Tag Archives: Careerbuilder

What’s Wrong with Job Boards?

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What’s wrong with job boards?

Nothing, in my opinion.

However, from the ridiculous overabundance of articles, comments, and recruiting conference content that trashes job boards as if they are the worst source of hire, I am obviously in the clear minority.

I continue to see and hear well respected thought leaders in the staffing industry make claims that the value of the job boards is waning and that the quality of candidates on the job boards is low, and it hasn’t slowed down.

Because there is such a strong belief that job boards somehow only offer low quality candidates, I am taking the time to offer a different point of view, as well as leverage statistics to prove that the job boards have the same percentage of “A” players as LinkedIn or any other source of hire.

News Flash: Job Boards Still Very Much Alive

Weren’t the job boards supposed to die, like, 5 years ago?

Funny how that didn’t happen.

It so didn’t happen that they are responsible for more hires than any other source other than referrals.

The most recent CareerXRoads Source of Hire Report showed that job boards are still pretty effective, weighing in at the #2 spot.

 

 

The facts do not support the belief that job boards are an “ineffective” source of hire.

As you can see, job boards also solidly crush social media as a source of hire, which I am sure most people find a tough pill to swallow, especially given that “social recruiting” is supposed to be a magical solution to all hiring troubles.

Um, wasn’t social media supposed to kill the job boards?

I am sure that it’s supposed to happen any day now, but something tells me that even in the next few years, while the talk of social media killing job boards will continue, the source of hire statistics and surveys will continue to tell a different story. Continue reading →

Don’t Be A Sourcing Snob

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Are You a Sourcing Snob?

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Is a candidate identified on LinkedIn intrinsically “better” than a candidate sourced from Monster?
  • Is candidate sourced by cold calling inherently “better” than a candidate sourced from a job posting on Careerbuilder?
  • Does it really matter where a great candidate comes from?

I continue to see well respected thought leaders in the staffing industry make claims that the quality of candidates on the job boards is low, and there seems to be no shortage of those in the recruiting and staffing industry who are happy to jump on that bandwagon. However, whenever I read or hear broad, sweeping statements claiming that an entire population of 50,000,000+ candidates is low quality just because they happen to be in an online resume database of a major job board – my response is a mix of shock and disappointment. 

Stereotyping is Poor Judgement

Broad statements such as “the job boards have low quality candidates” reeks of stereotyping.  A stereotype is an oversimplified conception or opinion based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the “other group” (in this case, job board candidates) have in common. Stereotypes are often formed by an Illusory correlation , a false perception of an association between two variables where in fact none exists.

You just can’t go around claiming all job board candidates are bad. That’s like saying everyone in New York is rude, or that everyone in California is a hippie. To stereotype all job board candidates as low quality is downright insulting to the many fantastic people who make the decision to post their resume to well known online resume databases. If they only knew that posting their resume to a job board was equivalent to moving to “the wrong side of the tracks.”

Sourcing Snobbery

Many sourcers and recruiters use the Internet to source and identify candidates all the time, yet there is never a mention of the intrinsic “quality” of candidates who happen to post their resume on their own websites. As if creating a website and posting your resume to it somehow makes you a better person than someone who either doesn’t know how do do that or simply doesn’t care to, instead opting to post their resume to a well known job board site.

And what about Social Media? The last time I checked – there is no “candidate quality filter” built in to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or any social network. ANYONE can decide to create a web page or a Social Media profile, from “A” players to “F” players. Continue reading →

Job Boards Evolving With Social Media?

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With the rise in companies effectively leveraging SEM (Search Engine Marketing)/SEO (Search Engine Optimization), vertical job search engines such as Indeed and SimplyHired, and social media campaigns, it seems as if many feel that the ROI of posting jobs on the major job boards has steadily declined.  Perhaps this is where the strong anti-job board sentiment comes from within the recruiting and staffing industry.

However, there is another side to the job board coin – the resume databases. Personally, when I think of the job boards, I think of their resume databases – not job posting. Job posting is job posting – whether it’s on a corporate website, paid job board, a free board, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Indeed.  While it can definitely work, it’s a passive and reactive technique that has a low ROI in most cases with many respondents who do not meet the basic qualificiations of the position posted.

As the positive buzz surrounding social media and social networking sites continues to build and the negative buzz surrounding the major job boards seems to rise, I knew it was only a matter of time before one of the major job boards stepped out of the proverbial box and took an evolutionary step forward. Continue reading →

Job Boards = Bad Candidates? Don’t believe the hype.

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I continue to see well respected thought leaders in the staffing industry make claims that the value of the job boards is waning and that the quality of candidates on the job boards is low.

A few years ago, I weighed in on an ERE discussion in response to the question of, “What would happen if the job boards became obsolete?” I noticed that many people in the discussion took the stance that the quality of candidates on the job boards is low.

I originally wrote this post back in 2008, and because there is still a strong belief in 2012 that job boards somehow only offer low quality candidates, I am taking the time to update my thoughts and republish an article on the topic, using statistics to prove that the job boards have the same percentage of “A” players as LinkedIn or any other source.

Once it’s published, I will link to it here.