OK, everyone has been reading the news. Doom and gloom, recession, and the economy tanking.
If you are like me, you have friends that have been laid off, "hiring freezes" instituted in your area, and bosses that want to cut down on the resources you have available to you to use for recruiting.
Sound familiar?
For an interesting take on what is going on now in the economy, and how this looks compared to the .com crash, check out the following link:
This article is written by our CEO Rob McGovern (the founder of CareerBuilder). While most people in HR I talk to on a daily basis are frustrated with their budgets being cut and headcounts going down, most realize that this is only a temporary situation and the best companies are always recruiting.
Currently I see a trend in hiring more salespeople since they drive revenue but one thing that opened my eyes is that the demand for educated job seekers is still about the same as in 2001.
The only difference is that the cool perks like the free car, cafeteria, and child care are for the most part gone.
Comments are always welcome but I thought this was an interesting read on what is going on right now.
I thought I would post this since it is relevant to my last post; check out the stats on jobseekers using Google. The companies that move quickly on this info will have a huge advantage over the rest sharing candidates on the "Big 3" boards...if you need help to get there you can email or PM me; if I can't help you I can refer you to one of our 36 offices nationwide. Below is a great article from our SEO/SEM partner and some eye opening stats.
For months (and years) I’ve wondered what the number of monthly searches are for job related keywords on Google. I always knew it was a big number, but I was shocked to see it was over 100 million searches monthly. The average monthly searches looks to be over 124 million searches, but we’re in the summer slump of job searching during July.
Historically, search engines haven’t shared specific numbers on how many specific keyword searches there were for targeted keywords, but recently Google has changed it’s keyword research tool (hooray) to show us the search numbers for the previous month, and the average number of searches for exact keywords. This helps to shed light on exactly how much job and career related search activity is happening monthly on Google.
After you play with this Google keyword research tool, you’ll see how huge the opportunity is for employers who optimize their career site and job content, so that you can drive these Google users directly to your career site.
Best of all, there’s no fee to use this service (only a code to enter), and you’ll have access to this powerful tool at this URL:
Some interesting facts: (which you can validate using the tool above)
TOP JOB CATEGORY SEARCHES: (Monthly)
Sales jobs = 2.2 Million searches
Customer services jobs – 1 Million searches
Administrative jobs – 823,000 searches
Accounting jobs – 673,000 searches
Human Resource jobs – 673,000 searches
Nursing jobs – 673,000 searches
Finance jobs – 368,000 searches
Legal jobs – 301,000 searches
TOP STATES/LOCATIONS SEARCHES: (Monthly)
Georgia jobs – 2.7 Million searches
Illinois jobs – 2.2 Million searches
Arizona jobs – 1.5 Millions searches
Massachusetts jobs – 1.5 Million searches
Michigan jobs – 1.5 Million searches
New Jersey jobs – 1.5 Million
Jobs In Chicago – 823,000 searches
Dallas Jobs – 673,000 searches
San Diego jobs – 550,000
If you’re like me, you’ll blow an hour or so just doing research against your own recruiting needs, and then you’ll ask yourself “how do I get these candidates to find my career site?” – which is where we come in of course.
Knowing how to optimize your career site and job content to capture this traffic is an art (and science) that we’ve helped dozens of major companies to achieve. We have over 2,000 client landing pages on the 1st page of Google. Some of our larger clients see over 10,000 candidates monthly directly to their career site where candidates then apply via their existing ATS system. (no middle men)
So, if you want to continue to pay the job boards for years to come, and compete for the pool of shared candidates, good luck.
Smart employers will learn how to go upstream online and compete for these candidates at their first search for jobs on Google, and drive them directly to their site using either Search Engine Optimization, or Search Engine Marketing to cut their recruiting costs dramatically.
Now’s the time to get started, as the fall is coming faster than you think – and you’ll need to get started now in order to get on Google’s 1st page if you hope to be there by September or October!
Does anyone here use Google?? Raise your hand….OK that’s pretty much everyone. While most of us use the most popular search engine out there to find a local restaurant or product; innovative employers from small to Fortune 500 companies are using Google for recruitment.
How is that, you ask? Simple. Use a text ad and sponsor the top or right side of search results that are relevant to your company, employment brand, and location. (sample keywords might be RF Engineer with a geography around Irvine, CA.)
