Engage: the Carve Blog on Social, Search, Talent

I don't know how many of you have had a look at VisualCV.com yet? In a word: cute. Great idea, great networking capability, great future. We're all creating VisualCVs over the next couple of weeks, and will post them here. Thanks Scott and Alex for organising this

Everyone knows the internet has changed how people look for work. Recruiters have had to adapt (and will have to continue to adapt) their businesses for this. Want a new job? Time to visit Google and see all the different options - recruitment consultancies, employer careers sections, referral sites... List seems to be limitless these days. A new technique/ tactic seems to pop up regularly with varying degrees of success.

The one part of the cycle that really hasn't changed is the good old CV. No matter how our info reaches a prospective employer, it’s still pretty much the same format. Hasn’t really changed has it?

Well one company is looking to change all that. VisualCV.

I was intrigued so thought who better to talk to than Scott Herman, VP for Product Management at VisualCV. You can see Scott’s own Visual CV at www.visualcv.com/scottherman

CARVE: Scott, the mission statement on your website states your goal is to reinvent the CV for the internet age. That’s a bold objective. How did the business get started?

Scott H: Our cofounders, Clint Heiden (www.VisualCV.com/clintheiden) and Phillip Merrick ( www.VisualCV.com/phillipmerrick ) have been executives, entrepreneurs, and job seekers themselves and together they have recruited thousands of professionals. Like all people and companies who recruit, they found the whole process very inefficient and frustrating for their companies and for the candidates and professionals they interviewed. Clint even founded his own recruiting company to try and solve these frustrations. Turns out that what he discovered from this venture was that the resume was an essential but broken tool. So, Clint got together with his friend and technologist, Phillip, to talk about how they could apply technology to the resume and make it more applicable to today's professionals. The two spent the next few months meeting with human resource managers, recruiters, and professionals to find the points of frustration and dream up a product that could ease the frustration for companies and professionals. After the research and planning phase, they went out to find the start-up team that could help bring the concept to fruition. Many of the current VisualCV.com team worked with Clint and Phillip in the past (myself included).
The world didn’t need another job board or applicant tracking system. It didn’t need yet another social network. In fact, job boards, corporate recruiting websites, and social networks are often the source of the frustration with job searching and professional networking! We wanted to focus on the common “personal” element – the resume or CV. Thus the product focuses on making it easy for people to create CVs for the Internet age – VisualCVs. Development of the production version of VisualCV.com started last Fall and we launched our public beta in February of this year.

CARVE: Given your own CV is online, you clearly believe this is a great way to advertise your firm. Are other firms outside of VisualCV using this product to promote their services or are most of your customers using VisualCV to differentiate themselves during a job search?

SH: VisualCVs are great for job searching. Not only do they allow people to represent themselves in a whole new way, but creating multiple tailored versions, controlling who gets access to a particular VisualCV, and tracking who views your VisualCV are killer features for job seekers.

But we see a significant percentage of our members who are using their VisualCVs for business development, self-promotion, or personal brand management. They’re not looking for their next job but they want something that helps them stand out from the crowd in their daily business dealings. Their VisualCV becomes an extension of their business card; they build a VisualCV that highlights their experience or their current offering and they use our privacy settings to make the VisualCV “public”. A public VisualCV has a friendly web address and can be seen by anyone on the Internet, including the various search engines. We also see companies creating VisualCVs for themselves – an organizational VisualCV that highlights what the company is about, often with links to the individual VisualCVs of their key personnel. A great example of this is Weeman Entertainment, a recording industry firm you can find at http://www.visualcv.com/premier/weeman. This is clearly not a job-seeking VisualCV but a great way to promote their company!
I use my own VisualCV for many purposes other than job searching. You’ll find links to my “public” VisualCV (I have many different versions with varying privacy levels) in my email signature, in my blog posts, printed on both sides of my business card, etc.

CARVE: Again, looking at your site, there’s a number of high profile firms that have already signed up to use and accept VisualCVs. In terms of implementation, what sort of process changes do these companies go through to start using your service?

SH: We see companies using VisualCV.com in a number of ways. At the simplest level, companies can create their own VisualCV, perhaps highlighting why job searchers might want to work there. They can then list themselves (for free) in our Company Directory where our members can find and research them. Members can share their own VisualCVs with the company through a simple “one-click” interface. A job searcher can express interest in 10 companies with as many clicks, rather than wading through 10 different online application forms on 10 different corporate websites. And the company benefits by getting the higher-quality VisualCVs vs. Old-school paper resumes. As of July, we have over 600 companies in our Company Directory where our members can check them out.

