Pay...Go Dutch...or Expect it for Free?

I attended a breakfast seminar a couple of weeks ago held by the FT/exec-appointments.com. The topic was 'International Jobs – Strategies for Candidate Sourcing' and the presentation was given by the exec-appointments CEO, Betty Thayer. There was some great content in there on global talent management, talent being globally mobile, emerging markets and the rise of the Internet as a primary sourcing tool for global executive recruitment. All great stuff.

Now, as often happens at such things, something will be be mentioned or discussed which gets me thinking......

On this occasion, there was mention of how, in some countries, there are recruitment websites that have a candidate subscription model, you register your CV for a fee.....you pay to give them your CV. It was mentioned how Theladders was finding uptake of its 'premium' membership challenging in the UK market.

This brought me back to about a year/year and a half ago, when a German recruitment company was asking MediaCom to launch its services in the UK. They asked me for my tuppence worth and on investigation I discovered the German website/recruitment service was based 100% on job seekers subscribing to this site, paying money for connecting with a recruiter. Seemingly this model was incredibly successful in the German market.

I was at a bit of a loss. Recruitment consultants were ringing tonnes of professionals across many different industries in the UK trying to get them to give their CV to recruiters, arrange an interview, coach them through the process. All for free. Why on earth would I pay money to give a recruitment consultant (of types) access to my CV?

My thoughts, were that for this to be a successful launch, they would have to position this as an exclusive-club of sorts (people like feeling elite) offer fantastic added value (which I couldn't see from the model on show, what that would be) and really it would be more of a compelling proposition in the UK in an economic downturn, when the supply and demand dynamic shifted in the employers favour.

So, we are in the midst of a credit crunch and there is talk of things getting worse before they get better. Does this mean we will all soon be subscribing to the premium LinkedIn and Theladders services? Mmn...I'm not so sure. Unlike previous recessions talent and skill shortages exist, and talent is recognised, like never before, as being an incredibly important commodity to a companies success.

It's only really niche, exclusive type social  networking sites that I see as being capable of securing a paid fee from users. Think of asmallworld.com or the exclusive graduate/MBA professional networking site Doostang.com. 

Call it the cultural conditioning of growing up in the UK Internet recruitment market, but I guess I don't see the added value or exclusivity from premium subscriptions on such sites....not yet anyway.

Comments

[Alastair Cartwright]

Hi Sinead,

Nice article.

I've become more and more curious about "the ladders" type of model. At first I didn't think it could possibly work over here, how could it when you have headhunters falling over themselves to represent you and offer a free service.

I can understand how it could work in Germany and USA where the executive search market is significantly smaller. But surely us Brits are made of sterner stuff...

And then today I found another site (owned by Imprint) who are "offering" a similar fee paying service http://www.experteer.co.uk/

Maybe there is something in this afterall...

[Derek Pilcher]

Sinead,

Long time since we caught up - delighted to hear your views on the growing Executive Level focus in the UK online recruitment marketplace.

Thought I would add some personal comment on how I see this shift at the executive level developing without it being a full scale Ladders pitch! Apologies, ahead of the game, for the long post.

1, TheLadders is a Career Services site - may seem an ambiguous statement, but it is not simply about paying to access jobs. The subscription model delivers a package of benefits (Detailed CV critique, Salary Reports, etc) and as per our US site, TheLadders.com, we are looking in the UK to extend the 'value add' to our user base into additional areas of the hiring process.

2, All Jobs posted to TheLadders are quality checked to ensure they meet the criteria of a £50k+ role - they will be rejected if not - this ensures all available roles on our site are targeted to the specific £50k+ jobseeker. And unlike a lot of UK sites, we do not have jobs advertised with no salary package. In addition, all subscribers are approved before being accepted into our searchable job seeker community - and yes, we do reject candidates that do not meet that criteria and refund their money!

3, An estimated 15% of UK job vacancies sit in the executive level arena and it is this 'niche' that TheLadders focus on. We are not competing with the broad horizontal jobboards in the UK whose value is more in the generic volume roles. This has benefits to both the Recruiter and the JobSeeker alike - the Recruiters feedback is that they get a lower volume of applications, but far greater quality, therefore optimising their time and resources and ultimately delivering the better volume of CV's onto a final interview shortlist. The seeker (early user group feedback tells us) is becoming increasingly frustrated with loading their details to the generic boards and being 'hounded' by consultants who are just building their candidate registration databases or worse, sending their CV into a black hole with no acknowledgement or follow-up. Paying to benefit from the ancillary benefits (CV Critique, etc) and to access a pool of jobs and recruiters that meet their specific 'executive' criteria is of huge benefit to these time conscious individuals.

4, Our experience in the UK is similar to the US. The growth rates from Year 1 are comparable - momentum takes time to build. The jobseekers first need to trust the brand and understand the difference between TheLadders and other jobsites to feel confident in paying to subscribe. If they just think they are paying for jobs, then we have not demonstrated our USP's or proposition effectively. This credibility and value element gains ground, the more the brand reach is extended across all of the available platforms and word of mouth from seekers and recruiters continues to spread the word.

