I spent most of the weekend relaxing with the family and celebrating green beer day and now its another day at work. The odd thing about this Monday is that tomorrow is my last day at my current employer. I have been here 3 years (almost) and I'm off to better and more exciting things. It's going to be a little wierd turning in my keys and everything but you just have to do what you have to do sometimes.
I will be leaving recruiting advertising to explore opportunities on the internet in advertising and I am a little stoked. On the other hand, I am aware of what awaits me and I definitely have alot of work to do. Recruiting is a big business right now and it may get a little bigger so I thought I would leave this industry with what i've learned about recruiting.
1. Inside of 10 years, there will be 3 million more positions than people in the workforce. This will make companies focus more on retaining employees than recruiting them.
2. Employment Advertising is a necessary evil. Recruiters spent $12 billion last year on recruitment advertising most of which was spent online rather than print channels which was a first. Think about it this way. Do you know how much a full page ad in The Oklahoman is? If you don't, let's just say they are one of the most expensive in the nation. You see these hospitals' full page ads recruiting nurses? Well, there are no nurses looking for work right now and if they are, they certainly don't have to pick up a newspaper to find a new job. They can usually find a new gig with one or two phone calls. So why do hospitals spend upwards of $10k for an ad on one Sunday? I guess for brand recognition but who knows for sure. All I know is that some hospitals spend an average of a couple grand to just place one nurse. If you are recruiting because of expansion and you are filling new positions then it just sucks to be you. If you are recruiting to replace a nurse that went to work somewhere else, I would rethink that strategy.
3. Social networking will be the key to recruiting in the future. Make sure your user pages on any network present a good picture of who you are as recruiters are already using these as a tool. You can learn alot more about a person from a social networking user page than you ever will from a resume. In other words, if you have a good picture of your buddy passed out and you have marked obscenities all over his face with a permananet marker on your user page along with other controversial pictures or text, I would not wonder too much when you don't get a call back for a job you applied for. And for you sneaky ones that just make your profile private, the person competing with you may not have theirs private and they may look like a good person. This can hurt you too.
4. Job fairs are becoming more and more useless for employers. Job seekers do not have a need to physically attend these events to find work and as competition grows, job seeker turn out gets smaller and smaller. I would be willing to bet that in 2008, most of the job seekers at these events are unemployable or have a major background flaw for whatever reason.
5. So who will be king of the future in terms of employment advertising? Well, the daily papers are already seeing the hit but I would guess they reach the most qualified job seekers in terms of print. On the internet? Careerbuilder is the top dog along with monster but those TV ads get very expensive. All I have to say is that if you have to purchase Super Bowl ads to increase your content and help drive revenue, you have a little bit of a problem. Leave the Super Bowl to Budweiser. Ever see Google on TV? Here is why. More and more job seekers are finding their jobs through feeds from whoever or they are seeing them through vertical search engines such as simply hired. At some point, no internet user will go to monster or careerbuilder because they only hold value in the short term. They have had a good thing going for too long and they shouldn't be making money this way. They won't be able to maybe even 5 years from now. Shoulda seen it coming... So who is on the right track? YAHOO is and here is why. Hotjobs is only a portion of what they do. Those who make recruiting their sole service are doomed. Anyone here about Yahoo offering that guy that started facebook like a billion dollars for his social network? Somebody at Yahoo sees what is coming and they are moving in that direction.
So what is in it for you as a job seeker? Let's say it eventually came down to social networking and no company ever had to pay to find job seekers. Well let's see, that could save these employers $10 billion! Maybe more. Don't you think it would be a good idea to use that $10 billion to pay higher wages to help retain the employees we do have since there is such a shortage? It makes sense to me.
This is just a theory and we all know that it will unlikely unfold this way, but it definitely can. All I can say is that if you are in recruiting advertising and ONLY that channel, you better be hiring some brilliant people because you are fixing to have to get VERY creative.
If you are a job seeker, don't change a thing for now. Recruiters are smart and if you have a user page, they WILL find it. So just make sure it paints a good picture of you and you will have nothing to worry about.
