A Short but Informative Newsletter Covering These Topics:
• What’s Ahead for Job Boards—a little history and, hopefully, some self-promotion
• The Dot.Jobs Escapade Continues—what you should know, what you can do
• Promote Your Brand—enhance the visibility of your brand for the recovery
• Your IAEWS Member Benefits—free visibility for press releases and while papers
What’s Ahead for Job Boards?
What’s ahead for job boards given the competition they’re facing from social media sites?
The IAEWS Future of the Industry Committee is, of course, already at work on this question. Here are a couple of additional perspectives for you to consider.
On the upside, job boards don’t need to play second fiddle to anyone when it comes to social media. More than a few sites in our industry have been offering professional networking functionality for over a decade. They called it discussion forums or chat areas or listservs, but it was social media nonetheless. So, the next time some self-appointed pundit uses the bully platform of a recruitment conference to declare the death of job boards, point out to him or her that the social media they are trumpeting isn’t an alternative to job boards and, in fact, actually got its start there.
On the down side, the industry has not done an especially good job educating either its customers or the analysts who follow the industry about their social media capability. The Goldman Sachs analyst Ingrid Chung, for example, recently opined “We believe that pricing for classified recruitment ads will never fully recover from the contractions brought on by the recent recession, as newer, cheaper alternatives grow in popularity.” Most of the organizations in the IAEWS aren’t publicly traded, but all of us need to be more aggressive about telling our story to the media and other opinion makers. That’s not playing defense; it’s good solid offense, and we need to be doing more of it.
Finally, if you haven’t already, take a look at the special report HR Wire did on “The Death of Job Boards?” (Managing a Workforce/Recruiting & Hiring, 04/20/2010). Written by Paula Santonocito, a reporter with deep roots in the field of HR, it provides a positive counterpoint to those who are prematurely predicting the imminent demise of our industry. To paraphrase Mark Twain, “the reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.”
The Dot.Jobs Escapade Continues
The second version of SHRM’s PDP Council is now at work on Employ Media’s bid to change its charter and expand its TLD authority to geocentric and occupation specific names. As previously reported, the IAEWS representative to the Council is Aaron Matos, the CEO of Jobing.
While it’s Aaron’s role to present our industry’s view of this move, you can get involved, as well.
First, educate yourself on the issue. Employ Media would have the world believe that it already has the authority to expand the TLD. That’s simply not the case. Here’s the link to Employ Media’s charter from ICANN: http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agreements/jobs/. In Paragraph 3, Section 1.3, there is a link to Appendix S where the language explicitly limits the use of the dot.jobs TLD to employers only and only for their own vacancies.
Second, add your point of view to the conversation. While the media and especially ERE have done a good job keeping the public informed about the Employ Media move, it’s important that as many voices as possible be heard on the issue. Here’s a link to the open discussion board on the dot.jobs Web-site: http://policy.jobs/board. You can post your opinion there and help make sure that the HR community has a more balanced view of the situation than what Employ Media is providing on the site.
Promote Your Brand
The most successful organizations are those with strong brands among two separate but equally important constituencies:
• their peers
and
• their customers.
The IAEWS is pleased to offer its Members low-cost ways to do both.
Branding With Your Peers. One of the best ways to build brand among your organization’s industry peers is to sponsor the IAEWS newsletter. Just as you are doing right now, thought leaders in our field read this publication regularly. And when they do, your organization will be prominently visible to them. Sponsorship rates are low and provide a button ad that can be linked to your organization’s Web-site.
Branding With Your Customers. One of the most popular blogs in the employment space is written by IAEWS Executive Director, Peter Weddle. Called Work Strong, it examines the employment space from both the job seeker’s and recruiter’s point of view. As a result, it is read regularly by both individuals in both communities. As with the IAEWS newsletter, sponsorships are very inexpensive and provide a button ad that can be linked to your organization’s site.
For more information about these opportunities, please contact Peter Weddle at 203.964.1888 or director@employmentwebsites.org.
Your IAEWS Member Benefits
Free Visibility for Your Press Releases and White Papers
Please don’t forget that IAEWS Members can have their press announcements, research reports and white papers posted on the IAEWS site.
Why bother? Because the IAEWS site (and its Press page, in particular) is now the first stop for journalists writing about our industry or looking for employment-related topics about which to write.
How does it work? Simply send your press announcement, white paper summary or extract to Peter Weddle (director@employmentwebsites.org) and he’ll see that it’s posted. (To aid in administration, please send Word documents only.)
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