At the mid-level, a company can buy a “private-label” version of VisualCV.com that allows them to maintain their own branded community of VisualCVs. A company can control who gets access to create VisualCVs, what the visibility of the community is, how the user experience looks – they even get their own private domain name. We continue to host their gated community as a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering similar to SalesForce.com. This is a great option for corporate recruiting, mid-large size recruiting firms, associations, and professional networking communities. One example of this “private-label” model is The China Business Network http://www.thechinabusinessnetwork.com/ ), which is launching their own “private” VisualCV community this Fall.
At the highest-level, we offer companies the ability to have their own private-label community of VisualCVs that is tightly integrated with their own applications and business workflows. The company can customize the VisualCV user experience and incorporate company-specific features into the service. This is what we’re doing with Heidrick & Struggles.

CARVE: Arguably the highest profile VisualCV has had in the UK so far has been the deal you have concluded with Heidrick & Struggles. What can you tell us about this? What were Heidricks looking for and how will the VisualCV service change how they go about their business?

SH: Heidrick & Struggles is one of the top executive search firms in the world. They operate up in the stratosphere, often placing C-level candidates in Fortune 50 companies. So obviously anything that would allow them to better feature and promote their very senior candidates would get their attention. Imagine presenting a virtual binder of CEO-level interactive VisualCVs to an exclusive client, rather than a stack of “wall of text” paper. It totally changes the “short list” selection process.
Heidrick & Struggles got involved with us very early on, when we first started shopping around the concept and looking for feedback. They’re not just a customer for us, they’re an early-stage investor as well. We’re building a highly customized “private-label” version of VisualCV.com for them that will be integrated into their internal business processes. Our privacy and security features are a big draw since confidentiality is at the heart of an executive search.

CARVE: If I as an individual want to use a VisualCV, either for a job search or to promote my own service, how would I go about doing this, and how much would it cost me?

SH: VisualCV.com is free for individual members. Getting started is as simple as visiting our website at http://www.visualcv.com/ and clicking on the “Sign Up” link. Once you’ve signed up, you can use our user-friendly editor to create your first VisualCV. We support cut-n-paste, drag-n-drop, and other interface concepts that people are familiar with from their desktop applications. You don’t need “web skillz” to build a VisualCV – we’ve specifically designed it so that a non-technical person can build a VisualCV. We also have over 100 real-world example VisualCVs available (after you log in) so that you can see what other people are doing to make their VisualCVs stand out from the pack. Lots of very creative ideas; we’re often surprised by how often our members take their VisualCVs in a direction we had never even anticipated.

CARVE: A free service for individuals sounds good to me! In that case, what is your revenue model?

SH: Admittedly, our revenue model seems strange at first. We don’t charge individual members. We don’t put advertising on VisualCVs (it’s your personal brand, not ours!). We allow companies to join our Company Directory for free. So how do we make money? We often joke that since we’re Web 2.0, everything is free. But there are a few different ways that VisualCV.com generates revenue.

Most important is our “private-label” offering. Our free public site shows what’s possible with a VisualCV. But companies and organizations usually want more control over brand, access, privacy settings, member communications, etc. Depending on the level of customization and integration required, these private-label versions of VisualCV.com can generate significant revenue for us.

We’re also rolling out a Partner Marketplace this summer. Companies or individuals will be able to buy listing space in a Marketplace area of our website where they can draw attention to their own VisualCV and the services they provide, like boutique recruiting, career counselling, and resume writing, The key to the Marketplace is that it offers services that will be focused on job searchers. No Viagra ads or “dancing aliens” mortgage ads. The Marketplace will be a professional directory of (hopefully) very relevant services for our members.

Also keep in mind that we’re young. We want to think carefully about how we introduce revenue-generating services to the site. We’re more interested in helping VisualCVs become popular and widely used at this point. When VisualCVs are common currency, more revenue opportunities will present themselves. We get a lot of advice from our user community, including many great ideas for future revenue. We’re VC-funded at this point and have major investors like Heidrick & Struggles behind us. We have a backlog of those private-label opportunities. We don’t have to scramble for every dime at this point like many startups.

CARVE: In terms of a target market for your community building service, what types of firms do you believe would benefit most from this?

