The future starts right here and right now

An interesting set of comments are still growing under the post below but I wanted to take the debate in a slightly different direction

I’ve been in the USA for the last week and am actually currently blogging this in San Francisco (hence the time of my post!). While I’ve been here I’ve met with a number of “self styled online recruitment experts” (yes they have them over here as well!) and had a lot of time to ponder what is happening in the US market and how there might be learnings for the UK.

By far the most interesting trend here is the growth of aggregators and vertical search engines such as Simply Hired and Indeed.com. The business model is so simple yet so effective. Gather a critical mass of content (jobs) via various means, mash it up with millions of jobs seekers across numerous affiliate sites and widgets and then target / monetise this content using a Google Adwords model .

Now the key point here is that these sites aren’t some kind of USA only revolution, they are already over here. Simply Hired powers the job search on MySpace globally which already makes is a massive player in the UK and they haven’t even got an office here yet! If you also throw into the mix things like Jobsite’s new Facebook App, it makes the debate we are having about traffic and auditing in the post below totally out of date and totally irrelevant.

In my view measuring and auditing generic traffic figures is already a waste of time but these new trends make it explicitly so. Simply Hired doesn’t care how many people view its home page, Jobsite is using Facebook to deep link candidates to relevant site content thus extending its audience reach in a way an audit can’t quantify and, as Sinead points out in the comments to the post below, technologies such as AJAX are changing the old rules completely. You wouldn’t dream of asking Google for its ABCE audit figure or NORAS stats before using it and we need to think of the emerging “job board” market in the same way.

So what then for us as an industry if press style auditing and traffic measurement is dead, what do we focus are collective energies on?

There has been much talk about the happy day when it will be easy to measure cost per hire and collectively compare job board performance that way. I’ve got some news for you….yes this will absolutely be possible but when it’s the norm for clients to do this the last thing they are going to do is share the data! There is global war for candidates / talent going on out there and all the demographic data shows that it is only going to get worse over the coming years. No client in their right mind is going to want to give up any competitive advantage they have

So what do we do? Well I think the way forward is clear…not easy, not short term, potentially controversial but nevertheless clear. We need to open the debate up to the people who will drive the technology that will make the measurements….the ATS providers, multi posters like Broadbean, the cookie trackers, the ad servers and the potential inventors of future technologies. Between us we need to agree a shared language, techonology and culture of results based measurement. Even though the end stats won’t be shared I’m sure every job board or future “provider of candidates” would be over the moon if they knew their performance was being judged in a consistent and fair way.

So what’s the first step? Well it’s not going to be a short journey, in fact it is going to take years. So despite what you might currently think about UK buyers currently being generally unsophisticated, we need to start this right now. It’s not about new research or new industry bodies at this stage it’s about a culture change in the UK online recruitment industry. We need to talk about measurement at every conference at every networking event and on every blog. I’m sure they will be many rows over format but if we all keep having the proper debate and agree on the shared goal then things will start to emerge that take us forward.

In the last year it has become crystal clear that this industry is changing faster than any us can keep up with. Now is not the time to bury our heads in the audits, surveys and outmoded behaviours of the past!

Comments

[Peter Gold]

Matt

I agree that job boards will no longer be judged on hits etc but don't see how the ATS vendors, multi posters etc are part of your answer. The technology you speak of already exists; it is the client that needs to change the way they think/work/act.

Until recruiting people is a real board level priority recruitment will be seen as a business annoyance and be treated accordingly. As long as it sits with HR who have little clout then it will never get the resources or investment.

And the good ones - as you say, they won't be helping anyone!

Good post.

[Matt]

Thanks Peter and you are absolutely right. If all companies put board level importance on recruitment then we wouldn't need to have a debate about measurement in this space...everyone would just be doing it!
I do think though it is our responsibility as an industry to broaden the scope and increase the volume round the measurement debate. At the moment there is so much focus on front end traffic and site job volumes that most companies aren't even aware of the measurement that is possible. At least if people know these tools are on offer more might start to use them. Experience tells me that once a client starts objectively measuring their online recruitment performance (and I don't mean by using drop down menus or job board stats) they never go back to the old way of doing it!!

[John Whitehurst]

Interesting post and comments.

The key is getting people to use information in the right way. You can measure anything - but make the figures work for you. When you buy on a ppc model you need to measure clicks, when you buy on time period you need to measaure audience over time, when you buy on impressions you need to measure impressions.

One limitation of performance models in recruitment is the complexity of the decision making process. Affiliates still only really work on low involvement products.

I would suggest we need to look at all factors - optimise only to performance and you don't always drive volume.

Advertisers and agencies need different people and methodolgies to work in this way. Until we recruit the right level of people we will still buy on time period and impression.BUYING ON TIME PERIOD IS EASY AND PEOPLE CAN BE LAZY.

I would say recruitment is a board level issue BUT the real issue at board level is one of risk ... Advertising does not always result in sucess. With good planning, the ability to optimise and a real understanding of what the information means - you can reduce this risk. You can also take action to meet targets - advertising only works when you work at it.

The business models are out there and can improve the efficiency. But, we need the talent and structure to deliver.

Education, the right people and actually working very hard will bring the results.