Digging Into RecruitingBlogs.com v1.24

It's Slurpee Day in Europe... 7-11

(Nov 7, 2008) Yesterday, I had a great conversation about the growth of RBC. We looked at the statistics on compete.com.

Over the course of the past year, the number of unique visitors to the site each month has grown by over 500%.
The total number of monthly visits has exploded at a rate of nearly 1,000%
Attention (our percentage share of all time spent on the net) grew at a similar pace.

Things get interesting when you compare RBC with other similar properties. Social media is changing things rapidly in our universe. In the following links, we use ERE and HR.com.

Compared to the dominant members of the industry, attention paid to RBC is significantly greater. That means that the industry as a whole spends more of its time here than anywhere else, than the other two combined
The number of unique visitors on RBC is growing so fast that you'd be tempted top predict that we'll overtake the industry leaders by this time next year
RBC has more monthly visits than the other two combined

Take some time and explore the resources at compete.com. The more comfortable we all get talking about basic metrics, the better we'll be at navigating our emerging environment. Knowing the difference between unique visitors, total visitors, attention and other web behavior is essential to the emerging form of 21st Century Recruiting.

Recruiting is going to change much faster than anyone imagines. Probably not so much at the level of the actual physical interaction required to make the deal. But everything that surrounds that basic transaction, the entire context, is up for grabs. What we're learning here in our little community is exactly how to navigate the changes as they come along.

I've been working out the details of how you build a top level Recruiting strategy that includes the tactical use of social networking. It's a real work in progress and I invite you to think about the subject and join the conversation.

Ultimately, much recruiting will be a game of community development. Searching far and wide all of the time to find people who are available in the spot market is a very reactive approach. The ultimate idea will be to develop relationships with everyone you might hire over the next X years and build relationships with them. In the community, you might (gasp) get them to build relationships with each other.

We'll all need to know lots of things to make that a reality. Web performance metrics are critical. We'll have to be good at measuring the performance of work done in and by the community. Watching the compete.com data is one way to stay plugged into the consequences of your involvement here.

John Sumser has been chronicling the Recruiting Industry forever. You can catch his work at JohnSumser.com. He's the CEO of the Recruiting Roadshow. These days he's been working out the kinks in a new process for developing a top level Recruiting Strategy

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by M A on November 7, 2008 at 12:06pm

Impressive numbers!! Congrats to JD, and all the contributors who give of their time educating, sharing... and entertaining :-)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Slouch on November 7, 2008 at 3:16pm

Hey Maha, you hit it right. there are many many contributors that make all of this possible. I love the site and I love seeing the collective hard work and effort translate into something that is growing.

Maha Akiki said:

Impressive numbers!! Congrats to JD, and all the contributors who give of their time educating, sharing... and entertaining :-)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tektree Gopi on November 7, 2008 at 4:28pm

John, once again Great article, I learnt/learning/going to learn a lot being RBC member. Thanks for RBC Team & our Director JD. I 100% agree with Maha., Credit goes to all the contributor's and to our Ring Master JD.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dan Nuroo on November 7, 2008 at 8:25pm

That is great. Well, it is a sensational medium for Recruiters to get together... it is way more dynamic and interactive than anything else I've been able to find, and the content is second to none. congratulations to all involved. No wonder I am addicted :)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Susan Kang Nam on November 8, 2008 at 1:36pm

That's phenomenal. Thank u for your stats # for recruitingblogs. Honor to be part of this community.. learning something new daily. Best ~ Susan

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on November 9, 2008 at 10:03am

JS- Imagine we'll have to create a RBC Conference one day. One with a bit more verve (not Vurv) where speakers forget about political correctness (not your forte but then again, not really mine either - and then there's Keleman).

I have some ideas...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Slouch on November 10, 2008 at 3:25pm

I think someone told me it was called RecruitFest. next one is april 17th Toronto

Steve Levy said:

JS- Imagine we'll have to create a RBC Conference one day. One with a bit more verve (not Vurv) where speakers forget about political correctness (not your forte but then again, not really mine either - and then there's Keleman).

I have some ideas...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on November 10, 2008 at 3:55pm

I should have prefaced my words with something that represented "heat waves" to let readers know that this was a dream state where someone was dreaming about a vision and suddenly they were transported back, discovering that the dream was a reality.

I'm in for April...

Slouch said:

I think someone told me it was called RecruitFest. next one is april 17th Toronto

Steve Levy said:
JS- Imagine we'll have to create a RBC Conference one day. One with a bit more verve (not Vurv) where speakers forget about political correctness (not your forte but then again, not really mine either - and then there's Keleman).

I have some ideas...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Slouch on November 12, 2008 at 12:15pm

Hey John, The thing also about using systems like compete.com is that it is not exactly exact all of the time. I remember when alexa used to be used and then we all kind of figured that alexa was not always on the money.

Compete.com is not exactly on the money. for instance The unique visitors to RecruitingBlogs.com for the last 30 days is over 37,000 not the 26,000 it shows. I would think that this would be the same for ERE.net and HR.com

I think the point and I am happy that there is something out there to give somewhat of an idea of where you stand even if it is not exact. I have Google analytics installed on RecruitingBlogs.com so I have a much truer indication of what is what.

Month over month the site is growing and the last two weeks, there has been a substantial upswing in all metrics.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Sumser on November 12, 2008 at 12:40pm

Jason, you are certainly right. The thing to notice is that compete's data for ERE and HR.com will be slightly more accurate because they are older. Compete will have more data about them. So, while you are absolutely right that the compete data is imperfect, my view is that it understated the level of change in the industry.

It's really important that we all (in the community here and in the industry in general) learn about the ins and outs of traffic and its consequences. As more and more of the recruiting function comes online, there will be more and more of this sort of quantification. Even somewhat inaccurate numbers can be a useful way to judge progress and effectiveness.