The Jobster vs Sumser SeriesSumser on JobsterJobster on SumserOh, Shmoopy I wuv you
Canadian Headhunter's blog | more articles in Software
Tue, 07/19/2005 - 7:05pm
You are right on the "no pulling his punches" part.
It was only a matter of time before the positive press around Jobster was questioned. One of the greatest challenges in the HR field is the skeptics amongst the crowd. There are a lot of people who want to see cold-hard facts rather than marketing material.
The reality of going forth into any marketplace with a new process or technical advantage is that you soon have to provide the hard numbers and relay the effectiveness of what you are doing. From most corporate standpoints, effective systems are all about the metrics.
I've had a very similar discussion with several industry related personnel about how the WorkZoo model being integrated into the Jobster model was a mixed bag of goodies. The very advantage WorkZoo brings to Jobster (i.e. the fact that it brings in active consumers/candidates and let's Jobster play in both fields) is exactly the same crutch detracting from the number one selling point of Jobster- which was passive candidates.
I believe that John would have been easier on the idea if Jobster had acquired another company that had a more passive client base, but WorkZoo's audience is about as active as it can get.
Wed, 07/20/2005 - 7:19am
What about if the acquisition was about service differentiation and not integration? One of my first questions to the Joster folks was about the value proposition for the prospects (OK, yeah, I said that...so I recruit marketing people, I'm allowed to say stuff like that). All of their marketing was to the corporate users. I mean, you would have to ask them directly, but integration isn't the only reason to acquire. So they get more individual users to subscribe via WorkZoo, right, since they have real estate on the WorkZoo site?
LinkedIn markets on their subscriber base data. Doesn't this acquisition give Jobster some of that as well? Think about it. If someone is using WorkZoo and that links them into the Jobster network, doesn't that give the paying (corporate) users of Jobster extra value? If someone is a candidate, does that exclude them from being a part of a network? They might be a candidate today, hired tomorrow. Either way, it's the same person. They still potentially have an extended network that I (as a corporate user...not my official title...hee!)want to tap into.
Also, I don't get the part about why monster.com would want to somehow block WorkZoo. If I was working for a company that was selecting a job board contract, I might make a decision to go for the job board that gets picked up by WorkZoo because I want to get the postings in front of as many candidates as possible. What am I missing?
I suspect you (the generic you) might want to think beyond the obvious here. I need to spend some more time with WorkZoo to understand it a bit more, but if jobs are made available to the viewing public, I'm not sure that the job publishers can block them from WorkZoo or Jobster or whatever. It would be the ability to enhance the job seeker experience (aggregating job listings) that brings in the subscribers. The enhanced subscriber base then gets marketed to the corporations (that equals revenues for Jobster). Hello, this is exactly what the job boards do. And pretty much what search engines do by delivering customer data.
So the acquisition seems pretty logical to me. But don't take my word for it...I'm just a spectator.
Also, consider the press coverage generated from the WorkZoo acquisition. I've seen more press about the acquisition than about Jobster in general. If I was working for Jobster right not, I would be pretty stoked about that (oh, yeah, I just said that).
Wed, 07/20/2005 - 11:31am
Heather, I also wondered about the ability of the job-posting company to limit its propagation once it has made the information public and even supplied a special button to make it easier to email to your friends.
(I was thinking of asking George the lawyer at the Employment Blawg for a comment though it might be outside of his area of specialization.)
The issue about bringing the WorkZoo subscribers into the Jobster fold is that Jobster is meant to focus on the "hidden / passive / better" candidates whereas the WZ database only offers those who are posting their profiles online.
Even if the latter are not Jobster's targets, they know a lot of hidden candidates.
(Just like Steve Levy's ex-HP candidate in the 14,000+ posting.)
Wed, 07/20/2005 - 12:39pm
So let's hypothesise as to what capabilities could be added to Jobster now...
If you are an employer your job is visible to passive candidates who are Jobster members ...
and as an employee you can use the vertical/horizontal/diagonal search capability of workzoo to search for say, marketing jobs across locations and then find out how you are connected to that job from the jobster site?
This is getting more and more interesting...
Isn't this what Linkedin and SimplyHired do currently?
Wed, 07/20/2005 - 4:35pm
In my opinion, what is great about workzoo, simplyhired and the rest of them is the technology and that is all. I do not beleive for a second that these sites have lots of value if they include the data from the big job boards.
The customer acquisition cost in this market is tremendous and Monster and Hotjobs have the customers.
From what I understand, TheLadders has this technology and they use it for a completely different purpose.
I would be surprised if Jobster launched a job board with the workzoo technology. The technology is what they bought. I would imagine the value put on jobseekers who use workzoo today is almost zero.
