IAEWS: The Reports of Our Demise are Greatly Exaggerated.

As I mentioned in my earlier post from the ere.net expo and the IAEWS Annual Member Congress, I will be writing 7 posts in 7 days related to those events.  This is the first of these seven.

One of the primary topics for discussion at the Annual Member Congress of the International Association of Employment Websites (IAEWS) was how social media growth is affecting the “job board” industry.  In fact, of the seven seminar topics presented, social media was an integral piece of four of them, and was touched upon in two others.  Just by virtue of the floor time devoted to this topic, it’s pretty clear this is a major issue, and one that many people in my industry are worried about.

Ultimately, the question comes down to this: Will social media platforms cause the demise of internet job boards. Put another way, are internet job boards dying?  I won’t keep you in suspense- the answer to those questions is a resounding NO.  And that’s not just my opinion as a director with an internet recruiting resource.  Honestly, that’s merely the conclusion I come to no matter how many ways I roll this around in my head.  Thinking critically, it just doesn’t make sense.

Shannon Seery Gude, VP-Digital for the Bernard Hodes Group provided the keynote presentation, and talked at length about effective online reputation management.  Gude provide many well-referenced stats on the growth of social media, but also shared excellent insight to why job boards are getting a bad rap.  It was her position that this industry doesn’t have enough of a voice online.  In this day and age, people learn by searching on Google and other search engines.  While many people post rants about the “death of job boards”, nearly everyone doing so has a vested interest in this position- such as 3rd party recruiters, resume distribution platforms, or recruitment ad agencies.  Gude’s advice?  Engage in this new media.  Generate content in social networks and in blogs, which are both highly indexed by search engines, and tell the positive stories and real world results being achieved through recruitment advertising on internet job boards.

A committee assembled by the IAEWS also provided a preview of a Future of the Industry report they are assembling.  As you’d expect, this report revealed the underlying fear that our industry is in danger.  It also illustrated just how much time, effort, and resources are being allocated in the job board sector to adapt to social media.

One of the most compelling presentations came from Chris Forman, CEO of AIRS.  If you get a chance to listen to this guy, or work with him, I’d suggest you take it.  He came across as smart, well read, thoughtful, and able to utilize his critical thinking skills to postulate plausible assumptions about the future of social media and recruiting.  As Forman points out, we can’t deny the growth of social media, nor can we ignore the power of social network platforms.  From his research, he shared this staggering statistic- in 2008, one in eight marriages were between people who met in social media.

That being said, Forman also believes that this growth provides great opportunities for job boards to increase market share, and develop better tools and services.  One of the most poignant comments he shared, was that HR tends to be a risk averse department, and this quality will help shield recruitment and job boards from social media intervention, giving us time to develop new ways to integrate.

Getting back to my initial statement, that social media won’t supplant job boards, nor will job boards simply cease to exist, many of the thoughts and concerns were aired during group sessions, where the members were asked to participate in a group dialogue.  When our group looked at how our industry, and our services are viewed, there seemed to be a wide variety of perceptions.  While most agreed that there was a perception that job boards were becoming outdated, it was widely agreed that at the end of the day, these services work.  And they don’t just work for the employers who pay to advertise, but they also work for the job seekers who use them to find work.  This is what any good service, product, or industry hopes to achieve- Pervasive Customer Satisfaction.

When you really begin to break it down, job seekers will always need to know where to look to find volumes of job opportunities.  While it’s great, and imperative, for companies to post jobs on their own site, it simply wouldn’t be plausible for job seekers to have to search for jobs company by company.  Additionally, not all businesses hire computer savvy individuals, and literally millions of job openings are still coming from very small businesses, and for jobs that are non-technical.  The employers are far less likely to invest the time and resources to create career centers on their own sites.  Likewise, most small businesses will NEVER have the time to search through social networks, seeking out one resume at a time.  While I am certain that this type of activity will grow for employers who employ full time recruiting departments, it simply doesn’t work for the more than 70% of employers who are considered small businesses.

So, as I mentioned, when you begin to look at the job search / job advertising relationship critically, and break down the behaviors, drivers, and demographics of the users, it’s very hard to come to any other conclusion.  Internet job boards have proven to be an excellent use of technology, that provide value to both job seekers and employers.  While all businesses and industries evolve over time, when something makes this much sense, and is this easy to use, it’s here to stay.