The current model of advertising jobs online when introduced what the best thing after sliced bread. It was dirt cheap compared to the print media used before. All of the sudden a recruiter could reach ‘indefinite’ masses of interested applicants. The job advertisement would reach ‘The World’ instead of just the small circulation of the printed paper. Fabulous. All recruiters jumped in hat bandwagon.
Today 15 years later, there is no single recruiter who would say that job advertising on the job boards works that well. Most of the recruiters still use it but the level of satisfaction is eroding. There simply is less and less companies who can fill their positions by just advertising their jobs on job sites. There is more and more employers realising that by advertising on job boards will not fill all their positions. There are certain job types, that one can still fill on certain job boards in certain geographies. But most roles today are simply not filled by a candidate that applied on a job via the job site. That’s a fact.
Statistics of the large advertisers on the job sites show that around 90% of the applications fall in what recruiters determine to be the bottom level of application quality. Those are applications from people who do not match the necessary minimum required for a certain job. Those are (in no particular order):
1. Eligibility to work in the country
2. Being available for an interview face to face
3. Having the required certifications
Those applicants get an automated response and their communication with a recruiter and his company stops there. Forever. This really isn’t a win-win situation since the recruiter have spent unproductive time processing the application and the job seeker had the worst possible experience. 90% of job applications fall into this category. Why is that?
With all the jobs from all the companies advertised on a job site, the site is about the jobs. People go to that website with an intention to find themselves a job. They know exactly what type of a job and where would they like that job to be. So job boards make this very easy for job seekers, by letting them fill the job title and location, and search for the exact job they are looking for. Easy!
In fact it is supper easy to apply for any job on a job site. And there are so many of them. After reading 10 very similar or the same job descriptions it is natural for a job seeker to pay less attention to the job specifications, and applies for jobs that a job site returns in a search result. ‘My Facebook is waiting, let me get this job application business done quickly!’ – is what a jobseeker has in his head. Regardless of being or not being aware of that fact.
By the pure imperfection of the text search – the search for ‘Director’ will also return a result of any role for a ‘PA to a Director’. The long list of imperfections introduced while empowering the visitors to easily apply for the jobs advertised combined result in applications being sent to roles that are simply not applicable at all to the majority of applicants. That is in fact that 90% of applications. Those are very random pairs of job descriptions and CVs. This ‘Randomers’ – are the most likely to get nothing more back but an auto responder.
Jet some recruiters store all applications and all CVs in their database. A large recruitment agency would have an opinion that it is worth storing a CV even if it does not fit their job advertised, since there is most likely a job somewhere in the company where a CV is going to be applicable. Or it might become applicable for the future roles. Those recruiters see their CV database as an asset. Rarely would they actually do something with it. Even more rarely would they use the CV that actually dropped in as one of these random applications. The recruitment is ager all the business of relationships. Randomers do not with in that picture.
Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance (PPPPP) is a key to a successful job advertising. Check what job site is likely to attract what type of job seekers. Are those the ones you are looking for? If so go for it. Note that your likelihood to fill a role with an applicant is not high, and differs from a role to role. Some job types you can but some you are extremely unlikely to fill with a job site applicant. Your own research is a key. Reading the marketing material from job sites is by default misleading.
Recruitment via job sites will not become practically extinct as in papers. There always be a some job types that will be filled on what we call job sites. The form those job sites take in the future is likely to change. Today for example a migration to Facebook platform is the most likely evaluation step. Some integration with LinkedIn would also be natural. This evolution of job sites will always keep them alive and filling roles with applicants. Following job board development is a key of understanding what roles will you be able to fill with their candidates.