SH: I think there’s two major reasons why an organization would want to create their own VisualCV-based community. They may be a professional association or alumni group where they want to combine VisualCVs with social/professional network features. They don’t want to simply use our public site because they want to control access to their community and not just let anyone join. They may also want to integrate the functions of VisualCV.com with their own website.
The other type of organization that might want to create a private community based on VisualCVs is the recruiters. VisualCV.com is really tailor-made for recruiting firms. It’s a very competitive environment and the recruiter that can find good candidates and then present them to clients as VisualCVs is going to win out over competing recruiters doing things the old-fashioned way. Those recruiters are going to want to keep those candidates private and confidential, so they want all of the VisualCV.com features around confidentiality, security, and the role of a recruiter within the system. For example, a recruiter wants to easily search the entire population of their community to find potential candidates with matching skills. So search capability within a very private website is a big deal for recruiter-based communities.

CARVE: For as long as there have been job seekers there have been CVs. For as long as there have been CVs, people have been offering advice on presentation etc. What sort of advice would you give an individual on how they can make the most of their VisualCV, from both the perspective of a job seeker and as someone looking to promote their services?

SH: The key to a successful VisualCV is Portfolio Items. A VisualCV is made up of classic resume sections like work history, education, certifications, and skills. But it’s the portfolio items that turn a boring old text-based resume into an interactive, multimedia VisualCV. Portfolio items like work samples, images, audio, even video can really add personality and make your VisualCV stand out from paper-based resumes. And everyone has portfolio items – you don’t have to come from a visual or creative profession (like entertainment or architecture) to have good portfolio items. Check out our Examples Directory online to see how people from all walks of life are creating killer VisualCVs.

A special note on video – a VisualCV can contain video clips, but doesn’t have to. Most don’t. But even when VisualCVs contain a video, it’s rarely a “talking head” staring into a webcam saying “I’d like a job, please”. Instead, some of the best VisualCVs contain a video of the member giving a keynote address at a conference or demonstrating a product. Maybe the local news covered a project you worked on. Maybe there’s a YouTube video that provides a general background understanding of your particular skill set.

CARVE: Given how close profiles on networking sites liked LinkedIn resemble traditional CVs, do you view these sites as competitors?

SH: LinkedIn and VisualCVs go great together, like peanut butter and jelly. I love LinkedIn and have been a power user for many years. LinkedIn is a great network for finding people. But once you find them, their profiles are dull, shallow, and essentially the same-old text-based stuff you might find in a resume. Instead, we see our members putting their VisualCV *into* their LinkedIn profile. So they can be found via LinkedIn but then their VisualCV takes over. Take a look at my own LinkedIn profile to see an example of how I reference my VisualCV – http://www.linkedin.com/in/scottherman”
VisualCV is not another social network. It makes your existing social networks better by giving you a much richer profile that you can insert into LinkedIn, FaceBook, or wherever you hang out online. And VisualCV is all about a “professional” presence. Nobody can alter your VisualCV by adding drunken pictures from the party last Saturday night. Nobody throws pies or bananas, plays Scrabble, or whatever. There’s two people you never want to meet on Facebook, your mom and your next boss. VisualCV.com gives you total control over your online presence, whether you want to remain invisible, or tightly control who sees you, or broadcast to the entire web.

CARVE: The recruitment market globally has been changing at a rapid pace over the course of the last few years. In my opinion, periods of economic slowdown accelerate this change. Again in my opinion, the US is a little further ahead of the UK in terms of web usage per head and widespread adoption of the net as a tool for recruiting. What do you think have been the biggest changes in the online recruitment market in the US over the last couple of years and what do you foresee as being the next steps in the evolution of the market?

SH: There’s been one big trend in the last 5 years that I’m focused on, and it’s not a good trend. With the increasing automation of the recruiting process, people have become simply data processing objects passed around huge job boards and corporate application tracking systems. Job seekers are basically a big pile of keywords desperately trying to be harvested by the corporate search engine. It’s extremely hard to differentiate yourself when you know that your resume is parsed to shreds and then disappears into some central data bank. Why spend time creatively describing your skills when it’s all about keyword searching by overworked recruiters and hiring managers? It’s one of the reasons that “who you know” is still so much a part of the job search process.
Philosophically, that’s a major reason we are developing VisualCV.com. To allow people to have more control over their own personal brand. To bring personality and creativity back to the job search. To help hiring managers make better short-list and final hiring decisions. And to let people define how, when, and where they want to be seen online.

