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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free Trials |
| Author: | rec2rec bod |
| Date: | Friday, 29th Sep 2006 12:10 |
| Views: | 348 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Job Boards | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=4084 |
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Reed - be careful, they screen all replies for themselves and are even doing some rec2rec now...
Monster - rather expensive
I still believe headhunting is the best method if you're in a specialist market and are short of candidates - it's what we do... longer lead times, obviously, but better candidate exclusivity pays dividends... hire a researcher and get them to cold call all your clients' competitors for the next six months and build relationships - you'll get one in ten that'll be serious now, and three or four passive people who will say call me with this sort of role... and is good branding for your business
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free Trials |
| Author: | Dave Sykes |
| Date: | Friday, 29th Sep 2006 12:44 |
| Views: | 363 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Job Boards | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=4084 |
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Hi all
Thanks for your feedback so far both on and off forum.
We have used cv-library in the past and Monster both a little disapointing with aplications and candidates found through searches, we have found Reed to be very good despite what I have read on this forum, 2 placements with them last month.
Thanks Harry had a look at the site it appears they only offer one trial job posting and from experiance we find just one add on a site gets lost in the pond so may not get a good indication as to how the site may perform if we were fully subscribed, but will look at again later today.
Are there any new and up and coming sites anyone has tried recently, as the pool of candidates from the established sites seems to have stagnated in recent months.
We do headhunt to a succesfull level but as rec2rec bod pointed out it is a much longer process
Thanks Dave |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free Trials |
| Author: | Alastair Cartwright |
| Date: | Monday, 2nd Oct 2006 15:15 |
| Views: | 358 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Job Boards | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=4084 |
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Hi Dave,
Have you tried any PPC campaigns? If you are looking for "fresh candidates" this has proved to be very effective.
PPC campaigns can run across all the major search engines and a range of industry specific content sites (non-recruitment), where you have a better chance of attracting the passive job seeker.
By some lucky coincidence Enhance Media provide a PPC service to recruiters. All our team are Google Advertising Professionals and experts in online recruitment advertising.
Drop me a line if you are interested or have a look at our site http://www.enhancemedia.co.uk/services/advertising_keywords.htm for more information.
Best of luck
Alastair |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free Trials |
| Author: | dave Sykes |
| Date: | Tuesday, 10th Oct 2006 22:33 |
| Views: | 328 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Job Boards | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=4084 |
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Just looked at those 3 no trials?............
and 2 of them that connect appear to be the same sight? and www.e4engineering.com keeps locking out my system.
I have a friend who runs an IT agency in Milton Keynes who says he has a daily bombardment of free trials he will issue me the latest list next week which I shall publish?..
But before he does is there any sites tested lately that could be worth trialing and ultimately subscribing to?..
Dave
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free Trials |
| Author: | VoiceOFReason |
| Date: | Wednesday, 11th Oct 2006 12:05 |
| Views: | 363 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Job Boards | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=4084 |
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Free job board trials are not always the answer
The migration from traditional print media advertising to online solutions is increasing by the day. In a short matter of time the online sector will exceed that of the print media as more and more recruiters turn to online solutions.
Due to the publishers print media revenue declining at a rapid rate they have a vested interest in pushing up online advertising costs – ideally they would like to charge you as much online as offline in a desperate attempt to plug the falling revenue. Your online costs will increase with these sites - do not be under any false illusions.
Currently I notice some of these publisher sites charging extra for branding, addition of logos higher rates for bigger online displays etc, etc – Its all tosh!!!, it costs absolutely nothing more for an advert to carry a graphic on it than it does without one and has virtually no impact on a web servers capacity. It’s simply another way to extract a bit more cash from you, just like being charged more in your local rag for a box display over a linage advert!
The print media have also done a very good job at convincing recruiters that you should expect a free trial of a job board which is amazing when you consider that they would never have dreamed of letting you trial an advert in your local paper for free, but are happy to do so now with their online offering. Let me tell you why this is if you haven’t already worked it out:-
First off, they need to dominate the online sector. They have helped push up pay per click adverts in the major search engines in some cases to over a £1 a click. This means that for a new job board entrant to come into the market its going to cost them £100,000 a month plus just to get 100,000 visitors which I can tell you is not a lot of job seekers if you want a good response to your job adverts.
By promoting free trials it means that recruiters seek out free trials hence this thread. It also means that new entrants to the market also have no way of getting income in during free trial periods whilst burning loads of cash so need deep pockets. Hence why the success rate of a new job board is so small, probably less than a 5% chance of making it.
Also, the publishers during the trial period will appoint a sales rep to canvas you by phone or visit you and this is because they are looking to sign you up at a loaded rate. After all if they can extract 5-12k from you it’s been worth it! Whilst the smaller board that wants to offer a more cost effective solution isn’t going to send a sales rep out to sign you up if their packages are hundreds rather than thousands of pounds as it’s not cost effective to do so.
