Are You a "Fierce" Job Hunter?

*"Job boards allow employers to get the most-qualified candidate at the lowest salary." Mark Hovind

Mark Hovind

Mark is a career marketing coach for 6 and 7 figure executives. He worked his way up through the ranks (after graduating with a BS in Systems Engineering from the University of Illinois) from a staff engineer to VP, Director, GM, COO and CEO. He's helped small companies and large, including Transamerica, Delco Electronics and Aramco in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia . He's managed 350 employees, a $700 million budget, and helped take two companies public.

(*See Linkedin Answers - Read More)

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• In the open, I referred to JobBait as a "fantastic career management resource" - I don't make this kind of recommendation very often - so I'd like to start by asking you to give the audience an overview of the information they'll find on JobBait.com - especially the free resources you offer.
• Mark, you list the following benefits of using JobBait:
  3x faster than networking
  4x more job openings
  6x better than outplacement (that doesn't surprise me)
  10x potential payback
  
• Let's start with networking - the mantra of many guests on this show: the best way to get an executive level job is to network with your peers on sites like Linkedin. In fact, you refer to networking as job hunting hype?
• Once again, quoting directly from JobBait.com
  
• The Hidden $100k+ Job Market
  More than 80% of all jobs are hidden, and only 1 out of 20 executives goes after them.
• Less than 20% of all jobs are visible through networking, recruiters and job boards, and 19 out of 20 executives compete for these jobs.
• 80% of all jobs are hidden? How do you know this?
• As I read it, a significant part of your strategy involves the "value proposition," a direct mail campaign to a targeted list. Why is this so effective? Most people view direct mail as junk mail.
• How do you go about building a targeted list?
• How many letters to you mail, on average?
• How long does this process take to get results?
• How much does it cost?
• Let's pretend I've spent my entire career in one of the following: automotive, real estate, financial services. How can I position myself to be competitive in health care or education, or green jobs -- i.e. in growth industries?
• You recommend that all professionals should have their own website. Why?
• If someone is interested in working with you, or learning more about your services, what's the best way to connect with you?
• Based on the data you're looking at, what do you project for the balance of 2009 for executive employment opportunities?

*I Posted the following question on Linkedin Answers:

"Job boards allow employers to get the most-qualified candidate at the lowest salary." Do you agree? Disagree? Why?

I recently interviewed Mark Hovind, president of JobBait.com, pulled this quote from his website and used it as the lede for his feature page on Total Picture Radio. Would love to get the reaction to this from the Linkedin community

Here are a number of the very interesting responses:

Jessica Miller-Merrell: SPHR
Job Boards are overused and extremely expensive. I prefer more non-traditional methods like online social networking, relationship recruiting, or through personal referrals. Lower cost, higher quality candidates, and most have a personal or professional reference that usually results in a higher performing and more qualified candidate than a traditional job board.

Chris Wellington:
This is a much debatable question as I think there is truth to the statement, but narrowed to a certain demographic of skill set and income level. You can also through some luck and the one-off hit that by-chance an employer will bring in the next staff member worth 10,000,000. As with anything in life, there lies the age old "low hanging fruit." Most employers can master obtaining candidates for their jobs this way in a very cost based fashion. What they lack are the true valuable employees, not those out farming themselves everywhere for a job right now.

Rita said it best below. People in this fashion are responding to a cattle call and not applying themselves in the right fashion as others have also mentioned. The best job comes through your network or a true professional recruiter. The candidate is more empowered with either true professional support or the support of their network, which will help set the value up front when referring.

I would love to see the reaction to this question by the VP of Sales for any firm. I am willing to bet, from experience in them asking our candidates how they found out about the job, they would say “the most qualified candidates come from the competition and not off come job board…the most qualified candidates are working now and need to be sought after not sending a resume to a black-hole.” How many times does that happen? Countless each day and if its not happening for your firm or company then you should assess your strategy for finding the most qualified candidate.

Jeremy Langhans
indeed.com > all.

David Perry
YES. Job boards will net the most qualified person who is actively looking. They have broader appeal than newspapers and deeper reach than newsgroups.

Michael Peterson, PHR
I think I'll simply repeat what many others are probably saying... job boards and other active search media will only, by definition, attract those that are in an active or semi active search.

Since the majority of people do not fall into that category, it simply stands to reason that the "best" people are not usually looking.

I would also speculate that if someone is one of the best, their organization is likely to recognize that and treat them well (of course we've all seen where this is not true) and they are even less likely to look.