Clearly there's quite a bit more to VisualCV than may first meet the eye. They're not finished yet either mind you. Anyone connected to Scott on LinkedIn will know he's been working on version 1.8. What's on the way? Quite a bit actually....From new member home pages with tips for new users, bespoke privacy settings and connecting functionality with other VisualCV users - not dissimilar to the "friends" function on social media. For organisations - "gated" communities allowing VisualCV clients to vet registrations and monetize their membership.

So what do you think? Will we end up seeing VisualCVs becoming the norm? Clever product, that's for sure but will you be using it to promote your business or as part of your next job search? My view? Well put it this way, don't be surprised to see a VisualCV on my Linkedin profile soon...

A big thank you to Scott Herman for his time and input into this post, and to Alex Strang for organising this.

We've been spending some time looking at LinkedIn's new DirectAds system.

A natural progression for LinkedIn to further monetize their content (on top of their subscription model) this should provide a rich channel for marketers (and HR /recruiters) to target custumers and talent.

It's in beta at the moment (what isn't?) but the interface looks straightforward, and the targeting options - including job function, industry, company size, and so on - are *very* powerful (setting it apart from Google's eponymous Adwords on this score).

The kicker though is if they can make the ad impression model work (wherein you buy advert views or eyeballs, rather than clicks). Google does sell impressions, but the mega success of Adwords to SMEs has been that you only pay per click.

A screen grab below. The beta only allows for targeting US LinkedIn network members - we'll let you know as soon as we can target UK / Europe.

LinkedIn Direct Ads

To those of you (read: everyone) I've been boring about the renovation of our new house in Camberwell, here's a picture of (what will be..) the kitchen / diner.

And no, we didn't imagine it would need this much work. And yes it does put me in mind of that seminal house rennovation Hanks vehicle, The Money Pit

Despite studiously (and no doubt to them, ludicrously) trying to avoid mis-pronouncing the company name during our first meeting, we're delighted to begin working with leading market research recuitment consultancy, Spalding Goobey.

We've never worked in the MR sector before (though I once earned £16 from YouGov during a period of enforced inactivity, if that counds), so we're looking forward to understanding the DNA and drivers in this recruitment sector.

Spalding Goobey: Market Research Jobs and Recruitment

So on December 27th 2007 I was skiing in beautiful Les Houches when - trying out a new ski / boot combo - I stupidly fell.. and the saga with AXA Travel Insurance (via Lloyds TSB 'Premier' service) began.

Whilst the problems with my knee continue (ACL broken, but re-attached to PCL, if you're interested) the AXA travel insurance claim should have been straightforward. I'd called the overseas number the same day and made them aware of an upcoming claim. I'd religiously asked for, kept and copied every receipt and hospital report. On return to the UK, I filled in their from (that can't be done online for "procedural reasons" - excuse me but WTF? Why not?) and then waited. And waited some more. And then some more.

When I called, they then noticed that whosoever had entered my details has reduced my address to (I exaggerate, but not much) Paul Harrison, London. So we put that right. And I waited some more. I called up again. Again - ha ha, how silly we are! - Axa realised they hadn't in fact updated my address when I was on the phone with them. So they may have sent me stuff but - weirdly - the postal service couldn't deliver these crucial documents without a house number, street or postcode.

To cut a long story short, finally the papers arrived. And they were the one's I'd already completed. But now everyone was happy at least and the claim could proceed - it had only taken 5 months.

Then in May - nothing

June - nothing

July - still a whole lot nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero.

Just got off the phone to them. My claim is being 'presented to the payment department tomorrow' ( yeah, right ) and they'll call me back if any more problems. Well let's see. Whilst I wait, lets see if we can get to the top of Google before they pay me. But what phrases should we aim for? Something a bored ted top headline writer might come up with:

"So I married an AXA Murderer"
"AXA a stupid question?"
"ThAXA for nothing"

but I feel like settling on something more prosaic:

AXA Travel Insurance, terrible customer service
AXA Travel Insurance, difficulty making a claim
AXA Travel Insurance, long wait for claim payout

and, indeed from the heart

AXA you *****, pay me my money now

Lets see how we get on.

AXA, if you're unable to set up an online form for claims, I doubt you track your brand in the blogosphere, but a bonus point to you if you read this and comment below (two bonus points if you can come up with a dumb AXA related headline)

Rant over.

