Digital Recruiting

Obama, dogma and the demise of UK Internet Advertising

*We welcome Richard Tyrie as our first Guest Author for quite a while for this post*

Councils told not to use websites to compete with local media

Secretary for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, has told councils not to undermine local media outlets by trying to compete for readers and advertising revenue with their own websites and publications.

So here we are, still basking in the immediate after-glow of the rousing Obama inauguration speech last week.  We heard about his plans for a new era of openness, transparency and trust in government (US government, anyway); a sole focus on policies that were beneficial to the electorate, and the scrapping of policies that were dogmatic and ineffective.  Fantastic stuff.  Whatever your position on OB, you can’t deny that his inspirational leadership style, and the spirit and substance of his plans (not to mention his oratory skills) will bring about significant change to the nature of government in the US.

And then we have our own government.   .

In the last fortnight alone, we’ve had the Heathrow third runway debacle;  the attempted draft bill to exempt MP’s expenses from Freedom of Information Act legislation, ergo: “we don’t want to tell you taxpayers what your £87.6 million pa is being spent on”, which, incidentally, our Gordon did a sharp U-turn on, following a *significant*  backlash by the internet ‘massive’ (way to go tweeps and facebookers..).  Now government has come over all ‘traditionalist’ with the announcement of the latest initiative from Ed Balls’ office telling councils “not to undermine local newspapers by competing for readers [with their own websites]”

WTF?  Do what?  Are you serious?

Err hold on a minute…   Last time I heard, the careers section of a local authority website was reported as being the most heavily trafficked section of all LG websites; in fact SOCITM (the society of IT Managers) reckon that the jobs section of a .gov.uk website is likely to serve four times more page impressions than the next most trafficked section of a local gov site (which, incidentally is the rather fascinating ‘planning application’ bit…)

 Speak to any local authority hiring manager that actually measures where their response comes from (there are a few out there - not many mind…) and they’ll tell you how little response they get from ‘trad med’.   What little response they do still get is precisely what they don’t want:  the same types they’ve always attracted (pale, male and stale are, I believe, the descriptors du jour amongst local government officers). 

The fact of the matter is, the local press just isn’t a practical, cost-effective solution any more,  nor does local press advertising generate even vaguely diverse shortlists. Local Governments historic use of press as a primary attraction method (and the subsequent nature of the local government workforce) amply bears this out:

1) The private sector (proportionally) hires three times more young people than local government  (Only 6% of a workforce of 2.2 million is under 25)

2.)Only 9 authorities (out of 336) have a workforce that reflects their communities in terms of ethnicity

3.) They largely attract ‘more seasoned’ applicants;  in fact 31% of the workforce is going to retire in the next decade (see point 1)

Oh dear.

So employers… no young people? Just loads of err ‘experienced’ people? Not enough applications from black and minority ethnic communities?  You betcha!

 Funny that, but then that’s the profile of local press readership..but then if you do what you’ve always done….

On the flip side,  we have the web, which is now making the majority of hires out there (London borough of Newham make 86% of all hires online now). Its proving to generate   a *massively* more diverse candidate pool – indeed, one LA reported over 1000% more interest from BAME’s (black and minority ethnic applicants) per pound spent compared to ‘traditional’ press advertising..

That’s a compelling business case for the web – non?

Local press is dying.  Its Darwinian; survival of the fittest; natural selection.  The truth is, inefficient, structurally weak, strategically adrift businesses die over time – and so they should.  Frankly, if they don’t move with the times, they should be left to wither..  trying to prop them up is analogous with US congress bailing out Ford or GM.  Utter madness. 

So when the Newspaper Society bleats on about how important local press is, in “ahem, providing a voice for local communities”, I suggest you get with the program Mr Balls, and see what’s really occurring out there.  Speak to local authorities.  See what’s happening.  We know it would be nice to keep the local press happy, but hey, this is about getting the right people to provide public services, not just currying favour with publishers with ever decreasing influence by ensuring them a few quid in advertising revs.

Do the right thing, and ditch the dogmatic stuff that isn’t in our interests any more..  Failure to do that, could mean you find yourself withering too, and probably quicker than you imagine.

 Richard Tyrie

Founder, Jobsgopublic

Spreading the Net

In order to keep debate as diverse as possible, we''ll be featuring posts by guest authors from time to time. First up is Russell Byrne of London Jobs

Spreading the Net

All this talk of Long Tails, YouTubes and Web 2.0’s has got me thinking. The internet is undoubtedly an exciting arena in which to work. Ok, it’s not Disney World exciting, but you know what I mean. By its very definition ‘New Media’ is going to be a place of innovation and expectation, and online recruitment is no exception. We frequently speak to agencies about the developments that we are working on, trying to find something to offer advertisers that is exciting, exclusive, and perhaps most importantly, effective. And rightly so. If we as an industry don’t push our collective boundaries what claim can we have to being a ‘new’ media; to being any different to the rest of the recruitment advertising fraternity?

Yet beyond Rich Media, Podcasts and HTML emails there is an opportunity for advertisers which is seldom explored; the option of extending their recruitment campaign onto non-recruitment partner sites. We have lost count of the times that we have been asked by the agency for a proposal on using Lifestyle sites, or local newspapers sites (etc) within our group. Yet the number of proposals to actually manifest into a cross network campaign remains a very solitary… one. I am not nearly so arrogant to suggest that I speak for every online media network, but I believe that the debate as evidenced by our inability to convert interest in execution is a valid one.

You see, it seems that advertisers who claim to be interested in reaching the holy grail of the passive job seeker are unwilling to commit the budget required to reach them and opt instead for the job board only strategy. With financial constraints being what they are, I can appreciate that. When the chips are down, would you rather look for a needle in a haystack or a needle in a box of needles? Are these advertisers missing out on the opportunity of reaching a gold mine of talent? Or are they maximising their budget by going to where they can be sure to find job seekers.

On the one hand, spreading the net in this way would massively extend the reach of an ad campaign and potentially attract a hitherto unexplored talent pool. But the cost associated with running a campaign visible and frequent enough to out-muscle the Display Advertisers who inhabit these sites is usually considerably higher than the kind of costs they would normally pay on a job board.

So should the advertiser remain within the confines of the Recruitment Platform? It might be more cost effective in reaching candidates, but in doing that would the advertiser have to forego the option of reaching that potentially highly employable casual browser who might be open to the suggestion of changing job and employer?

We are lucky to have the luxury to offer this. In my experience, asking a Newspaper Ad Director if we could move a recruitment ad out of classified and into run of paper would inevitably be met with hilarity. Or a beating. Client requirements were of secondary concern to protecting the micro-markets evolved out of decades of tradition. But even Newspapers are changing now, embracing the concept of ‘Cross Media’ in order to fight for survival in the advertising market.

This IS an exciting industry, one that is changing all the time and we have a fight on our hands to convince our advertisers that the many different strategies that we can suggest aren’t just innovation for novelty’s sake. Will 2007 be the year that Web Recruitment 2.0 explodes into the marketplace? One thing’s for sure; we’re sitting here with our blast goggles on and enough dynamite to do the job as soon as they are willing to go to war.

Oh who am I kidding, this is much more exciting than Disney World.

Space

Mountain

is a rubbish ride…