By starting a keyword campaign with Google, a text link to your careers site (please tell me you have one) will show up based on certain keywords that you bid on.Keywords can be as low as .10 per click to $20 per click or more and the highest bidder wins, putting your text ad up at the top.If you bid low you won’t be visible on the first page in the results; and really that’s where you want to be.The text ad would be designed professionally to talk about your company and match your open position.
There are several major advantages I have seen so far to start a recruitment campaign with Google:
Passive vs. Active Job Seekers- While all of us know that passive job seekers are exactly the people we want to target; not many have a plan for doing so on a consistent, measurable basis.While the “Big 3” job boards are great for getting a ton of resumes; there is definitely more of an active job seeker crowd using the sites…
Employment Branding- Keep in mind that you only pay when a jobseeker clicks on your ad; you are getting free views of your company name when you are not clicked on.This is great “free” branding for your company; many times a job seeker will see your ad, remember it, and go straight to your website later on.
Metrics- Almost everything you do with Google can be measured quantitatively; how many visitors, where they came from, what time, and even what browser they were using. If ROI is important to you and you want reports to show your VP then this is pretty powerful information.
Driving traffic to your career site- Most of the work I do involves ways to make the career site easy to apply to, attractive, and informative.This is another way to drive traffic straight to your site where you can capture their attention instead of a job board posting where they can be distracted easily or worse find one of your competitors instead via a banner or leaderboard ad.
Building an exclusive Resume Database- Keep in mind that the resumes you get from the job boards are also searchable and are called on by other recruiters from other companies in the area…how nice would it be to drive passive job seekers direct from Google directly to your site before they hit the job boards?
Cost per Click vs. contracts- Most of us are used to negotiating 1, 2 or even 3 year online spending contracts; with Google you can “try it out” with no contracts to keep you locked in.I would recommend a minimum of 6 months (it takes some time to “tweak” your campaign to see what is working and what is not) but if you have the time and a decent budget there is not much to lose.I would define decent as a few thousand per month to get started..
If you are not sure so far, do any job search on Google.You’ll notice that most of the top bidders are the “Big 3”….they heavily invest in Google so you know it works already the question is why aren’t you doing this??
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions, comments, etc.
I found a great article to read speaking of email campaigns and thought it was a good read. Full credit to Max Kalehoff. Enjoy!
Friday, January 4, 2008
Email Blows Away All Other Social Networks
By Max Kalehoff
With the explosive excitement and high valuations of Facebook and the like, it's time to take a step back and acknowledge the mother of all social networks: email. Yes, plain-vanilla email. Sure, a few of the big social networks have really taken off recently, but email is still by far the dominant and most practical platform for social connections.
A recent Pew Internet & American Life Project survey found that 91% of Internet users between the ages of 18 and 64 send or read e-mail, far more than any social network.
In fact, email is so dominant that it's the single open-source backbone of nearly
every social network.
Think about it: Most social networks require your email address to sign up. Then they try to upload your email address book in order to communicate with your contacts. I can't think of a social network I belong to that doesn't ask me for my email address every time I log in. In fact, I find myself turning off the default email notifications in most social networks I sign up for!
There's a lot of hoopla about email losing relevance with younger generations, and therefore heading toward extinction. Baloney. The fact is that kids' primary communication devices are mobile, not computers optimized for email. Therefore they use those devices' best application: SMS and voice. But once kids graduate, take on business responsibilities and (many) sit in front of a PC all day long, email becomes a hard fact of life. Scott Karp at Publishing2.com noted that "Most people over 30 don't have many (or any) business or personal relationships that don't involve communicating by email."
Scott also underscored Research In Motion, whose revenue rose year-over-year to $1.67 billion from $835.1 million -- by selling email devices. There's something to the social network known as email.
Now consider the natural, authentic and deeper social connections inherent in email. Steve Hodson, who blogs at WinExtra.com, noted that his email connections "have risen up the ranks of the network over time and as such have more of a trust factor associated with them that you will never find elsewhere."
Actual writing, thoughtful interaction and more manual contact management lead to connections far more significant than superficial layers of distributed pokes and passive status feeds.
