the giggles coming along with the videos and podcasts as long as they retain significance and some degree of entertainment beyond their original post date.

“The Recruiters Lounge has been a labor of love for me. Hmmm . . . maybe the underlying reason for my blog’s success is love.”

Another blog that’s seen its share of success lately is Laurie Ruetimann’s PunkRockHR site.

“I think people come to my site to understand how to ‘game the system,” Ruetimann said. “They see HR as a hurdle on job search, and any information about HR to set them apart from the pack is considered important and beneficial. Readers want to be fully educated before they speak with a member of HR - they are doing reconnaissance work.”

Here at Cheezhead we don’t focus on numbers or traffic or silly things like that. We certainly don’t care to know how many unique visitors our site gets monthly. We’d rather spend our time praising industry leaders and providing educational blogs to Job Seeker Bill or HR Vendor Timmy. We don’t ask for our readers to contribute anything, unless it’s their own insightful opinion attached to a blog post. It’s your business, after all, how often and how long you’re on the site.

But as long as you’re here, why don’t you check out our blog?

The black voters I spoke to admitted to being partial to him because it could be, and now is, such a strong statement to elect a person of color as leader of this nation. I smile because it appears his color may have meant more to black voters than to many whites.

Obama is racially and ethnically blended - only partially black, as a race, and Kenyan as an ethnicity, and partially white as a race, and Irish as an ethnicity. A mutt, actually. Back in the day, he would have been called mulatto, and he is more similar to the growing majority of people as the world becomes smaller and more interracial unions take place.

Barack was raised in several geographic areas (Kansas, Hawaii, Jakarta), cultures (Midwestern, Hawaiian, Indonesian), and religions (Muslim, Catholic, and Atheism) and educated in schools with rich, sometimes conflicting views of the world. In addition to his spending his youth abroad, he lived in LA, New York, Chicago, and Illinois, Ohio, and Massachusetts. All of this background (geography, race, affiliations, exposures, family cultures, education) makes Barack a uniquely diverse individual.

In his article “The Changing Definition of Workplace Diversity,” William G. Shackelford writes: “In its broadest context, diversity candidates are being defined as “individuals who bring unique perspectives or outlooks to the organization.”

The new definition of diversity includes the traditional categories of race and gender. In addition, it includes people with disabilities, gays and lesbians, and other non-traditional categories. One of the most interesting categories being used by some employers is “diversity of thought,” which they say can be obtained by hiring individuals with different degrees, college affiliations, education, or social economic backgrounds.

According to this relatively new body of research metrics and projections, we will undoubtedly be looking at changing definitions of minorities (e.g. women currently comprise nearly half of the labor force) and enhancing our recruiting strategies to include many more types of diversity.

How many expanded definitions of each can you come up with? You can use this as a guide, also from Shackelford: “Sociologist Louis Wirth defined a minority group as ‘a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination.’”

For instance, take the definition of minority. Will it include those of particular blended race combinations? For example, will there be a new minority of those who are 1/3 Indian, 1/3 White, and 1/3 Hispanic? If you are only 1/4 black, but definitely look black, are you in a certain discrimination class? How long before Asian women no longer qualify to fill affirmative action quotas? Which foreigners entering the U.S. in the next decade will create a new minority? By 2010, the Hispanic labor force is projected to be larger than the African American labor force, and Asians will continue to be the fastest growing group in the labor force.

One of the most interesting questions I ponder these days is will the expanded definitions of diversity actually create new classes of minorities? For instance, will “no college degree” become a minority and/or a protected class? We must face the possibility that education may be the next minority issue. And will you be able to de-select job candidates legally if they have no second language or have not lived in another country, for instance?

First, Wheeler tackled Europe and the Middle East. He said that in Europe there are fewer open positions and a lower demand for talent. There also exists caution and concern for the significant slowing of employment growth in the past few years. Temporary employment has increased, with a concentration found mostly in youth of Spain, France, Germany, and Sweden.

In the Middle East there is a high demand for skilled workers and many open positions, but companies there can’t fill vacancies fast enough. Firms like KPMG are finding that when one hole is plugged, another three spring open.

A recent study attributes a new crisis to this talent shortage. An Arab Human Develpment Report by the US Bureau of Census in 2002 found that there has been a rise in the “brain drain” crisis. About 25 percent of 300,000 college grads flow outside of the region. And that’s a huge number considering that the census noted 45 percent of the Middle Eastern population is under 20 and seventy percent under 35.

In India there has been a dampening of demand but the recruiting sector is still highly competitive. And in China demand is still robust, but slower, and while there is uncertainy in manufacturing, the service sector remains strong. One major issue in both countries is the decline of educated people. The ones who are educated display an unwillingness to relocate.

In China there is simply not enough job creation to meet the demands of over 150 million rural surplus laborers and 13 million unemployed persons. Work is scarce and wages are limited. Add this to the fact that over 1.24 million college students graduated without jobs in 2006, a number that continues to grow, and you’ve got a burgeoning crisis on your hands.

Wheeler said Australia faces a tremendous shortage of talent, and there has been a push to develop the skill set of people so that they may fill existing roles.

America’s got three major problems that are pouring oil on the fire. First, the talent risk is going up. Secondly, so is the age of our workforce. And third, there have been drastic skill shortages that plague many industries. On the flip side, despite the economy becoming lackluster, temporary and contingent work is rising. In fact, I’ve heard and read many bits of information on search firms who are loving and even thriving inside the recession.

Wheeler named his picks for the next recruiting frontiers, where one-third of the world’s people reside: India, China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, and South Korea. To demonstrate how sophisticated (and populated) these countries have become, he showed slides that depicted Bangalore in India and Shanghai in China 100 years ago vs. how they look now. It was incredible to see such intricate highway systems and dazzling skyscrapers and streets so crowded you couldn’t glimpse the pavement replace a much quieter, antiquated landscape of streetcars, bundles of telephone polls, and small older buildings.

It’s so important to check the global pulse of recruiting as often as possible, as Wheeler’s presentation suggests. I think that Americans live in somewhat of a bubble, and many don’t look outside their window to gain a wider, more appreciative perspective. The best recruiters who take all these international factors into account when making a placement or building a pipeline will be the ones who survive and thrive in this economic showdown.