There is no doubt that there is a greater degree of focus latterly into this specific Executive job seeker in the UK and one that more than justifies the opportunity not just for TheLadders, but also for Executive Appts, Experteer, Executivesontheweb and others. Online in the 'First Coming' showed the value of online vs print to the seeker, the next stage is to develop the user experience to the 'asset' which ultimately is the jobseeker. Jobboards, bar Linked-in (arguably not a jobboard but a network and online CV!) have not sufficiently addressed giving the seeker anything more than a destination for Job content - the jobseeker is already demanding more. Those that deliver will benefit out of the 'Second Coming'!

Long may we all see this Executive segment grow

[John Whitehurst]

Maybe someone can clear this up for me ... a number of years ago a mistake was made with the legislation for websites and they were classed in the same category as recruitment consultancies. So a subscription model paid by users was technically illegal - for a pure recruitment site.

Is this still the case or has it been sorted out? Any publisher out there with the answer?

On the point with regards to a subscription based model ... well you always get what you pay for - i have always thought most of the main job boards well full of promises but backed up with poor content.

No matter what the age, level or area of work - people need support and quality information to help them in the job market.

[Sinead Bunting]

Hi Derek

Good to hear from you and thanks for joining in the discussion. I was hoping to hear peoples thoughts and views with this post. You make some good points and the £50K+ niche you speak of is very valid.

I think we've all realised that job boards would need to start offering added-value and a career service of sorts, to build a long-term, sustainable relationship with candidates. I just wasn't sure whether candidates would have to pay for this next evolution in online career services.

I guess the proof of the pudding will be in whether people believe they are being provided with an added-value service, worth paying for. I imagine this will be the main challenge for providers, although there's loads of ways candiates can be helped and plenty of services they will find useful and maybe worthwhile putting their hand in their pocket for.

Will watch this area with interest.

[Alex Hens]

Interesting subject that's for sure.

I'm unfortunately a little cynical myself - active job hunting activity is surely for the individual pretty cyclical, certainly at a Senior Exec level (everyone knows that appearing as a job jumper on your CV ain't so great)? So given that you'll perhaps have anywhere between at least 3-5years in a job (am sure there's some proper research out there somewhere on this) is there really such a thing as a "long term sustainable relationship" for a job board to build? You need a strong brand with great recollection value for sure - but the choice is so vast in job searching channels it's got to be a pretty transactional activity when you're active.

And with such a "rich" spread of options for people to pursue when actively job searching then you’ve got some convincing to do before I pay for services over getting them free. Surely there’s also a slight worry that a pay for access model cuts out the semi-passive job seeker? The person who will have a peep at the job market out of curiosity every once in a while but is pretty content doing what they’re doing. Headhunters make their living in this market tapping the passive & semi-passive job seeker, so is putting a registration barrier between a semi-passive and a potential job for them a barrier too far (with so many other players clamouring for their partial attention).

Now admittedly I'm the kinda guy who buys his Boots meal deal partly based on what I feel like eating and partly from the more expensive elements that therefore give me the greatest shown saving (go on - you know what I mean?! Let’s call it “BOGOF syndrome”). So when it comes to looking for a job I'd use the plethora of free access job boards for starters, picking up tips they offer in their "how to" elements to brush up my CV presentation. I'd also probably sling my CV to a couple of Rec Consultants too and push them to help me with advice on the CV structure (especially if it wasn't working initially on getting interviews off my own back). For a tight arse like me you'd have to do a lot of convincing that whatever services I'd pay for in any new model would be such a significant benefit to me that I'd see obvious and instant value returned on that investment.

I'm sure:
1. I'm a particularly cheap/tight and in the minority as a result.
2. For Execs worth their salt a £10 punt to see what value they get is negligible.
3. Those entering this sector with a paid for model (such as TheLadders) will do so with a plethora of great opportunities and a real quality CV critique and other services.

I guess the biggest challenge of this model, apart from getting the candidates in in the first place, is to ensure that the opportunities and service are there when I've paid my money. If I go to a job site and have a rubbish experience then it's annoying but has cost me nothing other than time – I’m not enamoured with the Brand, but it’s not that negatively affected, it’s free after all. If, however, I've paid for services (even a nominal fee) then my expectations are significantly increased and if there's no matching jobs or the CV review experience doesn't do it for me then that becomes a very negative experience that I'm sure to peer to peer about.

Odd human nature in that way – free and I can live with not perfect. Charge (even modestly) and you massively ramp up my expectations.

I agree that paid for is a way the web will go - whether that's you paying subconsciously through accepting to be hit by a wash of advertising or paying consciously through a subscription model that strips out the advertising. The challenge for TheLadders and those following the trend in the job board sector is to ensure that they do indeed have the opportunities and quality of service offering that truly distinguishes it from the rest of the for free offering - and that this is tangible enough for the groundswell to take to it and do the promotion on your behalf. I know that a news site without adverts is a better experience - I don't know that paying for access to a jobsite will significantly increase my chance of finding that perfect job. Yet.

Best of luck to you Derek.