In addition, if someone is the best, their competitors are probably aware of that and have started establishing a relationship with that person. So when they do decide to make a change, all that talented individual has to do is place a couple calls and he or she will have an interview.

Do I think there are times that the best people are actively looking? Yes, but it's pretty rare. Do I think there are talented people on job boards and other active job search media, absolutely in this market, but not too often in a normal job market.

I've mentioned this a few times in other posts... job boards moving into the market segment that the newspaper classifieds did in 90's, one of, at best semi skilled, high volume recruitment.

In a market like this, I can honestly say that about the last thing I need is another job board... We've been reviewing our media plan very carefully and the items that are the most likely to be cut are the small amount of print we do in support of branding and the job boards that we use (especially the general ones).

Harry Joiner
www.ceojobs.com
Great question, and LOTS of interesting answers. I just bought the domain name www.ceojobs.com (for a TON of money) and I'm anxious to see how I do with it. When I was doing the research for the acquisition, two things caught my eye:

1.) Employon has a tool that allows recruiters to pull up specific job postings on corporate career sites. As of one month ago, there were +500 CEO job postings for the 60 days immediately prior to my inquiry. These are not job board postings. They are corporate career site postings. 500 seemed like a big number.

But why shouldn't it be? Figure 5000 companies in the Inc. 5000 plus 500 companies in the Fortune 500. Plus every other American business of +$5 million in sales. Let's say that's 50,000 companies. I'm just guessing. And let's suppose that every CEO stays in his job for 4 years. That means that every year, 25% of these ceo jobs turnover. That's 12,500 ceo jobs each year. Even if I'm off on these numbers, I'm reminded of Warren Buffett, who likes to say "I don't need to know a lady's weight to tell if she's fat."

2.) According to an investor presentation I found online, in 2007 Heidrick & Struggles closed 5,102 searches for an average fee of $114,900. This is public knowledge.

My reaction to these numbers was "Are you freaking kidding me??" As an entrepreneur, I don't care what's happening now. I only care what happens in the future. The opportunity for a C-level jobsite is very real. In a world of LinkedIn and social networking, there is no way companies will continue to sustain those kinds of recruiting fees over the long term.

Certainly, a C-level jobsite as a lead gen mechanism for a recruiting firm will work. I'm living proof of that. I am a contingency based phone recruiter. I never meet anyone. Yet I have closed searches involving Presidents and CMO's. I have closed officer level searches for Fortune 500 companies. Again, I never see anyone. Ever. And I don't intend to.

Any way to slice it, the opportunity for a job site to "get it right" at the C-level is massive. I don't know when, but it will happen.

One important thing I failed to overtly mention is that C-level jobsites might work in attracting passive C-level candidates. again, ceojobs.com would be a mechanism for attracting PASSIVE candidates. the idea is very simple: if there is enough world-class, relevant, hard hitting content for CEO's -- then an online publisher could reasonably expect that the audience would naturally look at the accompanying job postings as well.

Aaron McLin
Just from looking at the quote, I would think of it as suspect, because it seems somewhat one-sided. You could take Mr. Hovind's statement, and reword it into this: "Job boards allow the most-qualified candidates to find the lowest-paying employer." Why would the most-qualified candidates seek work, or to market themselves, through a medium that is advertised as being specifically geared towards lowering their value in the marketplace?

Maybe I'm simply overly idealistic, but I thought the idea of products and services that were designed to bridge the gap between parties was to get as close as possible to creating a win-win. Mr. Hovind's statement projects an understanding of job boards as a marketplace that favors employers at the expense of candidates, and offers no reason as to why one would expect the best qualified candidates to participate, outside of desperation or ignorance. Since it seems unlikely that highly-qualified candidates would routinely lack or not know about other options for finding employment, I would doubt that his statement is correct across a broad range of circumstances.

Rita Ashley, Job Search Coach
www.jobsearchdebugged.com

Great question, Peter. Statistics scream, less than one percent of executive- level jobs are filled through job boards, anecdotal comments asside. Therefore any comments about the money issue is about those less senior in their career.

Mark's inflamitory statement suggests that when people respond to a cattle call for talent they are at the mercy of the employer regarding salary. One would hope the individual contributor or those young in their careers for whom the job boards are more responsive, will learn to negotiate without alienating their prospective empoyer, thereby disproving his comments.

In my experience (decades as a recruiter and eight years as a job coach) I have seen very few candidates at any level who know how to negotiate well. And perhaps that should be the focus...how does one get a fair and equitable compensation package when negotiating with their future boss?

