Even though unemployment is at the highest levels in a decade, companies are still finding it difficult to find the best qualified candidates to fill the positions that are available. The reason for that is because more often than not, the best qualified candidates are already employed and not necessarily looking for new jobs. Certainly not on job boards like Monster.com or HotJobs. So if the best candidates won’t seek out job openings on employment sites, the jobs need to seek them out.
That is the idea behind TalentSeekr, which is essentially an ad network for jobs. Companies fill out what jobs they are trying to fill in what locations, then TalentSeekr creates and tests multiple ads across the Web—social networks, blogs, forums, search engines, you name it. Based on the response rate and quality of the applicants that come through the ads, TalentSeekr optimizes the mix of ad types (banner, text, video, creative elements) and placement. (Watch the video below to see how it works). If more qualified applicants are coming in through LinkedIn than Facebook, it readjusts the mix. (In fact, LinkedIn makes a lot of money through recruitment ads on its own site in much the same manner. TalentSeeker is attempting to apply the same principles in a more distributed manner across the Web).
“What we are doing is what job boards did to newspapers. Everybody knows the space is about to shift big,” says Ryan Caldwell, the CEO of EnticeLabs, the company behind TalentSeekr. EnticeLabs was founded in August 2007, and funded with $1.3 million in angel money so far. It’s been operating in a private beta until recently, and already counts among its customers Dell, GE, IBM, Adidas, Rebock, Google, and Microsoft. In addition to TalentSeekr, which is aimed at companies looking to recruit, EnticeLabs’ other product is CareerAds, which is aimed at blogs and Websites looking to display job-focused ads.
TalentSeekr’s approach takes longer than filling a job on Monster, but if you are looking for 3,000 SAP consultants, it could be a better approach. If you are looking to just fill a single position quickly, you are probably still better off with Monster or some other job board. Hiring managers get a dashboard (see screenshot below) which shows the number of ad impressions, clicks, and ultimate applications resulting from the ads, as well as the geographic distribution. The average clickthrough rates for TalentSeekre ads can range from 0.15 percent to 0.37 percent (see table below). Then among those who click, the application rate can be anywhere from 0.22 percent for medical jobs to 2.68 percent for tech jobs. But with an average cost-per-click of around $1, and an average cost per qualified applicant of anywhere from $200 to $2,600, it still beats hiring a headhunter.
Job ad networks have been tried before by both large companies (Monster has its Career Ad Network) and small. A Y Combinator company called SnapTalent tried this before shifting over to career fairs, and ultimately deadpooling (their site is no longer online). Caldwell isn’t worried about the same fate happening to EnticeLabs because he’s gone after big enterprise with thousands of employees first, rather than the other way around. “This is not something where you can do a cute little startup,” he says, “you need scale.”
The other thing that gives him confidence is that big employers like IBM and GE are talking about shifting large online recruiting budgets away from poorly-performing job boards. Since TalentSeekr already tracks the performance of its ads, it can also plug into applicant tracking systems used by HR departments to get feedback into how the people hired end up doing in terms of job evaluations, longevity and other factors.
the best qualified candidates are already employed and not necessarily looking for new jobs.
So you’re equating “best qualified” with “employed”?
You may very well be the dumbest person ever to write for any publication in the history of the world.
And that includes the Bible.
Passive Candidate Targeting
You sir may be one of the dumbest people to ever walk the earth then. Ya see, those who are the most talented ALREADY have the jobs…that’s why they are hired, currently working, and being retained. It’s because what they do, is valuable. I’ve talked to many entrepreneurs who will pay out the ear for someone in senior management at a top competitor of theirs. Does that make sense? Did I break it down Barney style enough for you? You should think before you judge harshly.
Everyone is a job seeker to some extent. Even those who are employed might dip into monster, craigslist, or CB, from time to time.