We've been working with Thirty Three recently on the new site they've developed for search firm Redgrave Parners.

Our objective? Take a relatively new domain - with few in-bound links and little or no dynamic content - and generate some search engine buzz around keyphrases including 'Global Executive Search'. Let's see how we get on over the next few months.

Redgrave Partners: Global Executive Search

So picture the scene.

You walk into your office – having just come off the phone to your Chief Exec (or worse still the Bank Manager) discussing the impact of the latest economic woes and the potential impact on your bottom line.

A quick glance around the office and it looks like business as normal. There’s telephone activity, your people look focussed. Looking a little closer – you can see 50% of the screens in your office are on Twitter. Don’t know about you, but I’d be more than a little peeved at this. But should I be? Can Twitter give your business an edge in a competitive market? When it comes to sourcing staff, promoting your business and getting real time, genuine customer feedback maybe it can:

Sourcing staff

Let’s work on the premise that passive candidates are the most placeable. Someone in a job and not actively looking – not the sort of person to be checking the press (who does these days? If you do, let us know!) or browsing job boards at lunchtime. Other than engaging (a rather costly) headhunter, this person is pretty tricky to get hold of.
Not so say US sourcers.

Have a look at www.summize.com . This is a “conversational” search engine that searches tweets (Twitter posts.) If for example you’re looking for a new Accountant, then if there are accountants twittering they’re likely to be using accounting terms in their tweets. Put them into summize and you’ll have a list of Twitterers (anyone got a better collective word for twitter users?) that have used these terms – highly likely to be accountants.

I know what you’re thinking – what about location? Summize now allows advanced searches to screen out based on geography as well as text. Very useful.

Found someone that looks like they have the skills/ background? Send a tweet @ them! Easy, but with one caveat – uptake on twitter in the UK isn’t quite as strong as it is in the US. This tactic is worth being aware of here but perhaps not quite enough UK users to make this a mainstay of your sourcing strategy. Oh and if you are looking at your sourcing strategy at the moment, we’d love to hear from you (hey if we can’t plug our services on our own blog then where can we?)

Promoting your business

OK, I agree Twitter doesn’t at first strike you as the natural environment to promote your business. Not at first glance anyway. Look a little closer and there’s a numbers of tactics that can generate you some free PR.

Tweets

Simple stuff really. Rules here are to keep them coming (sadly it is a degree of a numbers game) and try to make it as interesting as you can -In 140 characters obviously. Try including links to your website (tinyurl.com will shrink the url size for you, free) or to any other site that backs up your point of view. Seen an interesting blog post? Tweet about it.

Object of the exercise here is to generate as many followers as possible. The more followers you have the more likely it is people will be reading your tweets – and clicking on your links. Free traffic to your website, not a paid click in sight.

Following others

It is a pretty good feeling when you get your first few followers on Twitter. What’s the first thing you do? Check them out and see who they are. Next? Does human nature dictate (or Twitter etiquette?) dictate that you start to follow the people that are following you? Unlikely to get everyone you choose to follow you, but it is highly likely that they will at least look at your profile. Make sure you’ve got a link to your website on it.

It is worth likening this approach to the “Open Networker” techniques used by a number of people on LinkedIn (if you’ve not heard of this have a look at www.toplinked.com and be prepared to be shocked at the numbers..) I think this approach will become more popular on Twitter... Wish you were an early adopter in the LinkedIn Open Networker stakes? Could this be Twitter’s equivalent?

There are people who are following this approach already. Next time you get a new follower, someone that you’ve never heard of, have a look at just how many people they are following. Now you know what they’re up to!

Realtime, genuine customer feedback

I don’t think many people would argue that the initial reaction you’d give to good or bad service is more than a little different to the answer you’d give if someone asked you what you thought (we Brits still don’t like complaining...) or if you were asked to complete a customer service questionnaire.

Think back to how www.summize.com can be used to source staff.

Instead of using a search term relevant to a profession, use one relevant to your business, product or service. Easy. Summize will supply you with a list of all Twitter users who are commenting. Instant customer feedback.

If you were working in movies for example – use “Wanted” to see what people thought of your latest action flick. “Dark Knight” will be worth checking on summize in a week or two.. In fact – from a consumer perspective, any movie you go and see is worth checking on summize before you go see it.

