Google's recent declaration of intent to assemble the most comprehensive database of personal information has shed some light on the future evolution of recruitment and digital media. Google’s ultimate aim is to use the data at its disposal to make the experience of its users much more tailored and rewarding.
The future of advertising will be all about Personalisation.
Rather interesting was the example that Google’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, gave during this announcement "The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and 'What job shall I take?'."
It is obvious that Google see the digital age and its targeting capabilities as being the primary avenue for candidates to secure their ideal career. It’s also apparent that the digital age represents huge opportunities to engage in effective and accountable dialogue with prospective candidates across a range of industries and geographies.
With Google purchasing the ad serving technology firm Doublclick, MSN buying aQuantive, the owner of Atlas ad serving tracking technology and WPP buying 24/7 Real Media, the leading players have at their disposal the tools to monitor and track online users behaviour like never before.
As a result they will be able to provide industry leading tailored messages in their conversations with target audiences. As we all know, having a conversation with someone who actually ‘knows you’ is more engaging and has the propensity to become a longer term relationship.
With The Age of Dialogue comes real value for the job seeker, a bespoke service can be offered, it's as if you have your own personal recruitment consultant without all the disadvantages that a real life one can bring.
It’s important to note that this new era and its technology truly brings the job seeking conversation beyond the realms of job boards. This is why, more than ever, Job board needs to be harnessing the technology that enables them to really know the job seekers on their site and more importantly provide them with the personalised service that meets their career needs. If they do not provide this service they will be supplanted and become redundant.
Having attended a Fish4jobs breakfast meeting this morning about their job search functionality, it was interesting to see that they recognise this and are providing amongst other things, RSS feeds and Amazon type search functionality for their job seekers. This is just the start and obviously this is the area of development that will determine which job boards survive moving forward.
It's going to take a while for a threat like this to build up against traditional job boards but I like the idea of White labeling the likes of Job Tonic to corporates. The employer uses the technology to set their own rewards and the referrers set their own referral strings/award sharing costs. At least it cuts out the rec con trust issues. There are plenty of cunning attraction plans based around incentives like this. And by starting the referral system with your own employees keeps things pretty personal too. And you get to know allot more people along the way. As for Job Board Searches, I'd like to see if they can incorporate free tagging similar to del.icio.us
Posted by: Ciaran | 06/08/2007 at 02:04 PM
Interesting post Sinead. I couldn't make the Fish4 presentation but would be interested to learn how they intend to increase their reach / integrate into peoples’ 'web lives'. I was babysitting a friend's daughter the other day and was fascinated by the way this 4 year old intuitively navigated the BBC Children's website. Her frustration when a link wan't where it 'should' be, or information wasn't forthcoming as promised, really made me think about how employers and intermediaries like job boards ensure they're in the right place to begin that dialogue. Great plug too ;-)
Posted by: Paul Harrison, Carve Consulting | 08/08/2007 at 08:33 PM
Paul, that is interesting - your using the BBC Childrens example.
I went to a great presentation at i-level (acoule of years ago). They used a similar number of user experience tests.
The same result.
We did some research at TMP (with i-level and yahoo) into the job hunting process and found that most candidates don't enjoy it.
They can not get the info they need.
I will send it to you ...
J
Posted by: John whitehurst | 08/08/2007 at 10:46 PM
Nice one J, cheers
Posted by: Paul Harrison, Carve Consulting | 09/08/2007 at 12:55 PM
Hey my little breakfast made the blog....im so proud! Paul (and anyone that missed the session) if you would like the presentation we have it to send out, or if you would like our CTO to role it out again he would be more than happy to.
Posted by: Jamie | 14/08/2007 at 04:35 PM