The document discusses active and passive jobseekers and how online recruitment companies engage them. It notes that active jobseekers are currently seeking work but passive jobseekers are employed and selective. Generalist sites focus on application volume over quality, while niche sites targeting specific industries or skills can attract higher quality candidates. The document recommends that niche recruitment sites focus on quality job postings, trusted platforms, and targeted communications to engage both active and passive jobseekers. It predicts generalist sites will lose market share to emerging niche competitors that provide higher quality recruitment services.

1. Engaging Active and Passive Jobseekers Dan Meadows 6th October 2009

3. An overview of the predominant engagement activities within online recruitment

4. The balance between active and passive engagement activities

5. The net impact of these activities on the state of the online recruitment industry

6. What opportunities exist?

7. Key considerations in getting online recruitment right

8. What changes are happening in the industry

10. Consistently post their CV on job boards, apply to job listings and keep their online profiles up-to-date

11. The low hanging fruit: known to interested, relatively flexible and willing to negotiate

13. Focussed on their long term career, selective about their next role

14. Sought after skills and experience

15. Often more loyal and stable, so will stay in a job for longer

16. The recruiter’s challenge: dislodge them from their current position

17. Predominantly headhunting, but head-hunters only cover around 10% of the passive market

18. Moving a candidate from passive to active can be time consuming, costly and ultimately unsuccessful

20. Employed, but keep their eyes and ears open to the right opportunity

21. Possible reasons for a change: greater responsibilities, enhance their CV, enhance their earnings, role with a competitor

23. Segmenting the market

25. B2B publishers – RBI, Centaur, Haymarket

26. Media companies/newspapers – national and regional

27. Social networks - LinkedIn

28. Member organisations/niche communities

29. Recruitment companies – Reed.co.uk, Hays, Michael Page

30. Head-hunters/executive search

32. CV search & match databases

33. Strategic search: online CVs, blogs, corporate sites etc. using boolean techniques and filters

34. ‘Social recruiting’

35. Listings on job boards

36. Search engines – both organic and paid search

37. Job aggregators – Workhound, Workcircle etc.

38. Job alerts by email

39. Email marketing campaigns

42. Extremely high competition for search engine traffic and large numbers of job aggregators, all trying to differentiate themselves

43. Cost of online job advertising has been driven down considerably

44. Emergence of yet more engagement distribution channels (e.g. Twitter) compounds the issue

45. Downward spiral fuelled by Recruitment companies using cheap multi-posting optionsNet result: the reputation of generalist online recruitment is worsening

47. The quality of job ads can be extremely poor, especially from recruitment companies

48. Common complaint: ‘I don’t get a response to my job applications’

49. Fire and forget: less care taken over application submission, less crafting applications to suit the role

50. Many are pushed to adopt a scatter-gun approach

52. Candidates without the right skills, experience and qualifications apply

53. Choice of recruitment channel becomes less easy to make with growing disillusionment in generalist online recruitment services

54. Exacerbated by the current economic climate

56. Already demonstrated by the strategic search activities of professional recruiters (and some corporates)

57. Research of user behaviour shows that skilled candidates would generally prefer a smaller number of relevant opportunities than the experience currently offered by generalists

58. Jobseekers want to feel loved: far easier to achieve through a trusted organisationWith more than 70% jobseeking now online, the niche approach is a compelling alternative

60. Focus on SEO around well-researched niche phrases and above all avoid the generalist

62. Wrap the technology in a user experience that instils confidence, trust and sells the benefitsMarket the service as premium offering

64. Quality is driven by assuring candidate privacy and enabling them to stay in control

65. Strike the right balance between rich information capture and ease of upload

67. Drive targeted response to job ads by marketing to well-defined segments of your dbUse all of the above to drive the high quality CV provision at a premium price

69. Emerging niche job boards with a ready-made audience will face significantly lower attraction costs

70. The generalists will be forced to invest in moving up the recruitment food chain in order to provide higher quality services to the employer

71. Jobseeker attraction channels (e.g. social networks) will come and go: ‘hubs and spokes’

72. Employers will re-assess their options as alternative, higher quality, niche services emerge