This works for just about any product or service. Whether you’re selling cars, movies, recruitment services or clothes – if anyone has tweeted on your product/ service (or your competitors’ for that matter) it is well worth checking summize every once in a while.

So there you have it. What do you think? Is Twitter worthwhile for businesses or is it just a way to spend some time. We’d love to hear your views.

I get the feeling though that we won’t get the overall verdict for a while yet. If Twitter user numbers grow then the sorts of things in this post will become common place. If they don’t then Twitter is likely to overtaken by another high speed, open communications platform.... No doubt with even more options for individuals and businesses.

My take?

I wouldn’t write Twitter off – user base is remarkably loyal, especially given some of the reliability issues. I wouldn’t base my sourcing or marketing strategy around it, but I would find some space for Twitter in the mix.

Alex Strang

Just a quick shout out to highlight our recent launch of the new website for award winning London IT Support specialist The Internet Group.

A couple of screen grabs below; W3C compliant and designed with SEO in mind (currently top 10 Google ranked for IT Support London ), the site has a multimedia gallery with podcasts and vodcasts, has a online test for IT engineers who want to prove their mettle, LivePerson on-site help, with a blog coming soon.

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? How could something like Twitter threaten a gossip mag like Heat?

Those of you who have already caught the Twitter bug (after several months resistance I seem to actually enjoy this site.... much to my wife’s amusement) will know that this is a rapid fire communications platform. Users are asked to answer the question “What are you doing?” Simple stuff hey? Users have 140 characters to advertise/ promote what they are up to. Many use it to promote their business or service. Some to promote blog posts, some seem to use it as a replacement for internal email. Some people purely and simply answer the question – leading to tweets (to the uninitiated that’s what twitter posts are called by the way) that are as simple as “I’m off to the shops” or “I’m thinking about quitting my job.”

Pretty straightforward.

Where it gets interesting for someone like Heat Magazine (or a Heat reader for that matter) is if you look at some of the people who are using Twitter these days. One or two people you may have heard of:
- Barack Obama (this man must have the best web people behind him. I must at this stage deny any rumours linking the Senator with a Carve Consulting E-PR campaign. As you can imagine, I’m not allowed to go into any details...
- No10 Downing St (We’re definitely not working with Gordon...)
- Kevin Rose (the founder of digg.com – who has in excess of 50,000 followers)
- Diablo Cody (writer of “Juno”)
- Henry Rollins (former punk rocker now political activist)
- Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook – who currently has his tweets protected, come on Mark, open it up! Wait a minute.... do you think we could get a big enough Facebook group to persuade him?)

Given Twitter originated in the US our friends across the water have adopted this a little quicker, however there are one or two signs that UK celebs may just be getting in on the act... Now who would be top of your Twitter wish list? We’d go for:
- Russell Brand
- Cristiano Ronaldo
- Sir Alex Ferguson (preferably discussing Ronaldo’s “slave” antics, live on Twitter)
- Gordon Brown – the real one, not whoever is doing No10 Downing – web 2.0 is all about being real – and transparent. Come on Gordon!
- Billy Connolly
- Liam and Noel Gallagher
- Sienna Miller

Other than Carve Consulting (www.twitter.com/carveconsulting - follow us!) and myself (http://twitter.com/alexstrang) who would you like to be able to follow on Twitter? Wishlists in the comments box please... Bottle of Carve Cava to the best wish list (decided upon by a neutral judge, highly likely to be my wife....)

OK that’s the fun side of Twitter. Anyone interested in a follow up post on more business related uses of Twitter (like how to get instant, real customer feedback – and how US recruiters are using Twitter to source professional staff.) If so drop us a line and we’ll follow this post up.

Alex posted this on his excellent blog ( http://onlinerecruiter.blogspot.com ) and asked if we'd be interested in publishing this via our network. Alex, the floor is yours..

The industry head of careers and classifieds at Google is quoted in this month's Recruiter magazine as saying:

"The Hays and the Adeccos of the world haven't got it right. Where are they online? They are feeding the jobs boards."

Lovely. I'm sure Hays and Adecco are delighted to have their online approach critiqued in such a constructive manner! In fairness to the chap from Google, it looks like he's been quoted at "recruitment society" event (? have you been to one of these?) as opposed to having an open pop at them... I suspect he may be surprised that his comments have made the press (not to mention this blog obviously.) Don't fancy being Google's Hays account manager today...

