Recruiters Network

July 7, 2004  

VOLUME 6 ISSUE 21

   
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RECRUITING NEWS

To read the newsletter online - visit www.recruitingnews.com.

Recruiting News is a free electronic newsletter published by Recruiters Network. Recruiters Network is the Association for Internet Recruiting. It is a free organization for HR Professionals and Recruiters.

In addition to our newsletter, we offer a free resource center to enhance recruiting success. Visit us at www.recruitersnetwork.com. 

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IN THIS ISSUE
Newsletter Sponsors
A Note from the Editor
Breaking News
Today's Recruiting News Headlines
Featured Recruiting Jobs
Weekly Article: Align Venus and Mars in Your Job Postings
 Special Trials and Discounts
Recruiting Polls and Trends
 Layoffs and Downsizing Report
Recruiting Essential Bookmarks
Upcoming Conferences
Site Of The Week: CareerBuilder.com
Final Note - On The Lighter Side

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Newsletter Sponsors

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A Note From The Editor

If you buy newspaper advertising, you may want to keep your eyes on this story.

Fake circulation reports by Newsday and the Chicago Sun-Times have sparked questions about the entire newspaper industry and the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the group responsible for monitoring the numbers.

Complete Story >>

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Breaking News

Monster Employment Index Shows Rise in Online Job Demand in June, Marking Sixth Consecutive Month of Growth

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Today's Recruiting News Headlines
View HR/employment news headlines or our Recruiting Newswire.

Please send us with your press releases, news items, personnel changes, etc. Click here for submission instructions.

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Featured Recruiting Jobs

This section highlights several recruiting related positions recently posted on Recruiting Jobs. To view all jobs or to register for a career agent click here.

Looking to hire recruiting professionals?  Post a 60 day job posting ad on RecruitingJobs.com for $225 and be featured in Recruiting News. Register to post >>

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Weekly Article
 Align Venus and Mars in Your Job Postings
 By Peter D. Weddle

If you’ve ever looked for a job on the Web, you can appreciate the enormous challenge it presents to job seekers. First, they have to find the specific site where your ad is posted. Then, they have to pick your specific ad—sight unseen—out of a database of thousands or even tens of thousands of other jobs. And finally, they have to select your specific opening out of all the others that come back from their search of the database. It’s a demanding and often frustrating experience that all too often drives off all but the most determined (i.e. active) job seekers. And there’s the rub. We want our postings to be so easy to spot that even the most passive prospects will stop and take a look at them.

Almost since its inception in the mid-1990s, online recruiting has been positioned as an alternative to traditional print advertising. Those who ran the early job boards argued that using the Web was cheaper, faster and more effective than using newspapers and other print publications, while newspapers and the rest of the print community saw job boards as a threat to their historically unchallenged franchise among advertisers. For the most part, people’s habits didn’t change—they visited job boards and read the newspaper—but the recruitment advertising in those two venues was never linked or integrated. You might say that job boards were from Venus, and newspapers were from Mars.

Each venue, however, has important strengths that the other does not. For example, when a job seeker opens the print classifieds, they can actually see the jobs arrayed before them on the printed page. They don’t have to pull invisible jobs out of a database using a computer, but can actually look at what’s available and even draw circles around those of interest to them. The problem, of course, is that the space on the printed page is limited, which makes it expensive, and that, in turn, precludes the recruiter from fully detailing the opening or their organization’s value proposition as an employer.

In contrast, when a job seeker visits a job board and pulls up a posting, they see an advertisement that is expansive enough to provide a full and complete description of the opening and the employer. The average job board will accept a posting of up to 1,400 words—the equivalent of two typed pages of content—enabling employers to compose a compelling self-portrait that will both differentiate and sell them to passive as well as active prospects. The downside is that these postings are buried in a database that must be searched by job seekers, many of whom lack the skills to do so effectively. As a consequence, they can miss jobs in which they might be interested and/or find so many jobs that they are simply overwhelmed and ignore all but those on the first page of search results.

Each medium, then, is not only powerful, but imperfect. So, here’s my question: why are we accepting this one-or-the-other approach to advertising? This mutual exclusion is not the expression of some natural law and thus beyond our ability to influence. Whatever job boards and newspapers may think about each other, it’s in the interest of recruiters to see them as compatible and mutually supportive. In order for us to optimize our results, we must be able to link them together in an integrated advertising strategy. That’s the only way we can both capture the particular strengths of each venue and overcome their individual shortcomings.

Here’s what such an integrated strategy might look like:

Step #1: Place a “vector ad” in an appropriate print publication (e.g., your local newspaper, a professional association’s journal) which points to the site where your opening is posted. This ad should include:
 

  • the title of your job posting. As I’ve discussed in previous newsletters, job posting titles are a critical part of your sales effort. They have three key elements: the job’s location (just use the postal code abbreviation for the state where the job is located), the principle skill involved in performing the job (not the job’s title on your internal organization chart) and some sizzle that will motivate even passive prospects to take note (make sure that you do the homework necessary to identify the right “influencers” for each of your target demographics).
     
