Recruiting In A Flat World

A very funny Ernst and Young Recruitment Brand video (2001)

2007-06-28T14:01:00.000-04:00

Trust me...click on this link.
http://www.recruitingblogs.com/video/video/show?id=502551:Video:6444

Interesting post from TechCrunch

2007-06-26T20:03:00.000-04:00

This should be an interesting few months for Jobster. Jobster is also hosting an agency conference call next week. Stay tuned.

here is the article from techcrunch : http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/26/more-drama-for-jobster/

Seattle-based Jobster has had a rough time over the last several months. They radically changed their business model and went through a round of layoffs. The company, and CEO Jason Goldberg, has faced criticism for all of these changes.

Now a new storm is brewing over a former employee, Jason Davis. Davis previously sold a recruiting blog to Jobster, and worked with the company for a while. He eventualy left, but apparently had a non-compete in place.

Davis may have violated that non-compete when he started a new blog, RecruitingBlogs.com. Jobster and Davis have been “discussing” the issue behind the scenes, but it all became public today when Jobster sent Davis a cease & desist letter (see here and here as well).

I’ve pinged Goldberg for his side of the story. His response is below.

Hi Mike.

I will make my only public comment on this here to you, as follows:

We at Jobster are actually big fans of the www.recruitingblogs.com website. It’s a great site and offers recruiters an online blogging community that can be very valuable.

Our issue is not with recruitingblogs.com, rather it is with the site’s founder, Jason Davis. Jason Davis sold the www.recruiting.com online recruiting blogging community website to Jobster a little over a year ago. Jason Davis stayed on to run www.recruiting.com until a few months ago – when his one-year contract with Jobster ended. We parted amicably and wish only the best for Jason Davis. As part of his departure from Jobster/recruiting.com, Jason agreed to a fairly standard non-compete.

Jason has now launched www.recruitingblogs.com.

As would be expected, we’ve asked Jason Davis to honor his contractual agreement with Jobster. We’ve also offered/suggested that there is probably a good way for us to work together going forward. When we spoke to Jason Davis last week, we offered for him to come up some ideas on how we might work together. We would like to work this out in a way that benefits everyone.

Today, Jason Davis decided to go public instead.

Our overarching intent at Jobster and with our Recruiting.com website remains to foster online community in the recruiting industry — the more the better. At the same time, Jobster needs to ensure that our employees and contractors uphold their commitments.

I am certain that we can and will arrive at a good outcome for everyone on this.

Jason Goldberg

I’m not familiar with the law in Washington on non compete agreements, but in California its pretty clear - if you sell your company to someone for stock, they’re enforceable. We’ll see how this develops.

What is going to happen to Yahoo! Hotjobs now?

2007-06-18T20:35:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago the man who ran hotjobs quit now Terry Semel resigned.... SHRM is next weekend...Hotjobs is already a distant third in the online recruitment space. The next few months should be very interesting.

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel Resigns
Replaced by Co-Founder Jerry Yang; Exec VP Susan Decker Bumped Up to President
By Andrew Hampp

Published: June 18, 2007

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- After six years of leading Yahoo, CEO Terry Semel resigned today in a letter to the portal's board of directors. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has been named as his replacement, with Mr. Semel moving to the role of non-executive chairman. Susan Decker, former exec VP-advertising and publishing, was elevated to president in the board's announcement.
Yahoo CEO Terry Semel has resigned after six years at the portal.

Mr. Semel's resignation comes after a recent shareholders meeting in Santa Clara, Calif., in which he was criticized for being late to the acquisition party and trailing Google in paid-search revenue. Losing executives such as Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig and Yahoo Media Group Chief Lloyd Braun under an executive reshuffle in December also raised a few red flags among investors.

Yahoo's first-quarter profit also dropped 11% this year, due to higher operating costs, and revenue decreased to a growth rate of 20% for branded advertising, or display.

"As the board and I discussed my future goals and plans, I was clear in telling them my desire to step back from an executive role sooner rather than later," Mr. Semel said in a conference call with investors today. "The past year has been a difficult one for Yahoo -- none of us are satisfied with the company's financial performance. But we have tremendous fundamental strengths and remain the leader in internet adveritsing markets around the globe and a growing presence in growing markets in Asia."

He pointed to the successful launch of Panama, its new search platform, and the combination of Mr. Yang and Ms. Decker as the most promising assets for the company going forward. "We've been true partners for the past six years and will always be lifetime friends for me."

In her remarks, Ms. Decker said the second-quarter earnings -- to be announced in a call on July 17 -- will not be affected on the change in executives. The call will also address the pending transactions with Yahoo Japan and Right Media. "I feel it's important to assure you of the overall performance in the ranges previously discussed," she said.

A former Warner Bros. executive, Mr. Semel, 64, has strived to keep a distance from his studio days since taking the job in 2001. "I've never wanted Yahoo to become a major production company," he said at the Ad Age 360 Conference in March. "Taking a proactive leadership position about how to transform some of my business to online is something everyone has to do," he said.

