I get to talk to corporate recruiters everyday regarding their online recruiting efforts and more recently I have noticed a verbal backlash against the big jobs boards. Is it just me or are the big boards truely loosing their luster/effectivness and opening the door for new internet recruiting strategies?

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One other thought - I noticed from this summit I recently attended - what spoke to me was the leads from the Gen Y group ~ I clearly saw how they utilize the technologies online to do just about everything..and they expect the "best" out there.. knowing all these facts and ever changing.. I would be curious to find out if corporate recruiters will change their online recruiting efforts. It was quite interesting to see Gen Y perspective in general.

Susan Kang Nam said:
I recently had a discussion with someone who just started a job board online.. in pharma industry.. here in Boston.. through a summit that I attended via Chris Brogan called "New Marketing Summit". All I am saying is that, I think it's important to utilize "ALL" tools out there to find that "BEST" talent.. Obviously if you have ### Req, it may be easier to look into job boards (esp. now with the economic hardships, layoffs and businesses closing down.. many candidates will go and post their resumes online).. however if you take a look at the social media trend lately.. you'll understand why I mention these social media tools. It's helping candidates to build relationships on a closer level more than ever.. and of course with the time restraints and other factors, this may not be the 100% way to go.. however it's important to look at the personal relationships in anything.. and I personally don't believe that job boards are doing much (at least for me ~ it will all depend). Just an opinion.. I believe in lately. Also, relying on "one" source is never great (i.e. LinkedIn ~ there are others out there -i.e. facebook you can start to utilize - strategically - along with twitter... and more seem to be surfacing..

Not sure if online job boards are not going anywhere comment.. looking at where things are going.. I believe many of these job boards will need to change according to the trend it is heading... not sure what you mean by when you say you think people "want" these job boards to fail.. well, if there "must" be a reason why some candidates don't post their resumes on the job boards anymore. I don't think those hard to find talents will just put their resume on major job board thinking that they will get a recruiter calling... I was only talking in perspective to finding that "Passive" and "TALENT".. that was my point~

Best wishes ~ I agree. It's all about developing that relationship. It doesn't matter what you use.. if you are not able to establish a rapport or common ground and follow through.. there is no hire. there is no recruiting.. in my perspective... my extra 2 cents as I continue to research, explore and observe the recruiting, social media trends online/offline.
I would say yes and no. I specialize so I obtain many of my candidates from referrals and networking websites and trade-related websites. As well, monster & workopolis are sooooo expensive unless you are buying a huge amount of postings all at once. There are also so many free websites that are becoming more and more recognized like Craigslist for example. I used Craigslist as a test a year ago and only got a couple of bad applicants but that is deinitely changing and I am finding I am now getting better applicants from Craigslist than monster!
I will also add one more thing on this topic. I have NOT had very good results from people out there replying to my job postings on the "big boards". That I would agree 100% has lessened greatly in quality. 95% of the replies I receive on a posting (which can be 100s per week) are purely worthless for that job posting and I have to ask myself what in the heck these people were thinking.

I find that it's the connections and relationships I build with people that do have their resumes posted that is the greatest benefit. I often-times call people that are NOT a fit for the job I am trying to fill, but I think they might have worked for the person I am seeking, or along-side them in their last/present job. I think the most important thing is to be creative in your Recruiting Tactics...not so much about where you find your leads to put your Recruiting Tactics into action.
I saw some recent statistic showing Indeed pulled ahead of Monster for page views, Unique visitors and time on site. We also just bumped into Careerjet, another free job board that is showing up well in Google job searches. It seems to me that with all the great free job boards, a company could really cut back or reallocate their job board budget and start trying something new/different. If we continue to do what we've always done, we will continue to get what we've always got!
I have used all the big boards out there and I think the fast food analogy is great and sums up my setiment about them. I would add that you tend to see the same people visiting the fast food joint often and they are usually at all 3 at any given time. I launched www.AccountingJobsToday.com last year so as a niche site owner I can say that we have had great success so far and there is trully a need for specialized sites like ours. What sets us apart is that we have years of experience in traditional staffing for Accounting which I think gives us an edge. I for one believe the niche sites are the way to go and the big 3 are losing some luster.
To continue this dialogue ~ I do agree with Todd -- When I met this professional at the summit, that was his point right on - to create a niche job board site for Boston so that he an his partner can generate leads from the site. I asked him few questions, i.e. why this now, how would this change in his perspective, what his budget was..etc. however he went on and mentioning about how expensive it was to put positions on some of these top big board sites. If this is the trend, then I think it will be interesting what some of the corporate recruiters will do in the distant future. Of course.. this is just one case scenario, however I do hear from few others out there that many do not "post" their resumes anymore to some of these top big board sites. I may be a fan of one or two of these top sites, however I would rather go with niche sites or craigslists to generate leads.
Nice site!

