Thought For The Day: Free content does not mean low value, no matter what the expensive content providers say.
- craigslist as a poor recruiting tool
I’m not sure what you call it when one competitor calls the other a bad name. In this case, Tony Lee, VP of Nework Operations at Adicio is lambasting Craigslist. He’s the newspaper industry’s representative in this argument (Adicio powers newspaper classified advertising sites.) The argument wouldn’t be so specious if he’d used statistics to show that Adicio companies are performing better. I like that Cheezhead is providing competitors the opportunity to slug it out in a public forum.He says “14 years after the launch of Craigslist, the site is losing effectiveness as a recruitment source under the weight of its own success. Job seeker traffic has grown exponentially in most Craigslist cities through the years, and the current downturn has accelerated that traffic growth. At the same time, the number of job postings has fallen in many cities in parallel with the slowed economy.” It’s hard not to imagine that most job boards, particularly the newspapers, are facing the same issue.
The only way it could be different for Adicio’s customers is if the number of job hunters at newspaper job boards was somehow declining. That would tell you something important.
- JobShouts: Using Twitter to Broadcast Jobs
JobShouts is advertising in the Daily Blonde. The business has totally changed. New 0 cost providers are moving in to take the place of last generation’s low cost providers. JobShouts is emerging as a force. - Doug Coull – CEO SmartSearch Advanced Personnel System
Industry veteran Doug Coull is giving away an ATS. Get yours from him or Mr. Ted. Another great Bill Vick Video on extremerecruiting.tv - The Jobvite webcast (with Forrester) on Social Recruiting.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PDT…Just because the folks at Jobvite seem to be on to something. - Talent Acquisition in the New Economy: Less is More
The adaptive part of the third party staffing world is now arguing that it’s smart to have search specialists wade through all of those extra resumes now that the recruiting department is smaller.
I am still collecting information about Online communities in the HR – HCM – HRTech – TotalHR – Benefits – Compensation – Recruiting – Talent Management Industry. Please forward ideas and places I shouldn’t miss to john (at) johnsumser.com. Thanks – js
Find me:
- I’m on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Friendfeed. Catch up with me.
- I’m doing a Free Webinar: HRmarketer.com and John Sumser Webinar: Regional HR Marketing and PR – Tailoring Sales to Market Realities
- Thursday, May 7, 2009,
- 10-11 am PT (1-2 pm ET) - I’m leading an Intensive workshop called Recruiting Strategy in a Down Economy: Identifying What’s to Come in the Upturn at the Kennedy Recruiting Conference in Las Vegas on May 19.
2 Comments
Hi John, and thanks for the feedback to my column. I just want to add that the impetus for my column was the negative feedback I’ve been hearing from companies attempting to recruit on Craigslist. It’s true that @30% of Adicio-powered client sites are newspapers, but @70% are niche sites targeting candidates by their functional or industry expertise, and they report continued success despite the downturn given the very targeted, qualified nature of the applicants they’re providing to their recruiting clients.
Thanks for the note, Tony. It’s great to have so many forums that it’s possible to get an article that is so directly targeted against a competitor published.
It’s interesting that you cite anecdotal evidence from frustrated customers when you talk about Craigslist but refer to the self reporting of your customers when you talk about them.
If you used an apples to apples approach, the idea would have somewhat more credibility.
Meanwhile, it’s amazing that the business model has shifted like that for Adicio. It wasn’t all that long ago that the company was an outsourcer for the newspaper business. Good moves. I’d love to know more.