Due to the recruitment cycle involved from candidate introduction to placement any form of short trial is not going to give a true picture of what that board’s effectiveness is over the longer term. Also, if the board is buying in traffic for your keywords, those adverts could be here today and gone tomorrow, again this clouds the effectiveness. You only know the true value of that board over a twelve month window allowing for all the peaks and troughs during the year.
The publishers short free trial may in most cases yield a better short term response rate than say a small lower cost board will however, over the course of the year its likely that the smaller board could well introduce to you some great candidates and based on return on your investment over say a year is going to well outperform the publishers boards on a cost per candidate basis due to the smaller board being less expensive to advertise on. A short term trial is not going to be effective enough to see the true return on investment you are likely to get over the longer term.
How many times do you hear from other recruiters that they have advertised on X publisher site and found that its not as effective now as it once was or the response levels were poor etc and they have spent a lot of money with them – sounds familiar??.
I believe that rather than just seeking out free trials recruiters should look into other factors more closely when looking for the right board and on making a decision should compare the sites effectiveness over the longer term on a return on investment basis:-
1. Has the board got good natural regular UK traffic to it.?
2. If you search as a job seeker would in the major search engines does the board feature or not? (If it does for your terms a job seeker will find your jobs)
3. Compare the cost to advertise over the longer term – like any form of advertising the longer you feature the better.
4. How many jobs are on the board in relation to the number of visitors it gets.
In all remember that it’s in your interests to look outside of publisher sites – if you don’t a time will come when you have no options. When the market is completely dominated and just like print media costs their will be little choice between any of them due to them being excessively priced.
Free trials are not always the solution
VOR
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free Trials |
| Author: | VoiceOf "I HAVEN'T THE FIRST CLU |
| Date: | Thursday, 12th Oct 2006 10:29 |
| Views: | 317 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Job Boards | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=4084 |
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Never ever have I heard so much "TOSH" in all my life....
Couple of things...
1) Any Job Board first starting up will need to offer free trials in order to get client jobs and then jobseekers.... fact... You can't sell something you don't have! Most important aspect of any job board is the job seeker. Think like them, work like them, understand them. Do that and you'll truly understand how to postion your product to them.
2) Those so called "Publisher sites" actually Cannibalise their own print offerings in order to compete for revenue.....well the good ones do anyway! The rates are also cheaper than traditional print.
3) It's costs serious money to run a jobboard and not just to drive traffic.... Tech teams, IT systems teams, Design teams, Development teams, Marketing teams, Customer support teams, New Product Development teams, Project Implementation teams.... etc etc... Someone has to pay the wages, heating, lighting etc..... you expect them to deliver you a logo for nothing? You expect them to deliver you 000's of applications for free?
4) I have used 4 of the main jobboards for the last 3 years and not once have the rates been pushed up... not once! No I lie... once one of them did for running an email marketing campaign that worked a treat on a particular campaign I got dumped with at short notice. Ever heard of a recruitment company that hasn't raised it's fees? Price of Baked Beans increases every year does it not??
I could go on forever counter arguing this so called "Voice of Reason", but I am bored to death of his/her pathetic demotivational patter that does nothing to encourage, inspire or help honest hard working users of this forum. In fact... it is not the first time this "Voice of Reason" has accused the Publishing sector of controlling the online job market. Who cares.... if they do it well and it is value for money and we get the response...bothered!!! If they don't deliver then don't use them... simple. If you're a small board and you want to compete ..... then you go for it! Free trials will give you a kick start but don't sacrafise your revenue and the effort that you will have to put in.
There is only one thing is for sure in the unique world of online recruitment..... look where we all were 5 years ago and look where we are now. Look at some of the most popular websites that are available to the common person today with a computer and a broadband connection........ one thing for sure is that what you see today will be entirely different 5 years from now. The whole market will be turned on its head..... guaranteed!!
My advice to anyone trying to set up an online job board for the future..... be brave... be bold.... think like a jobseeker.... be creative.....finally be resilient. Think outside of a tradiational job board or a paper based advert for attracting candidates... or find niche and exploit it to your fullest potential....
Finally ring some of the big boys in the market.... you never know they might be able to give you some hints and tips.... I certainly phoned other recruiters for the advice when I first set up 10 years ago. Wouldn't be where we are today without some of that invaluable advice. Good Luck!
Voice of Reason..... don't take this negatively but try and be a little more positive when giving advice on this forum. People are impressionable and value advice but are demotivated with negativity and cynical views. I am sure you have a wealth of great experience that will be of benefit to members of this forum....
Dude |
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