And as proof that social-networking dominance just might lie with email, the major Internet media companies have acknowledged plans to turn their email services into social networks. Saul Hansell reported on the New York Times Bits blog that "Yahoo and Google realize they have this information (email address books) and can use it to build their own services that connect people to their contacts."
Joe Kraus, who runs Google's OpenSocial project, conceded "there are opportunities with iGoogle to make it more social. It is much easier to extend an existing habit than to create a brand." Yahoo has been more forthcoming with its "Inbox 2.0." I'm not sure of Microsoft, but it could have a hand at the table with its massive customer base across Hotmail, Exchange and Outlook.
Finally, considering my ongoing bout with Socialnetworkitis, I'm more thankful and bullish on email than ever before. I believe online social networks have a big future, and they're a critical part of my personal
and professional life today. But email still is the most reliable and manageable platform for social interaction. It is my default.
In the future, I hope the benefits of the latest wave of social networks will begin to merge seamlessly with the simplicity, compatibility and utility of email. That includes integrated profiling, information feeds, socialnetwork
analysis, privacy and controls. Of course, the big hurdle will be the ongoing fight against spam. Spammers may validate significance, but they're also preventing email from becoming a truly great social network.
Max Kalehoff is vice president of marketing for Clickable, a search-marketing solution for small and midsize
I thought I would get my blog off the ground with a quick discussion of email campaigns.I have seen quite a few horrible ones come in my inbox and also have saved clients a fortune by “tweaking” the email so that it maximizes the open and click-thru rates, etc.Here are some tips if you are considering an email campaign for your company:
Copy COUNTS!!The best way to increase your open rates for an email campaign is to have the body of the email in HTML format (and also revert to text if HTML is not supported on the client side) and the body of the email must be geared to job seekers.Have a recruitment ad agency create the look and feel of the ad, do not put it together yourself!!You can’t slap on a company logo, put in some text, and hope the campaign is successful.Use the pro’s to do what they do best.
Target candidates that are relevant!The great thing about email campaigns is that you can “get granular” (I hate that term) and target by location, keyword, etc.For example, if you want to hit salespeople in Los Angeles, San Franciso, and San Diego with college degrees you can do so….I also recommend keywords as well if you are looking for a targeted candidate (i.e. RF engineers, etc.)This will help separate your “garden variety” engineers from those that you are on the lookout for.
Try using the “niche” boards!Typical e-mail campaigns with the top 3 job boards are normally in the range of $1 per email….still pretty cheap considering the results but usually smaller boards will be much more willing to negotiate on the price which can not only save you money, but hit the relevant candidates you are after.
Link to your career section or special splash page in the email.Make sure to have a bold, direct call to action “CLICK HERE TO APPLY” and link directly to your career section or job posting on your site IF you have a good ATS that can track applicant’s full cycle.Let me explain…in the past few years typically when I would do an email campaign with a client all I could give them afterwards were a few basic stats (open rate and click-thru rate) but if you create a “dummy link” in your ATS you can link to that and you can track the email campaign effectiveness full cycle.If this is still greek to you feel free to IM me for more info, but the great thing about this is that you can establish metrics and pit Yahoo against CB and Monster, etc. to compete for pricing…and of course your boss will always want to see metrics aka ROI in this case.
Make sure any list you purchase is “opt-in”.This is mostly standard with the job boards but you need to make sure that these are folks who signed up for Monster for example and want to hear about open positions in their area or areas they indicated they would relocate to.If they are not “opt-on” then they are probably spam which means no one will open your email much less click-thru.
Welcome to my inaugural post! As such, I thought it would be fitting to introduce myself (briefly) and go over a few topics that I will be tackling in this blog.I have been working as a consultant to the HR department for about 6 years now and I have a background in working with one of the “Big 3” job boards.My experience plus my dual degree in Business with a minor of Information Technology is where I draw my knowledge from.I work in OrangeCounty in California and if you have any questions for me personally feel free to message me on ERE.
Some of the topics I would like to share with you:
-Online Employment Branding
-Corporate Career Sites
-ATS systems and applying online
-Email campaigns
-Banner Ads
-Recruiting Gen. Y online
-Google/SEO marketing for your jobs
-Social Networking
-HR Metrics for Online Recruiting.What is my ROI??
And anything else you want to cover that is on topic I will discuss as well. Thanks for reading and I look forward to some discussion!
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