Noel Wiland
disagree, i have found that a lot of times the MOST QUALIFIED candidate isnt actively looking for a job, they are usually content, happy, loyal and successful with where they are currently... As far as getting them for the lowest salary, that is up for discretion as well, the second a better offer presents itself you may be back to the drawing board (aka: job board) to fill that position again... I do understand that right now there are a LOT of qualified and successful people who have been victims of the economy, but again, the second things start to turn around and a better/more lucrative opportunity presents itself you will be right back to square one.

Geoff Feldman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gfeldman
I think that job boards get mediocre to low grade candidates for what they are worth.

I don't use job boards because I get inundated with recruiters who have work that is utterly irrelevant to my needs. Not only wrong technology and wrong task but wrong place and wrong price. It's ridiculous.

Looking at the other resumes, it looks like the least qualified and most desperate use the job boards.

There are a few, and I mean a few, recruiters that are any damn good at all. Most don't understand the people or the job, they are just spamming hiring companies and candidates and making money over whatever sticks. I look for recruiters with a track record, a comprehension of the business, the technology and the work place. To recruiters: One slip and you are done with me forever. I keep notes and I share them with my friends.

LinkedIn, with a context established and connections already there is really much more effective for my needs.

Chrei Stucke
The job boards are sometimes limiting and not all candidates really have resumes that truly sell their experience and knowledge, if anything job boards show how many people are looking. In this economy, companies will only pay what they can afford.

Bryan White

This is in part a somewhat plausible statement, but I certainly don’t I agree with it.

Clearly job boards allow employers to advertise their open positions. Given today’s unemployment rate and the free agent mentality associated with employer/employee relations there are highly talented individuals present “actively” and “passively” (I hate those terms, especially the latter) on job boards.

That said, my issues with this statement are many. First job board access is half the battle (or less). Advertising must be targeted and compelling, sourcing activity focused, candidate engagement and assessment thorough but delicate…..The job board won’t do any of that for you, you need a team of individuals well trained, motivated and working together to accomplish these goals consistently. Secondly, how does a job board impact compensation? Compensation can be/is impacted by a wide range of variables but it will take a skilled negotiator to show potential candidates the value of the opportunity independent of compensation….The job board won’t do that for you. Lastly, many (most?) employers aren’t capable of managing their own job board (well). Volume can be problematic, and regardless of volume, maintaining this data is most certainly an afterthought. There is more to be considered than - candidates upload a resume to a job, I’ll look at it, I’ll call the candidate if you I’m interested. Employment branding is a completely different conversation, but candidate experience will continue to be very important….

Job boards are a valuable tool but they alone aren’t a good talent acquisition strategy.

Steven Rothberg
http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com
Job boards or any other sourcing tools are not about getting better candidates at lower salaries. They are about improving the time to hire, quality of hire, and cost to hire, but not reducing the cost to employ. If you employ someone and compensate them at below market rates, which the question seems to imply will be the case, then you will inevitably be left with one of the following scenarios:

1. The candidate is qualified not just for your position but also for others in the marketplace. These candidates will leave you as soon as they can which will increase your turnover rate, increase your recruiting costs, reduce your productivity, and make the lives of your stakeholders miserable.

2. The candidate is qualified just for your position. These candidates will likely remain in your employ not because they choose to but because they have to. Few employers want desperate employees like these because they tend to be the least productive and therefore will make the lives of your stakeholders miserable.

Morgan Hodgman
After reading through many of these answers, it occurred to me that if the real focus here is the "lowest salary" then the job boards may, in fact, be the best resource for employers. I agree with many of you in that the "most qualified" candidate for the job would most likely be someone who is recruited out of a current role, but if the scope is narrowed by what an employer is willing to pay, then the more qualified, passive candidate is most likely going to fall outside of the salary range. If indeed salary is the priority in this situation, I would pose the question differently..."Given the current state of the economy, employers are trying to reduce costs in all areas, including salaries. With this is mind, do you think job boards provide the biggest 'bang for your buck' in finding highly qualified candidates while also maintaining a strict budget?"

Joshua Letourneau
Peter, thanks for the comic relief today. I'd almost say you quoted a job board sales rep coming in to sell you on a package of "instant resume database access and 2000 job postings!"