The difference is when I’m reading TC I’m in article reading mode. When I’m on monster I’m in job search mode.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I run a job board called LuckyDogJobs.com
sorry….
i know more than a few guys who have 10-15 years of solid experience rising to mid levels in the tech industry in silicon valley who can’t find people to reply to their resumes…
these are people who have more than enough experience/knowledge, been through the trench wars.. and can’t find a job…
when you get 40+ it gets to be a real bitch…
talk to me when/if you get there…
so, the smartest/most talented people aren’t necessarily the ones working…
Good point timy111122. It’s not an absolute that ALL talented people are working. With the BLS recently putting a 9.7% up on the unemployment rate, times are hard.
It’s just the concept that I wanted to get across. I do feel that I replied to his comment to harshly though, it was a heat of the moment thing so I apologize.
However, much like buying stock when it’s low, I think that it would be smart for companies to pick up these highly talented people you speak of while they can. Good talent is a good investment.
BLS has unemployment at 11.8% for Silicon Valley in July (the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Metropolitan Statistical Area): http://www.bls....eb/laummtrk.htm
“those who are the most talented ALREADY have the jobs…that’s why they are hired, currently working, and being retained.”
Sounds good in theory, but in no way based on fact. In the days of layoffs being determined by finance and jobs being off-shored/outsourced to India, there are many excellent emplyees looking for work that should be employed. The problem now is that you have HR departments that don’t look at how valuable someone can be to the organization, but what particular acronyms and buzzwords are littering the person’s resume.
what a load of shite, Kyle
Nepotism and failing upwards in pretty commonplace in my experience.
The MAJORITY of the time, the person who is employed in any specific position is usually only mediocre at their job, at BEST.
Remember the maxim, it’s not WHAT you know… it’s WHO you know? It’s never been more relevant.
The most talented people aren’t the ones with the jobs, the most CONNECTED people are the ones with the jobs. Big, big, big difference.
I’m not usually given to hyperbole, but honestly… if you disagree then you’re just naive, or you’re one of the people who got your job b/c you’re banging or related to someone in HR… or both.
Child, please.
Child? …..You’re the one who needs to go back and get your GED, you classless piece of garbage. The reason all the jobs that you know of are filled due to “people knowing other people” is because you have no degree, training, or anything valuable to add to any organization. Therefore, that’s probably mostly what you see and experience around you…sad. You’re probably still stuck workin at a crap house job. So don’t take your anger out on me.
Then how might you ask, would I know about this crazy concept of candidate targeting? About how people are hired and actually recruited ? (that’s the dumbed down version of the question for ya) It’s because I did/do my homework, I work in the HR recruiting industry you retard.
Connections do play a role. However, they are not the only role you freakin d-smack.
This is the most awesome slam in the history or slams.
And that includes any slams that may mor may not be in the bible.
I literally spit out my cereal.
Aside from the fact that this puts a nail into the Crunchboard (http://www.crun...board.com/jobs/) I am quite impressed with this. Recently I had the displeasure of looking for a Actionscript master, and to find the right person was an epic egg hunt. This would help
if they started placing ads on the Crunchboard, those clickthrough rates would go through the roof
Proof–YET AGAIN–that the nitwits who write this rubbish have no idea how the world works, much less who lives in it.
Shoenfeld: Please seriously consider jumping off a building.
You spelt Schonfeld wrong, twice.
Troll
Monster and CareerBuilder are dead, yes.
Job boards will still be valuable when attached to niche publishing companies. Passive job seekers can be reached through the content network.
In addition, the niche job boards can be indexed by Indeed.com, making those jobs available to the wider audience that Monster and CB once served.
Niche job boards may band together and form ad networks to further extend their value.
It would behoove a TalentSeekr competitor to work with job boards. The margins will be less, but you have a huge market you can tap into. JobTarget: are you listening?
This seems similar to the ycombinator startup Snap Talen that recently wound down its operations.
This really does look good, kind of scary though with the whole Facebook + interests + employment history. Always good to keep your profile on complete lock down.
that’s definitely a bit creepy, but as long as people don’t know…
I agree, job boards are dead. Not even worth my time to post, because when I do I just get harassed by headhunters. I hope companies start shifting to this type of job recruiting.