Anyway, do you think he's right? Do you think Hays and Adecco are behind their larger competitors? I'm not so sure they are.

My take is that there is just so much coming at the recruitment industry at the moment - everything from impending economic meltdown to disruptive technology - that it is very tricky for recruiters to know what to and what not to adopt in their online strategy. Trying to stay ahead of the curve on this isn't easy. Trying to do this for a huge business like Hays, Adecco or any of the other big recruiters is a heck of a job. Think about it - decide to run with one of the new routes to market, get buy in from various stakeholders in the business, sort process changes/ set up and then go for it. Back the right horse and you're a star. Make the wrong call and consider how much time (and therefore money) it would cost a big recruiter to adopt even a free service.

As much as there's now a huge amount of choices and an ever changing market, not getting the right approach online will cost any recruiter hugely over the short, medium and long term. It really is rock and a hard place for some of the larger firms. As well as having to make calls on social media approaches, business networking (I did promise not to mention Hays/ Mark Ions in this post...), getting their own website right and sorting out a sensible job board strategy, recruiters also have to deal with the disruptive approaches coming at them (very regularly now) Here's some examples:

www.bountyjobs.com - crux of this site is to allow the client to post the vacancy as well as what fee, recruiters then decide whether to work it or not. If they do its submit CVs. Want more detail on this? Click on www.cheezhead.com
www.beaker.com - I like this one.... Its a community site specifically for the life sciences sector. Its got the lots, career management, job ads, training/ development options and a LinkedIn style connect function. Where does the recruiter feature there? It may not come as a surprise that the CEO is an ex recruiter...
www.zubka.com - hugely disruptive referal bounty site. Now attracting more entrants to the market - www.yellojobs.com worth a look, the latest entrant in the US. Zubka is the daddy mind you - its been classed as "ebay for jobs" and in the UK is the closest thing to a "brand" in that market.

The list is almost endless... Flip yourself into the seat of the CEO of a listed recruitment firm.. Some big decisions ahead. No doubt many of the new sites/ offerings will launch in a blaze of glory only to fizzle out. Some of them are going to make it. As a recruiter if you miss the boat on this then you're really playing catch up.

What will really bring all of this to a head is the market slowdown. Most now acknowledge this is already upon us in the UK. Check out the comments on the Michael Page results on Yahoo Finance and the article in today's Times (links at the bottom of the post)In summary, MP's numbers are still very good (those of you who found this blog from my Xing or LinkedIn profile may accuse me of being a tad biased!) Few would argue that things are going to be tough in the UK over the next year or two.

During the last slowdown, we saw the Recruitment Process Outsourcing firms take a grip on the market. Love or loath RPOs? Think their day has come and gone? It doesn't really matter - the part of the market they are in is unlikely ever to go back to the straight agency market. This slowdown is likely to see another portion of the market go to the internet. How many businesses do you think are plotting how to cut agency spend at the moment?

Can the bigger firms have the same sort of agility as the smaller ones? Can they trial concepts? Anyone noticed what BLT are up to these days? Worth checking out www.carveconsulting.com/blog... Whether a big brand recruiter can or can't is almost irrelevant. They will need to adapt how they work to suit the increasing part the net is playing in jobsearches. Can they have a basic structure that is black and white in their online strategy and top this up with a "grey" area where they can trial new initiatives? I wonder.

Maybe the key word here is "adapt"

All of the disruptive media in the employment space is exciting stuff... All promise to be the catalyst for dramatic change... Consider one example. www.bountyjobs.com - on the face of it, this looks like it'd bring momumental change to the market. Job driven market, lots of candidates - from a client perspective its great: "Lots of recruiters want my business, I can use this site to drive the cost down." in principle this is really simple. In reality I'm not convinced. Why?
1. If recruiters need just agree to the terms on offer, can you imagine how many "hit and run" merchants will send CVs? Its not sounding like a positive experience for mr client
2. If the client is solely interested in driving cost down it stands to reason that a service oriented, quality recruiter would more than likely be thinking "thanks but not thanks" leaving lower quality firms to work the assignment. Again, as a client I would not be convinced that this the savings would outweigh either the inconvenience or the risk of not getting the best candidate for the job.

So what's the summary then?

3 key points for recruiters considering their online approach:

- Adaptabilty
- Flexibility
- Integration

Keep those three on the agenda... Simple hey, but can big firms act like smaller ones...?