We got a pitch this week about The Pitch from The Ladders, which is doing a co-promotion with the latest unscripted TV show to air. From cable network AMC, this show has two ad agencies competing each week to win an account.
If you think about it (but not too much) there is a connection between agencies pitching a campaign and a job seeker pitching themselves, as in the elevator pitch, the interview, and so on. There’s also a kind of ironic coherence having TheLadders promoting a show that will take us into the kind of brainstorming sessions that lead to TheLadders’ own (provocative) ad campaign featuring shirtless men and dancing women.
TheLadders also knows market repositioning. The job board started life as the place for only $100k+ jobs, and $100k+ candidates. Now it takes almost all comers.
Ready in Full Force
From the where-are-they-now department, you may remember that ERE article about Emergent and other new players in the staffing field. We mentioned that Readyforce was in a private beta and not getting too public and all. No longer. It’s now inviting U.S. students and companies to sign up for the beta, and says that 300 companies have joined Readyforce so far.
In short, the site involves looking through recorded videos of job candidates, though it is now a site for hiring students, rather than anyone and everyone. “Readyforce made the shift to focus on students — grads, interns, advanced degree holders,” says spokeswoman Suzanne M. Matick. “We recognize how important it is to have sharp focus … We are nailing it for students first. For now, we think of Readyforce as ‘LinkedIn with Video for Students.'”
Companies can join the beta at this link.
Happy Million Bullhorn Reach
Bullhorn Reach has (can’t resist this one) reached the million visitor mark. A year after the free social recruiting service launched, the site now has 70,000 registered recruiters who have used Reach to distribute 300,000 job announcements, and manage their social networking programs.
Especially unique for a free site is the Radar function that alerts you when someone in one of your networks may be preparing for a job hunt. Radar tracks changes and updates to individual profiles, and, when the changes suggest job change (rather than a mere update, as in a new title, same company), you get tipped to it. If you’re hunting passives, that would be a good time to strike.
Reach is a fremium service, meaning plenty of functions are free; some are charged.
Awards Across the Pond
Recruiting-awards-wise, In the U.S., you have your Creative Excellence Awards for recruitment advertising), and the ERE Recruiting Excellence Awards (see winners and finalists) for corporate recruiting leaders worldwide. If you’re not already confused, in the UK, there’s also an awards for recruiting, put on by a magazine called Recruiter; those honors were just announced. There’s a list of winners for internal recruiting; third-party recruiters; and outsourcing. There’s also some great info on the winners in the “book of the night” (though navigating that document drove us a tad batty).
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As a sister site of TLNT, we are in no position to make fun of websites that skip the vowels. But there is a new site in that category: Recmnd.me.
It’s in the social-media, employee-referral genre, but with a twist: coworkers can recommend and rate each other. You can only recommend people whose email address you have, a move that’s meant at having the recommendations be from people who actually know the person they’re positive or negative about.