As a recruiter, the more unqualified candidates who come to apply to companies just helps the recruiting business. Our fees go up. the only think worse that 100 resumes on a desk to go through is 500 resumes.
I am happy that these types of conversations happen.
Jason
Wed, 07/20/2005 - 4:47pm
I have to say I'm with John on this one. Maybe the reason that Jobster talks about evolution is because the original model just doesn't work.
In fact, Jobster blogged as much in early May (http://jobster.blogs.com/blog_dot_jobster_dot_com/2005/05/putting_the_str.html). At the time I picked up on this linking it to how the solution probably didn't consider the work-flow of the recruiters (http://resourcingstrategies.com/2005/05/05/implementation-of-new-ways-of-working/).
Secondly, I just don't buy the long-chain-network thing from a behavioural perspective. Again, I posted on this recently (http://resourcingstrategies.com/2005/07/13/on-online-job-postings/). If you want to understand why it shouldn't work from a Social Network Theory perspective I would recommend one of Bruce Hoppe's well informed posts (http://connectedness.blogspot.com/2005/03/perversity-of-linkedin.html).
Where I do agree with Jobster is that for most people online recruitment is not working. However my take on this is that this is because most people aren't taking the time to understand why. Online recruitment can be made to work but it takes time, a bit of analysis on candidate behaviours and studying the lessons of sales and marketing. That's maybe too difficult. Buying yet another add-on is much simpler, however it doesn't fix the underlying problem.
Ultimately the hype will die down, Jobster will either run out of cash or will have morphed into something more conventional. Then some might realise that we could do all the bits that work in the first place if we'd bothered to specify our ATS systems correctly.
Wed, 07/20/2005 - 8:56pm
Good conversation. Andrew-people who join the JObster network can also opt in to get all jobs of a certain type (marketing for example) at a certain company (Microsoft, for example) forwarded to them. So once they are in, they are in. Aside from my analogy above, I try not to liken it to LinkedIn. I think of it as more of a campaign tool. So the reason I got excited about Jobster was that it fit into to my existing process, I didn't have to develop a process around it. THink about doing a direct e-mail campaign to a specific group of 500 people (welcome to my world). Now think about the idea of plugging those people into Jobster instead and using it to execute on the campaign and (AND!) track the path of that campaign.
So I don't look at it as the social networking silver bullet. I see it tapping into EXTENDED personal networks (you can forward a Jobster campaign to a user group alias...for example, if you are a member of an MBA alumni group). If you know you are targeting quality (top MBA alumni org, for example), I don't really need to "recommendation" from someone in my network, I just want to get the person's resume. So that's how I look at it. I think there's opportunities for people to use it in different ways depending on what they want to do.
I hope that Jobster comes out with user scenarios so people get how it can fit into what they are already doing.
Thu, 07/21/2005 - 6:24am
Everyone:
Thanks for even bothering to talk about us. We're hard at work trying to fix some real issues with online recruiting as it is today -- and not all of it is going to be clearly obvious from the outside in. In the meantime, keep challenging us. Every bit of input and guidance -- positive and negative helps.
See my direct reply to all this here:
http://jobster.blogs.com/blog_dot_jobster_dot_com/2005/07/punches.html
Fri, 10/07/2005 - 6:50am
I'm not a glad-hander but I do believe in giving a fair chance to an up and coming start-up. In fact if you read through my blog you will find many criticisms.
With regard to Jobster I don't think they have perfected their product yet. But I do think it's fair for them to say they are continuing to evolve. Don't forget how many attempts Thomas Edison made before he invented the light bulb. So are they perfect, no. Are they passionate about the industry? Are they innovating? Do they have stellar people? I think so. What I believe Jobster has is the DNA to make it. And I hope they do because we need more innovators in our industry. There are a lot of copycats out there—non recruiting techies that see the dollar signs of the job boards and throw these lame job boards together—with no brand strength whatsoever. Then I get a call from their sales people—I look at their job boards and think to myself—if you need to call me to tell me that your job board exists why on earth would I pay 300 or more to post a job on a no-name brand. Oh, and that’s the other thing—Jobster has a brand. A fast growing one! And think about the power of a brand in this industry—what really separates some lame ho-dunk job board from the big ones—is it really the technology? Or is it the power of their brand?
Last but not least—since you brought up the subject my headhunting friend……when you see certain writers out there with hard criticisms and you respect them for taking the hard stand….also look at who they aren’t criticizing. You may see certain writers criticize everybody but a certain few—WHY? Do we ever stop to ask why? It’s easy to pick a target—politicians do it all the time. But it starts to get interesting when you look at who they are quiet about or always positive about. Would we ever hear Doctor Atkins criticize the beef industry? Do you think he would have a tough time criticizing the wheat industry? I think not.
Post new comment