  • the URL of the Web-site where your ad is posted.
     
  • brief directions for finding your specific ad in the site’s database (e.g., To retrieve this ad from the site database, enter 12345WE in the search engine.).

    Now, I know that some newspapers refuse to print these vector ads, unless they point to their own Web-site. I suspect, however, that they would come around if we recruiters exercised our consumer power and demanded more flexibility on their part. At this point, they need us more than we need them. Moreover, this integrated strategy is actually in their best interests as it offers them a way to recapture some of the classified advertising that they’ve already lost to the Web.

    Step #2: Write a complete and compelling job posting on a job board that is visited frequently by the best and brightest in your target demographic. This ad should include:
     

  • a four line summary of the key elements in your value proposition. These elements are: a powerful statement about why your opening is a dream job, an equally as powerful statement about why your employer is a dream employer, the salary range of the position in numbers, and an unequivocal statement about your organization’s commitment to protecting candidate privacy.
     
  • a detailed description of what the opening offers to the prospective employee (i.e., not your Requirements or the position’s Responsibilities, but its Advantages and Benefits for the job seeker).
     
  • a summary that provides the individual with multiple ways to apply, a chance to refer someone else if they’re not interested, and an offer to opt-into a program of occasional messages about your employer and its opportunities.

    This multimedia approach to advertising uses the inherent advantages of each medium—print and online—to overcome the inherent disadvantages of the other medium. As a consequence, the sum of the recruitment advertising power that we recruiters achieve is greater than what’s provided by its separate parts. It may not be the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, but it is a way to align Venus and Mars in your job postings.

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    About the Author

    Peter Weddle is a recruiter, HR consultant and business CEO turned author and commentator. Described by The Washington Post as "... a man filled with ingenious ideas," he has earned an international reputation, pioneering such concepts as Human Capital, Career Fitness and the Internet as a resource for recruiting and HR management. He has authored seven books, edited six others and published dozens of articles in professional and trade magazines. He writes a weekly column about online recruiting for CareerJournal.com from The Wall Street Journal and a monthly newsletter that is distributed worldwide. In addition, he oversees WEDDLE's Publications, the leading print publisher of newsletters, guides and directories about employment resources on the Internet. Known for their accuracy and usefulness, WEDDLE's publications have helped to put job seekers, recruiters and HR professionals on the Information Superhighway to success. Indeed, the American Staffing Association has called Peter Weddle the "Zagat" of the online employment industry.

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    Special Trials And Discounts

    Below is a partial list of trials and discounts that companies have extended to our readers. Click here for full list. If your company is interested in offering a promotion/discount, please contact us.

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    Recruiting Polls and Trends

    Need for IT workers in the near future.

    In early June, CIO Magazine released the results of its monthly poll of about 200 chief information officers. The magazine reported that CIOs on average plan to increase tech spending 7.8% over the next 12 months, an improvement from 6.6% in May. This data series has been trending upward since hitting a low in May 2003 of 3.3%.

    Dice Inc., operator of the internet job board dice.com which specializes in IT positions, reported in June that its job postings rose to 46,261, an increase of nearly 10% from the previous month. Year over year, the number of listings was up 75%. Postings for permanent positions grew at an even stronger 14% sequentially.

    Similarly, Robert Half’s quarterly survey of about 1,400 chief financial officers showed an improving outlook for finance & accounting hiring (Figure 3). The survey, conducted across a broad base of U.S. companies, indicated that a net 4% of CFOs expect to add staff in 3Q04. The results represent a slight retreat from the previous quarter.

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    Layoffs and Downsizing Report

    Recruiters Network has added a layoff and downsizing report section to its newsletter. This section can be a great leads source for candidates. More information on how to use this section here.

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    Recruiting Essential Bookmarks

    The Big Three National Career Sites

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    Upcoming Seminars & Conferences

    Zero Based Hiring - Lou Adler
    Performance-based, Interviewing, Assessment and Recruiting Techniques

    Click here for schedules for upcoming conferences and seminars.

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    Site Of The Week

    CareerBuilder.com

    On October 2, 2002 Gannett Co., Inc. joined forces with Knight Ridder and Tribune Company as equal partners of CareerBuilder.com. More than 90 Gannett newspapers are now CareerBuilder.com affiliates and CareerBuilder.com will power the career channel on USATODAY.com. With presence in over 200 local markets, CareerBuilder.com has the recruitment industry covered nationwide.

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    Final Note - On The Lighter Side

    Best Excuse For Not Show Up For Work

    "I can't come in to work today because I'll be stalking my previous boss, who fired me for not showing up for work. OK?"

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    All rights reserved. "Recruiting on the Web" is a free electronic newsletter for the HR and Staffing Industry with a circulation of over 36,000. To be featured or sponsor the newsletter please visit our media kit. If you have a Quick Tip you would like to share email us. If you have a press release or news item, click here for submission instructions. 

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