Interesting blog posting by founder of job site...
30 Employers in 30 Days: Companies are still hiring. BUT WAIT! Are they really?
http://cxggroup.com/blog/2009/03/30/30-employers-in-30-days-update/?goba...
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This guy is driving me
This guy is driving me crazy. Not because we consider him a competitor, but because of his guerrilla marketing tactics. I get some form of communication from him every single day about that site!
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I do admit that if you read
I do admit that if you read his site he seems to be pretty aggressive in his tactics. However, it seems like a lot of people think that guerrilla marketing tactics are a good thing, provided you don't cross the line. When you mention getting some form of communication, do you mean he is spamming?
I believe he is spamming,
I believe he is spamming, yes. I've been in sales/recruiting for 15 years. I don't have to pester people to death to get their business. Guerrilla marketing isn't my style. It rubs me wrong.
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Anyway, what I thought was
Anyway, what I thought was interesting about the blog posting is that what this guy found when talking to big company HR departments would seem to corroborate that theories that you can estimate how many jobs are based on the number of postings on company web sites are bogus. I even had one rose-glassed person tell me the number of openings is much larger than what is posted, which I believe that even if true during normal times (which I doubt) certainly does not appear to be true in today's job market.
I don't really believe that
I don't really believe that to be true. What I believe is, these jobs ARE open - they might get posted by HR or a Recruiter in hopes of filling the job. Hiring managers are getting uber-picky because 1) they aren't sure they can sustain the position (i.e. layoffs might be on the horizon) or 2) they keep spinning through candidates for the "perfect" one, because they believe that so many people are unemployed there might be "someone better". It's a vicious cycle that I've experienced every time there is a downturn in the economy. No one wants to spend money, and when they do you have to pry it out of their hands.
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I believe that a large
I believe that a large percentage of posted jobs even in a normal job market are not really open. Right now I think it is a larger than normal percentage. The reason for this is I think a lot of postings are just used as "resume trolls" -- these are often posted forever; positions that have already been filled (HR slow to update sites), or eliminated without being filled (lots of this lately); positions which are speculative, they might need someone but the position has not been officially approved and/or funded but it is posted to try to have a pool of candidates ready in case it gets approved; postings which are just a ploy to make competitors, investors, etc, think the company is growing, etc.
A lot of companies don't quit posting jobs even when they are busy laying off hundreds or thousands of people, many of whom might even be qualified for the supposed openings. And the same thing is even more true when companies are just in a hiring freeze. Sometimes companies will even interview people when they are in a hiring freeze and then just string the candidates along hoping for an end to the freeze before the candidate finds something else or gets angry.
I do agree that hiring managers are extremely picky (sometimes to the point of being unrealistic), especially in today's market, but there are a lot of positions posted which employers aren't even actually interviewing anyone for. Too many job seekers report that lots of postings are "black holes" -- no response at all even for people who are perfectly qualified. That is often a sign that for whatever reason the company isn't really serious about filling a position.
Frankly, with hundreds of thousands of people having been laid off over the past few months leading to near record level unemployment, there is no reason for any company to have long term unfilled positions if they are serious about hiring.
To some degree I believe
To some degree I believe that is true. Not as much w/smaller companies as larger ones, though. Larger companies push their internal recruiters to build a "pipeline" for skills they regularly seek. However, as someone who is friends with many in corporate recruiting - not all of them operate that way. So really, it's a trial by error type of process to discern what is "real" and what is not. Frustrating for the job seeker, no doubt.
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I would agree that the
I would agree that the "resume trolling" is more with large companies, but small companies are more likely to put the completely bogus job postings up to try to fool investors that they are growing more than they really are. Also one reason why the obsolete (already filled or cancelled) job postings don't get cleaned up on a timely basis is sometimes because either the hiring manager him/herself or the HR person posting it gets laid off, or the IT person who is supposed to maintain the web site gets laid off. That sort of thing is also more likely to happen in a smaller company because in a larger company there is more likely to be someone to get tapped to take over those responsibilities rather than letting it drop through the cracks.
Read the blog; pretty much
Read the blog; pretty much just whining.
Don't know what his approach to potential corporate clients is exactly but I am very aware of what Carlos' approach is to job seekers and recruiters. As Robin points out, it's aggressive, disturbing, and verging on if not actually spam. Whatever the approach to corporate clients, based on Carlos' results so far, I'd say it's time to switch tactics, strategy, or both.
It's worthwhile to point out that Carlos is not seeking employment -- although almost all of the comments from blog readers are from job seekers. Instead, Carlos is selling a service to corporations.
His results, or more accurately lack of results, speak more to the plethora of competing job boards and long-time stalwarts in the market than to any "count" of open positions.
When a corporation or staffing agency can post a position on any major board and get 50, 100 or more qualified applicants, there is no incentive at all to sign up with another job board no matter how cheap. Especially when budgets are under close scrutiny. There is negative cost/benefit and no ROI for the corporation. None.
Carlos is whining.
Robin, on the other hand, is on to something ;~)
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