Head hunting

Most people have signed up to job alerts sending them automatic emails of the latest glamorous positions in their chosen fields, but when it comes to the other part of the equation of trying to find the perfect team member it can be a lot harder than it looks.

Online employment platforms have moved on a long way from the days of straight bulletin board interfaces and digitised listings from the daily newspapers.

With templates, automated search processes and access to a wide range of pre-registered job seekers, in some cases the problem is that there is too much choice rather than too little.

The important thing to remember is that while candidates will be trying to sell themselves to you in the interview process, you have to sell the job to them first. According to SEEK marketing manager Michael Davy, the company sees around 34 million ad details viewed every month.

“For every unique browser they visit three times per month and they look at roughly 10 ad detail views,” he said.

“The most popular areas are pretty reflective of the workforce with administration being the largest and legal being one of the lower viewed categories. There is obviously a lot more people in administration and not as many lawyers in the country. IT is rather big because obviously IT people are disposed using the internet.”

Michael Harvey is chief executive of CareerOne.com.au, a joint venture between News Ltd and Monster Worldwide.

While the company obviously has strong ties to the traditional print industry, Harvey says the market is slowly evolving towards online platforms.

“The newspaper numbers are coming up, but we haven’t seen numbers at the 2007 level which was the peak of the market,” he said. “Will they come back to the same highs? I don’t know. I think there are real opportunities for regional and community press in the recruitment industry. There is a real push for people to be working closer to home, community newspapers do sit on the table at home for longer and we are working with the communities to offer a combined print and online solution. I think that will be very effective for employers down the track.”

But online advertising gives companies a broader reach, he said. “Using online gives you another level of sophistication that you haven’t had prior to the online industry coming into its own,” he continued.

“Online gives you exposure to a much larger number of people. If you look at all the numbers in online, we are all attracting big audiences to our sites.”

So what should employers be putting in their ads to get the best people?

“They need to research the jobseeker that they after and think about what they are offering to that jobseeker,” Davy advised.

“They need to think about what is unique to their company or business that could appeal to their jobseeker for example location, the brand, the company, the product, and the working environment - different things appeal to different jobseekers.”

Harvey said employers should use all the tools available on a particular site.

“You have to be very certain about the job title and need to be consistent with what is in the market, because people will search for generic things,” he explained.

“You have to be very clear within the job description about what the job actually is, because of search engine optimisation online and getting your job to the top of the list quicker is very important. So if, for example, you have a job that is a business development role, you have to use the term business development throughout the course of the job ad and make sure that the actual job description within the body of the ad reinforces what is in the job title.

“Don’t limit yourself to only one option. For example you can advertise on CareerOne but you can also use our resume database. You can put in the details and we will give you the top ten or top 20 or 100 or whatever you want of people who fit that job description, which is a fairly cost effective solution.”

Jobseekers are also keen to see certain information such
as precise job titles, salary, location, and the key roles and responsibilities.

“Regardless of the industry you are trying to attract candidates within you should write about what is unique about you in that industry and why they should work for you rather than anyone else who is advertising for a competitive position,” SEEK’s Davy explains.

“We offer businesses a unique tool where they can benchmark their performance against the rest of the advertisements on SEEK. You can see if your advertisement is performing better or worse than one of your competitors.”

At the base level the success or otherwise may come down to how you have structured your advertisement.

“You could have a brilliant job that is poorly advertised and communicated but still get great applicants for example a “Product Manager for Apple”  – that may be all you need to write in the ad,” Davy continued.

“Or you might have a position that is not as attractive or with a less competitive salary and you would really have to work very hard to sell that to candidates.It is really about talking up your strengths and down-playing your weaknesses and looking at what you are up against in terms of what other employers are offering or communicating in their job ads to make sure you are at least on par and giving yourself the best chance to competitively attract candidates.”

And in the end, the time invested in setting up your online advertisements will greatly reduce the time required in vetting unsuitable candidates or firing poorly chosen new-hires.

“You need to take your time thinking about the ad, communicating your company and the role and that is what people are going to respond to,” Davy concluded.

“The more time and effort you put into attracting your target job seeker then the better response you will get in what may be a much more competitive market for employers in 2010.”