If you’ve been reading the press lately you’ll know that Monster have rebuilt their website.  I found a marketing brochure describing their great undertaking.  Here are a few quotes from the Monster literature:

When you invented the game, it’s okay to change the rules.

Today, we are reinventing the Monster Seeker and Employer experience, using patent-pending technologies to create new, never-before-seen products and services. In short, Monster is revolutionizing the way you recruit. Again.

That’s pretty big words from a pretty big company.  So the BIG question is “How much of this is hype, how much is bells and whistles and how much is blind panic by the Monster money making machine?”

I’ll do an in-depth review of the new features in a later post, but at first glance their site is still very busy to they eye.  There’s a lot of stuff that either has no relevance to me (the usual “career advice” and “how to write that perfect CV”) or, well just a lot of “job noise” that I’m never going to click on.

In their advance search, for example, they still stick to the rather dull splitting of industries into vertical segments and an old-fashioned list of click and select career checkboxes.  That’s not innovation surely?

At first glance, this isn’t anything like a full body makeover but more of a facelift.  Monster still looks ugly to me!

We’vee been working on various promotional videos for our site using Animoto.  This is our favourite at the moment:

Who do YOU think YOU are? on YouTube

We call it “Who Do YOU think YOU are?”.  We’re trying to get across the message that everyone should promote their skills and not rely on job boards or agencies……..

Came across what seems like the perfect Christmas present for job seekers before the doom and gloom of 2009 hits us all:

The best career investment you’ll ever make!Calm those nerves! When you prepare for a job interview correctly (the VooDoo way), there is nothing to worry about! Simply follow the easy-to-use instructions with the Get That Job VooDoo Doll and you’re on your way to a stress-free job search.

Picture this…your applications won’t disappear into that “black hole”. You’ll ace those personality and background checks. You’ll never be left dangling, waiting for a call or offer. You’ll send a cyber message to corporate recruiters — stop advertising jobs that don’t exist; return phone calls! Best of all, you’ll confidently negotiate the ideal salary and perks.

 Dolls are infused with healing energy and white light for good luck. Handmade in the USA of 100% cotton fabric and softly stuffed with polyester fiberfill. Charming straw-like hair and bright sequin eyes. Measure approximately 12 inches high. Complete with instructions and three white pins. 

I particularly like the “infused with healing energy and white light for good luck” and the three white pins.  I just might buy a few…… here’s the link…………..

So how can we fix this?  How can we look at this beast of a recruitment industry and see beauty in it? Well first we need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, “Who is this business for? Who is it supposed to benefit?”

The answer to those questions obviously depends on what your role is - a recruiter, an agency or a candidate.

For recruiters (read the old-fashioned meaning of companies that actually employ people) it’s fairly simple - we want the best people for the lowest cost.

For agencies - we want anybody for maximum profit.

For candidates - we want an interesting job that pays a lot of money.

Well ok, I’ve over-simplified things and people aren’t that stereotypical in real life but it states the basic positions of the parties involved in this uncomfortable triangle.

The Bad and The Ugly

I don’t think I’m on my own here when I say that from a candidate’s view I don’t see what value an agency adds to the recruitment process.  They are simply an obstacle between the candidate and the recruiter, a third party that can shield the truth (both ways) between the other two parties.  This can’t be healthy and isn’t the best way to do business.

It used to be that an agency would send me a bottle of champagne and a box of Belgian chocolates at Christmas, but sadly those days are now gone……. I don’t even get a Christmas card any more!  So much for the brave new world where social networking is King!

The Good

I guess I shouldn’t gripe about the current system and its processes without having a better alternative up my sleeve.

Well I have got a better vision although to realize it will take time and you can bet there will be a lot of opposition from certain quarters……

Let’s all promote ourselves instead of using job boards. 

If all recruiters and agencies could find you for free and see when you’re available or looking for work then we can do away with all this cloak and dagger stuff.

Personal promotion online and networking - it’s the way forward.  Wave goodbye to job boards. 

As we’re all going through plenty of turmoil at the moment I thought it would be a great idea to take a fresh look at the process of recruiting.  More specifically let’s look at job advertising:

Why do companies advertise jobs?

• To attract the best people?
• To facilitate revenue growth?
• To cope with peaks in their workload?
• To generate awareness of their company?
• To phish for people’s CVs?

Maybe I’m cynical about this but surely sticking a job post on a job board is not going to attract the best people.  What it will do in the main is attract people that are either out of work, or just about to be out of work.  It will however increase recruitment agencies’ list of names to search for next time a similar vacancy comes up!

For service industries where a high percentage of contractors are employed, advertising jobs to bring more bodies on-board is a good idea especially for the directors of the company involved.

Advertising jobs to bring in new people to help smooth out peaks in workload seems like a sound practice but this depends on how many and how quickly they are brought in.  Large scale recruitment like this can lead to the “Emperor’s new clothes” style of project where everyone is doing nothing but everything is fine (according to senior management).  Call this the consultancy approach if you will.

Advertising fictitious jobs is a cheap method (in more ways than one) of raising the awareness of your company’s brand.

A very common ruse used by recruitment agencies is to “phish” for peoples CVs by advertising non-existent jobs.  People by the very secrecy of the process don’t get to know the name of the company supposedly with a vacancy to fill.  It’s cheaper than paying job board rates for searching a CV database and a useful hook (no pun intended) to attempt to get leads from unsuspecting people.

In the words of my business partner, the whole recruitment process is “so bad it’s not even wrong!” 

Maybe, just maybe, this whole thing is the wrong way up.  To be continued…..