Todd Goldstein said:
I have used all the big boards out there and I think the fast food analogy is great and sums up my setiment about them. I would add that you tend to see the same people visiting the fast food joint often and they are usually at all 3 at any given time. I launched www.AccountingJobsToday.com last year so as a niche site owner I can say that we have had great success so far and there is trully a need for specialized sites like ours. What sets us apart is that we have years of experience in traditional staffing for Accounting which I think gives us an edge. I for one believe the niche sites are the way to go and the big 3 are losing some luster.
Thanks Ken, I appreciate that!

Ken Horst said:
Nice site!

Todd Goldstein said:
I have used all the big boards out there and I think the fast food analogy is great and sums up my setiment about them. I would add that you tend to see the same people visiting the fast food joint often and they are usually at all 3 at any given time. I launched www.AccountingJobsToday.com last year so as a niche site owner I can say that we have had great success so far and there is trully a need for specialized sites like ours. What sets us apart is that we have years of experience in traditional staffing for Accounting which I think gives us an edge. I for one believe the niche sites are the way to go and the big 3 are losing some luster.
This is like one of those ubiquitous discussions about which ATS is better, are passives better than actives, Obama or McCain. You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe.

Ken's original question mentioned that he "noticed a verbal backlash against the big jobs boards" from corp recruiters. Let's add another reason why...a proliferation of agencies who pull resumes off the big job boards and present these to corp recruiters as candidates. It's become a blessed race by the corp recruiters to pull someone off the board before an agency wonk gets them first. Nothing more maddening than a TPR submitting a job board person to a company who also has a subscription to the same board.

Here's another problem with recruiters: Very few look at the process of job search through the eyes of the job seeker. We would like people to gravitate to the niche sites but marketing budgets ensure that Monster's won't scare people away and careers can be built at CareerBuilder (and if Rob McGovern has his was, also at JobFox). It's not as if heads of Career Services at colleges know how to teach effective job search or career management (let's add corp HR too). People will post to places they know best.

You know that in the best scenario all professionals would know how to manage their careers and their brand but this is my Field of Recruiting Dreams...
There is this perhaps an elitism aura that job boards are beneath some people.
Spare me.

I am not proud because I will look anywhere for candidates including the job boards.
Those old resumes on hotjobs are a gold mine for passive tech candidates.

The bottom line is that you need to know how to scour a job board as well
as scrape the search engines. Yes, engines because they all use different algorithms
and the search indexes are changed every few weeks. You can sure tell when
a lousy index is being used.
Noelle brings up THE point of recruiting - sources of hire (I'm sure this is what was hidden in your comment, right N?). Without conducting an analysis of historical sources of hire, any recruiter with access to multiple channels of talent pools (Monster, CB, etc. are a single channel), you're probably over-investing your time in one area over another.

Nothing should whither away; however, detailed analysis should dictate how much energy is spent in one area.
I agree with you Steve that we need to have sourcing metrics to understand where to spend our time.

The challenge is that when there is a hiring frenzy going on, there is no time for metrics everything must results driven.

Job boards can sometimes show you unexpected trends which are often useful for your sourcing competitive intelligence info. See SCIP.org for more info on C.I.



Steve Levy said:
Noelle brings up THE point of recruiting - sources of hire (I'm sure this is what was hidden in your comment, right N?). Without conducting an analysis of historical sources of hire, any recruiter with access to multiple channels of talent pools (Monster, CB, etc. are a single channel), you're probably over-investing your time in one area over another.
Nothing should whither away; however, detailed analysis should dictate how much energy is spent in one area.

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