Some other shoes are dropping in online recruiting – is anyone listening?

A couple weeks back, a short article ran in ERE about Indeed: the world’s largest job search engine is investing in a multi-million dollar advertising campaign to raise awareness of its brand and services. Now, why does that sound familiar? Oh, right: both Monster and CareerBuilder have been running ads for years (who can forget the SuperBowl wars?). As Indeed bellies up to the ‘big board’ bar, it clearly sees a need to raise its profile, which until now has been remarkably low, relying primarily on dominance of search engine results and outbound sales.

What does this mean for the rest of us? Well, if your clients typically have a ‘big board’ buy in their recruitment campaigns, it’s likely to be Monster, CareerBuilder, or LinkedIn. Expect to start hearing more about Indeed from your clients and prospects – and quite possibly, more questions about PPC vs. job postings.

Oh, right – I mentioned LinkedIn, didn’t I? I would expect to see some type of significant advertising from LI in the coming year, if only to counter its big board rivals.The site has been quite effective at using their conferences to get the word out – but mass marketing still reaches more prospects.

Another small article appeared recently, noting that DMGT – which had already divested itself of JobRapido, Broadbean, and OilCareers in the past several months – sold its flagship job board, Jobsite, to the German company Stepstone. Considering that Dice picked up OilCareers and CareerBuilder bought Broadbean, DMGT’s divestment has already had an effect on the US market – and Stepstone’s move into the UK market is no doubt making the larger UK boards a bit nervous. Stepstone is a giant in the German market and has the financial resources to make a big splash – if they want to.

Finally, if you haven’t read Matt Charney’s excellent article on LinkedIn and HiringSolved, do it now! In a nutshell, LI seems to be making questionable claims about data use and ownership – claims that, if supported via the legal system, could have big impacts on the entire online recruiting industry.

Three dropped shoes – random noise, or pointers to the future? You decide.

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