Great concept ! Like that’ idea It’ ’s like multi posting through ads.
But with an average cost-per-click of around $1, and an average cost per qualified applicant of anywhere from $200 to $2,600, it still beats hiring a headhunter.
What a moronic comment. Do you even know what a headhunter does? You’re equating sourcing to headhunting, two very different things. I’ll let you in on a secret. The lowest paid person at an agency is the sourcer. It’s the least valuable part of the transaction.
“Do you even know what a headhunter does?”
in my experience…. not much.
I haven’t had the displeasure of having to look for a job so far (and hopefully will never have to), but I have been contemplating hiring a full time programmer. Honestly, its somewhat terrifying, knowing that you could very well end up with someone who will not do his job, or steal your idea and run away with it.
I think there should be a website dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and small business owners find one or two high quality employees. These big job boards are geared towards big companies, not entrepreneurs.
I don’t think any ad network can replace the human process of screening for the right hires. Believe me, I’ve been in this biz for over 12 yrs and I truly don’t see this happening.
In the meantime, If you need to hire sales professionals, you may want to check out this sales community http://www.salescircles.org. The postings are free.
Leslie, You’re completely current. At the end of the day only a person can make the best decision regarding a candidate. That said if someone (that means you people reading this) can make a application that always you better recruit those who are truly interested & able into the pool from which you’ll make the final decision don’t you think this would be helpful. I know after posting a Job I’ve been flooded with candidates and it would
be nice to have some way to get only high quality candidates to apply to begin with (aside from inhouse staff development). For more info. see my comment below.
You are right Puranjay. And craigslist does not help much.
We are going to add job section in Skill-guru.com to help small companies and entrepreneurs.
Skill-guru gives you an added advantage that person who is coming to look for job would have the necessary skills or not , can be judged from his score.
Cool charts, Hansel.
Wow. This is beyond amazing!!! Kinda shows what the future will be like with so many connect sites.
I don’t think niche boards are dead. Niche boards understand their talent pool better than generic boards. In fact, the niche boards are what made Indeed the most trafficked board.
It’s all about fining the very best niche boards out there. We index about 100 of the best and help small businesses find those boards.
I do think that finding a way to easily engage the passive candidate is the grail of recruiting.
Of the things I tell managers is to look around them for the Best qualified person. The problem most companies have is that they do not develop their work force, and thus their commodities, not assets.
Beyond this, TalentSeekr seems like a really good idea. A few months ago I thinking about something similar, except that the ad would be more interactive and require the applicant to solve some type of problem (or provide a solution to some issue). The ad would ideally not inform that applicate that they would being recruited until they successfully solved the problem (somewhat like what Google did with the billboards a few years ago). This would be a very effective tool to fill engineering (and other positions) since it eliminates those that are not really interested in the work and provides an able candidate pool to further evaluate. And if it’s set up as a competition or game it can really spark interest in the recruiting company on the part of the potential applicant.
This may not be exactly what TalentSeekr is going, but I hope someone is listening (since I don’t have time to go after the idea). It would be great to see someone do this (and succeed).
Thanks
Asha
+1
It’s amazing how before you join a company, you’re the best and brightest and they can’t live without you. Once you’re on payroll, you’re a dumb moron who doesn’t get listened to, and fodder for the next downsizing. 9 times out of 10 the perfect candidate for that vacant position is right there in your organisation. You just don’t realise it.
+1
-1
Terrible idea. The cost per applicant would be through the roof. Further, lots of really smart people ignore puzzles/tests/challenges/quizes (a la machine-based interviewing), as it is largely a waste of time.
great idea.
Well this is a nice concept and hopes right people will find right people. well one more thing there is a facebook group “jobforfriend” where anyone can submit job for anyone around
A Job board, linkedin, social network, references are all required to get the right person for the job. It is just that each one of them in isolation does not work effectively in finding that right person. There are problems in hiring in each step of the recruitment process and that needs to be addressed. A single silver bullet to fix the problems in recruitment is a dead end. You need something that takes a holistic approach to solving the fundamental problems in recruitment.