~ ~ ~
Contributing: Brooke Capps

Stephen Schwarzman - Blackstone's $7B Man

2007-06-14T21:40:00.000-04:00

I thought this was an interesting quote from Mr. Schwarzman

Mr. Schwarzman likes battles to play out quickly. "I want war -- not a series of skirmishes," he said of his philosophy. "I always think about what will kill off the other bidder."

For the full article please click here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/06/14/how-schwarzman-became-bla_n_52232.html

Style Section VS Business Section

2007-06-05T20:55:00.000-04:00

Every Sunday my wife and I read the NY times. I start with the business section and she starts with the style section. She goes right to the wedding announcements and I go right to the job opportunities. The big difference is her section is GROWING and my section has disappeared.

But it is not just the jobs that disappeared it is the entire classified section.

These stats were published in AdWeek

Newspaper Online Ad Growth Slows
May 30, 2007
By Jennifer Saba/Editor & Publisher

The print classified category weighed down results. Classified advertising revenue dropped 13 percent to $3.5 billion. Within the category, real estate decreased 14 percent, help-wanted declined 14.5 percent, and automotive plummeted 20 percent

To read the full article click http://www.adweek.com/aw/iq_interactive/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003591653

I am looking forward to the day when the NY Times wedding annoucements are only posted online.

Word-of-mouth epidemic

2007-05-13T16:01:00.000-04:00

A colleague of mine shared with me an article about the online word-of-mouth epidemic and how it impacts recruiting. I thought the article just scratched the surface on how powerful this epidemic really is.

The article got me thinking of a new way to search for jobs. What would happen to Monster or Careerbuilder if Google wrote a job engine algorithm that cataloged job results like Amazon catalogs books? That is right, I said Amazon the worlds largest bookseller.

This is how the word-of-mouth epidemic would work.

A job seeker would start by entering a search criteria. For example, Financial Analyst, American Express, New York City. (We all know this is how most people search anyway.)

The search result page will list the typical American Express matches and something NEW. A list of the other jobs that applicants applied for. This is what it would look like:

People who applied for this job also applied to these jobs: (Like Amazon's check out algorithm.)
Morgan Stanley - Sr. Analyst, New York City
AXA Advisors - Financial Analyst, New York City
Burger King - Financial Accountant, Coral Gables, Florida
Macy's - Finance Director, New York City

In addition to the job listings a job seeker can read comments from employees about the jobs/company.

Word-of-mouth epidemics can help big companies act small and small companies act big.

Internet Dating

2007-05-04T08:52:00.000-04:00

I was listening to one of my wife’s friends talk about her Internet dating experiences and I couldn’t believe how similar it was to Internet job searching. After hearing her dating stories and theories I came up with the below chart.

Dating Term: Single
Job Seeker Term: Active job seeker

Dating Term: Seeing other people
Job Seeker Term: Interviewing

Dating Term: Blind Date
Job Seeker Term: Employee Referral

Dating Term: Married
Job Seeker Term: Job you want

Dating Term: Separated
Job Seeker Term: Looking

Dating Term: Divorced
Job Seeker Term: Starting again

In addition to the above chart I also noted the most common dating statements and compared them with job seeker statements:

Dating Statement: Where does he/she live?
Job Seeker Statement: How long is the commute?

Dating Statement: She/he is the one.
Job Seeker Statement: I really hope I get this job. It is my dream job.

Dating Statement: He/she never called.
Job Seeker Statement: I didn't get the job.

Dating Statement: I found him/her on myspace then googled him/her.
Job Seeker Statement: I know more about the company than a simple job posting.

Dating Statement: I sent him/her a clever e-mail.
Job Seeker Statement: I submitted my resume with a killer cover letter.

Dating Statement: My friend used to date him/her and said he/she was a jerk.
Job Seeker Statement: I know someone who worked there. They don’t treat their employees well.

Dating Statement: His/Her mom hated me.
Job Seeker Statement: My boss and I didn't get a long.

Job searching on the web is like on-line dating. In a flat world applicants and employers use the web to learn as much about each other before “agreeing” to meet. This makes better first dates and even more second dates.

Does the flat world have "passive" job seekers?

2007-04-28T13:57:00.000-04:00

Hello Human Resources and Marketing Communications and welcome to my blog. My name is Darren Grant and I work at JWT EC. This blog was launched to start a conversation about recruiting in the flat world. Please share your thoughts and experiences.

As a North American Client Director, I am often asked to create sourcing strategies to find “passive” job seekers. But does the flat world even have “passive” job seekers?

I read the below African Proverb in Thomas Friedman's book "The world is flat" and I thought this is the perfect first entry for our blog.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.

In a flat world working harder than the person to your left and to your right is not enough. Imagine that as your headline on your monster or careerbuilder job posting.