Are Recruiters Listening?

Job Boards Are Obsolete

To those who use job boards, whether as a recruiter or job seeker, the statement that job boards are obsolete should not come as a surprise.

To their credit, sites like Monster and CareerBuilder revolutionized the process of bringing candidates and employers together. Downstream, they spawned entire new industries and businesses. At their inception, the concept of Internet-based recruiting and job searching was, to say the least, earth-moving.

Some of us here grudgingly admit being around before these sites were hatched. Before the Internet was a reality and personal computers were mass-produced (and affordable), we vividly remember TYPING resumes (on an IBM Selectric or word processor), and bringing them to print shops for volume copying on heavy-weight, wheat-colored paper. And no, we didn’t forget the matching envelopes!

Each day, we would search the NEWSPAPERS (yes, dear readers, hard copy) for job listings and circle the ones for which we wished to apply. The last part of the “application” process was TYPING a cover letter for each application, getting it in the (snail) mail, and waiting for a call to come in. One important distinction, though, was that each resume was sent to a REAL PERSON. After a few days, a job seeker actually had the ability to CALL and SPEAK to that person to follow up on the resume.

What a concept.

Imagine a world today where you see a job, apply for it, and make contact with a real person. Back then, in the space of a few days, a job seeker knew the outcome of a job application. Today…well, they never really know, do they?

So why, compared with last year, is Monster.com down 3.5% for unique site visitors compared to last year?

And why is CareerBuilder.com down 23.8% for unique site visitors?    (Source: http://www.compete.com)

Visits are down because job boards, as we know them, are bursting at the seams with job postings that, quite frankly, read like any other. Other than a glitzy posting or link to a company’s career site, there is no longer anything innovative or helpful for an employer. Lots of static, no signal. As a result, they have become highly ineffective–for both parties.