You need a platform that brings all the good things from each of the medium, integrated seamlessly into a single platform. At JobsByRef we are attempting to do that and the response we are getting is very positive from corporates and job seekers both active and passive.
Yeah, you suck. Spin that.
This seems like a great idea to me….it’s yet another channel for companies to reach both passive & active candidates. However, Job Boards aren’t going anywhere, contrary what this author thinks. They will definitely shrink, as new an innovative ways of reaching people with job ads expands, but they still play a very valuable role.
At our company, SmashFly, which you can visit here http://jucy.ws/92ja , we believe that companies should look to leverage all types of media options, but centrally MEASURE the ROI of each one from a single platform.
At the end of the day, you may find that a tool like TalentSeekr outperforms your Monster or CareerBuilder postings, or you may not. The critical thing is to mesuare the data so that you can make informed advertising decisions going forward.
Do you think that some of the top IT talent might be running Adblockers?
No. They’ve learned to ignore ads to the point where blockers are unnecessary. I don’t even see ads on TechCrunch anymore. It’s awesome.
Sally, You must be having a bad day. For that hope things turn around for you.
(1) As per your comment I’m not sure if you’ve ever hired someone, but interviewing people (exsp. for Exec. Positions) is not cheap to begin with. You have to diverge a ton of time/energy (i.e. money) just to narrow the field down to only the qualified candidates. What I proposed was something that moved the process along quicker. As for the lack of interest: THAT’S THE POINT. You’re only looking for those you will take the intaive and do something (those you will contribute to the company & are able, not those there simply for the paycheck). This is designed as a filtering process. While we may ignore many ads we certainly pay attention to those of interest. For example the ad would never say, “We’re Hiring Developers”, instead it would present a common mistake developers make, one that anyone with experience would hate, and attempt to draw the potential candidate in. Nor ‘am I simply talking about posting online – there would need to be a partnership with recognized print media (i.e. The Economist) where we could begin the process.
(2) In addition there many need to be a new revenue model or a combination thereof. Maybe PPC/PPV/Affiliate Revenue share (based on the model used in the financial industry (you really don;t think you financial advisor just showed you that hot new fund because of it’s a promising investment do you?)).
3) Doing back to cost. Again, If you have ever hired someone it can be extremely costly to fire that person. While in some states you do have to provide reason, just covering your back (ie. avoiding all manner of employment lawsuits), and then finding someone else to fill the position is expensive. So having a great/tested pool to begin with is helpful.
4) Maybe the difference of opinion is this: I love technology, but decided to learn accounting instead. I know the business side of the equation and often propose ideas that solve the problem I see/face everyday.
5) I’ll personally see if is a workable solution in a few months (next time I’ll hire someone). It should take no more than an hour to setup with a small budget. If there were an existing application the integrated this I suspect it would take under
30 mins.
6) By the way most hiring managers do not look at interviewing as finding the right person, it’s about eliminating all of the wrong people (welcome to corporate American). And so this is a solution that helps move it along.
For more information please see http://www.ashafrazier.mp
interesting.. Thanks..
Jay-ay-ay
This is definitely a good model and one we started 10+ years ago with AfterCollege. We implemented it in the college and entry-level space. We also patented it:
http://patft.us...p;RS=PN/7213019
Instead of partnering with other sites to deliver ads, we’ve been creating the sites for our target audiences. TalentSeekr, on the other hand, seems to be partnering with publishers/sites instead of creating the sites themselves.
A good model and good execution as well it seems. But the model is not new.
Also, job boards aren’t dead. Media that doesn’t deliver results is dead. Job boards that deliver results, especially niche ones, should be around for the foreseeable future.
This seems similar to the Ycombinator startup SnapTalent that has since wound down its operations.
http://www.trendslate.com
Interesting but it seems that you forget to list http://hirece.com on board.
Hirece means Hire civil engineer, the free/premium job board for construction industry