My 2007 Wishes
I am not one for predictions – its not that I mind putting myself out there; rather, Julian can attest to how much I just hate to be wrong 
. So instead I am going to put out 2 wishes for what will happen with Recruitment Marketing trends in 2007. A company’s employment web site continues to be the top “Source of Hire”. While this fact doesn’t speak to how candidates arrives at careers site destination, we do know that regardless of how they got there – they went there. The majority of candidates will visit the careers section of a company’s web site and it often represents the first opportunity to engage and connect with a candidate. Pair that with the HUGE growth in the popularity of social media like blogs; vlogs; and podcasts and you have the makings of my wishes for 2007:
1. That companies will not spend another dime on media that merely serves to drive traffic to their Corporate Careers web site before they spend that money improving the functionality; opportunities for interaction; content; and design of their sites.
Rather than dropping a bag of money on media – driving candidates to your site – and then having them leave because the site is horrible; difficult to navigate or boring enough to make the experience rate up there with going to the DMV…take a step back and spend that money where it will count – THE destination – the Employment Web site. If you have $250K budgeted that you plan to spend on media – i.e. print, trade pubs, job boards, Google AdWords etc – the best thing that you can do for your company, and your Employer Brand, this year is take 50% of that and put it toward overhauling your careers site.
2. That corporations take the leap and begin incorporating participation and conversations into their corporate careers sites. Companies do not have to have a separate blog, rather it is the easy-to-publish ability to generate real content and the two-way conversation that is the hallmark of blogging that should be incorporated in to the overall careers site. Employment web sites could be rebuilt on platforms that allow for the integration of blogs; private-label social networks; employee videos and even *gasp* the upload of video-resumes. This is something that most HR departments are not willing to do, as it is perceived as too risky. On the other hand, candidates are DYING for real information and real ways to connect to potential employers and even future coworkers to help them make their career choices. If this wish is going to come to fruition, then it will not start in HR. The companies that are using social media effectively are the ones that have had it sanctioned from the top down.
So there you have it. For 2007 I wish to see better Employment Web sites that balance the ‘process’ with interactivity and ways to connect – for real. What are your wishes?
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EXCELER8ion is where Shannon and Julian Seery Gude write on Social Media & Recruiting, Digital Marketing, Technology, Internet Business, and other Geekiness. 
10 comments ↓
My 2007 Wishes I am not one for predictions – its not that I mind putting myself out there; rather, Julian can attest to how much I just hate to be… Posted in of, The, generation, Sites, next, Corporate, Careers | No Comments »
Shannon
Couldn’t agree more.
As per my post at end of November: http://blog.hirestrategies.co.uk/erecruitment/2006/11/conversational_.html
Hey Peter – Thanks for sending me the post – hopefully this idea will gain momentum here. Most corporations, and especially HR departments, still have the deep seeded fear of opening up and giving a real view of the company…that will make the “conversational careers site” a bit of an uphill battle – but one that I will happily pursue!!
Your post has inspired me to dive deeper into identifying problems with direct-employer job sites. I’m about a month away from rolling out a careers-related blog and I have a direct-employer job site research project underway. I will take a closer look at some of the angles you have suggested. Of course, I’d love to hear more of your insights into what you like and dislike in these direct-job sites. Thanks!
I agree on that, but if this trend comes into the picture what will happen to job portals and recruitment firms?? There are companies which have big hiring team and make efforts to do direct hiring, but how far will it go is the question.
A nice post and indeed every corporate should have a neat and user friendly careers section on their website. But as I perceive the situation now (at least in my country, India) is even SEI CMM5 level corporates depend on job consultancies and job sites though they have huge number of people working in their HR departments. I reckon a lot of water has to flow under the bridge before your wish come true.
Great Post. While at Josbter I had worked (for the the first time in my career) with many Recruitment Ad Firms (Hodes, JWT, etc etc) and most of the “Interactive Strategists” have been simply pushing “what they know” because it seems to be within the the clients comfort zone.
I hope that this changes. I know recruiting leaders will be looking for results this year. And if they dont get them from XYZ Recruitment Ad Firm, they will switch…and switch, until they find someone that really can help them…and that may take a very specialized firm or person.
[...] any reader of EXCELER8ion knows, my tireless mantra is – “C2.0“, as in Careers 2.0. – the next generation of Career Sites and Intranets that enable dialog and collaboration, closed corporate social networks, and employee communities [...]
AMEN! Corporate recruiters stil struggle to strike a fine balance between sourcing and response activities within their exisiting recruiting budgets. Its sad the majority falls into the sourcing bucket only to be spent away on various forms of media pushing them to the “black hole” that is their recruiting Website.
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