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19/11/2007

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Andy Headworth

I think the only bricks that Simon should worry about are on the Yellow Brick Road to Oz! Does he believe that agencies, small or large have based their whole business model on using Reed? Of course they don't, it is simply another channel that they will use. What a twat - he is obviously doing his clients a diservice, as he has let them believe he knows about recruitment....he obviously doesn't!!!

Paul Harrison, Carve Consulting

Andy, thanks for the comment. Terrifyingly though, I think a lot of consultancies *have* built their enire model on Reed... Or is that doing them a diservice?

Dom Sumners

The thing that most stuns me is the absolute refusal of some of the posters from the UKRecruiter Forum to accept that Reed.co.uk is part of a normal commercial organisation that seeks to make a profit. They believe that they as customers should be allowed in perpetuity to massively spam a very successful job board which it has cost ££millions to build develop and promote. Their main argument can be condensed into "but...but....but...its so unfair"

Jamie Leonard

While at Monster and the Fish the rec con pirates would ALWAYS use the Reed argument to beat down the price and generally make life hell. Can I say as an open and not so subtle disliker of anything rec con.....ha ha.

John Whitehurst

Reed has a 2.9% reach of the total internet universe and and a 8% reach of total internet users using job search.

Not really got anything else to say that has not already been said. Except that good business are built of great service and quality work - not free advertising.

John Whitehurst

I also noticed i missed the point on the comment on reach - only targeting 8% of the total audience is not a great bit of media planning.

Sam Michel

Having run a free board for 6 years - Chinwag Jobs (http://jobs.chinwag.com) started charging in Jan 2006, I can understand why they'd start charging. Whilst the technical costs may not be astronomical, the staff costs of running a jobs board are high, especially if there's diligent checking of the vacancies being posted. For us, it as all about keeping them relevant for the audience.

My favourite comment from a recruiter annoyed that we'd started charging was, "Well, I'm certainly not using your service now. It's just not as good value as it used to be."

Sadly, that wasn't followed up with an offer to pay our rent, salaries or overheads!

I agree with what John's saying, it's naive to think that purely using 'free' services is unlikely to generate enough reach on its own, but in sectors where there are enough qualified candidates, maybe you could get away with it.

We focus on recruiting in the digital sector, and there shortage of candidates is so acute, you'd never be able to get away with focusing solely on free services.

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