Look, you know this line is bunk, and so does 90% of the market, including candidates. They're not exactly seeing success posting their resume on a board, and for us Executive Recruiters, we're better off opening the top window and dumping a suitcase full of dollar bills out of it. Oh, and by the way, who says that a candidate on a job board will accept an offer at the "lowest salary?" If I was a candidate and saw that as the value proposition of a board that wanted my resume posted, I'd run for the hills. It might be a bad economy, but lowballing and shooting to scoop up talent on the cheap leads to one thing, and one thing only: turnover . . . (as soon as the economy begins to rebound.)

Matthew Feldman
Not true. I'm sure there have instances where a job board helped identify the most qualified candidate, and that same candidate was willing to accept the lowest salary, but to say that statement is an absolute truth or event true most of the time is wrong.

Jim Whal
Pure assumption on his part unless he has reams of data to back it up. His quote was probably more designed as a selling tool for his site.

He has a somewhat unique concept in that he uses D&B to provide email lists for people on his site. One might even call that spamming, but that's another episode. That being said, looking closely at his concept it is a more back to the basics, pre-internet, in finding your next job. That is cold calling via email to decision makers. But instead of mailing your resume, your are e-mailing your resume.

To answer your question, I neither agree nor disagree with that statement. There's nothing really backing it up. It's like stating "Cool people drink Pepsi" and just leaving it at that. Sounds plausible, but no real facts to prove it. Or even better "Job seekers that spam (send out 3,000+) emails to random decision makers get higher paying jobs than those that apply through normal channels".

Kevin Womack
Job Boards have their place in the recruiting tool box, but they are not the "end all, be all". An experienced recruiter will tell you that the most qualified candidates can come from anywhere - A Direct Source, Referral, Networking Group, Social Network Sites, Posting on Coprorate Job Board, etc.

It is important for employers to measure the results that they get from all of their efforts and, at the end of the day, determine what tool works best for them. I think that the answer will vary depending on the company, location and type of positions that the employer is trying filling.

My answer: I disagree. Personally, I have found the "most qualified candidates" through referral programs and direct sourcing.

Arron Green
I disagree, but I'm biased as most recruiters will be. In general, most people that go out seeking employment are the ones that are failing in their current roles. The best talent needs to be coaxed out of their current situation. This is done by word of mouth and recruiters.

I've seen a few great candidates on job boards, but they are few and far between. Most of the people on the job boards are the people that change jobs every 2 years or the people whose careers are in decline. Certainly there are exceptions, but for the most part, the best are found by word of mouth from friends and colleagues, or through recruiters such as myself.

Jason Kiesau
My opinion is "Job Boards" are now the average way to find a job. Average people do average things such as only focus their time on job boards. With the mass of people doing this, it creates a pool of people from an employer to choose from which gives them leverage. Not to mention . . . if average people are doing average things . . . they aren't differentiating themselves in away that will put them a head of the competition of other candidates. I believe that statement 100%. I think if you want to be perceived of having greater value . . . you better be doing greater things to get noticed.

Todd Rodgers
Taken out of context, I'd call this a "throw away" line. 1) Allow 2) Most qualified and 3) lowest salary. Such vague terms in this statement.

How about this phrase: You could be minimally qualified and make up to several million dollars per year.

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Jim Johnston  - Manager   |75.58.46.xxx |2010-02-02 12:12:57 Mark is right on! Reply 0   0

John Demma   |71.220.120.xxx |2009-06-18 15:46:48 Unfortunately, the job-board quote opened the door for the commentariat's obsessing on tactics, not strategy. The obsession throws more and more tactics at a transition as if it conquers a deficiency in strategically thinking through and understanding their central value proposition. The best part was the Charlotte textile exec anecdote. But I suspect that went way over the heads of the obsessives. Reply 0   0

Jim Johnston  - Managing Director   |75.57.167.xxx |2009-06-17 18:28:50 Mark it right on! It is widely believed that the reliance on job boards has significantly increased the average length of unemployment. According to the Department of Labor, the average length of unemployment lasted 17.7 weeks in late 2005, which was longer than in 1983 when the U.S. economy was emerging from the worst recession since the Depression with unemployment rates exceeding 10.5%. Monster.com writes that job views have increased by 22% and the number of resumes, online, has increased by 23%. This has been significantly exacerbated, in 2009, with unemployment rates lower than in 1983, but average lengths of unemployment reaching 22.5 weeks. Recruiters and hiring managers do not consider the Internet to be the most reliable source for finding high quality candidates. 92% claimed that they often receive irrelevant responses to postings, which only prolongs the process for qualified candidates. In fact, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a leading international out-placement firm, reports that the average job search is now taking 23% longer and climbing. We think it should be 30 to 60 days! Reply 0   0

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