Charlotte Beckett

I’ve picked up the tail end of a discussion on Linked In relating to a new job board called Vacancy Clearing.  It’s currently in beta stage but you can see the prototype at:

www.vacancy-clearing.com/index2.php

As the name suggests, the idea is that employers who may be struggling to fill a job can post it on here to be exclusively accessed by recruitment consultants. Those agencies that have signed up received email alerts that new jobs have been posted, and are permitted to submit CVs. Employers and candidates remain anonymous until such a time as the advertising company wishes to engage with a particular recruitment consultant. Word is that this will all be at no cost.  So far, possibly so good. However, this model does not take into account the complexities of the recruitment market, even leaving aside the current economic climate. 

Candidates have often strong opinions on particular brands – if the employer is anonymous, good candidates may be reticent to agree for their CV to sent over.  If employers are writing their ads and company profiles themselves (which could be likely as they will not want to pay for professional copy if they are not paying for the media) they may not be able to compensate for the anonymity, and will either undersell themselves, or give too many clues away thus opening the floodgates to calls from agencies.  Most candidates are registered with more than one agency – it is likely  that employers will receive multiple CVs (though it would be interesting to compare how each agency presents the candidate). 

If candidates are anonymous, right down to “current employer – large investment bank” how can employers make valid decisions on whether to engage with these individuals?  If candidates are anonymous, what’s to stop the  less reputable recruitment consultant from sending the CV without the candidates permission?  If the employer is anonymous, the cases of candidates CVs being submitted to their existing employer may increase – and clues on the CV may alert the advertiser to that fact. If the employer is anonymous,  how can recruitment consultants assess whether it’s a reputable company to be associated with and to be representing their candidates to?

All in all, a lot of time could be wasted.  And that doesn’t take into account the drive that many employers have to reduce both the number of agencies they partner with as well as their reliance on them.  This started a good few years ago with the larger firms, but as the cost and usability of existing job boards and candidate management technology become more accessible,  that drive to direct sourcing is filtering down to lower volume recruiters.

Do those few companies who are hiring really need even more calls from every agency in town?

Well it seems that following the success of the “Best Job in the World” campaign other parts of the world are looking at how to garner such huge publicity.  According to an article in this week’s Observer, the original campaign for Hamilton Island is estimated to have generated A$ 110m in “free” publicity – not bad for an investment of A$ 150k (£74,000).  What’s more surprising is that they literally had applications from every country bar North Korea and the Western Sahara (is that technically a country?) so the breadth of publicity is extraordinary.   This surely is strong enough evidence to convince the cynics of the power of social media – or indeed good old viral marketing – to really boost a campaign.

However, is size really the point?  From a recruitment perspective, the fact they were asking for interactive applications was really in the spirit of things.  But 35,000 of them? How on earth was the first cull done?  What’s missing from the cost-benefit equation in all the media is the hidden cost of processing these (and, presumably, the cost of hiring the PR company to maximize the press interest).  And , as we all know, quality is better than quantity: the joy of “traditional” online  recruitment systems with application forms, CVs and killer questions is at least it allows for a first tier sift.  As video is pushed more and more, is anyone working on how to process this in the same way?  If not, we’re in danger of new technology meaning a step backwards in terms of recruitment efficiency. And with the current economic climate meaning more applications than ever for every role advertised , is this an extra burden we need?