Sometimes we forget that many folks…older than we…have a different perspective on today’s events because they have seen it before.   For some its too much and they retreat into the bah humbug, here we go again, ingrown eyeball world.  Forget those guys...its the ones who tend to take advantage of their wisdom, and see the 'sunlight above the clouds' that I really enjoy spending time with.

Last night I had the privilege of chatting with a friend’s father who is a retired executive from a fairly well-known foods company.  He definately falls into the latter category.  Our discussions quickly landed on the hot topic of the cold business climate, namely the lack of jobs creation.

The battle-tested executive opined the difference between company ‘growth’ and ‘profitability’ and how one overshadows the other as companies sail among today’s economic whitecaps.   Profitability is what organizations seek now above all other strategies.  But shortly boards will decree ‘Yes, profits are holding because of cuts and reorganization…but how are you going to GROW our business?’ 

That one comment made me sleep easier.  Regardless of single or double-dip recession trends, I was reminded that the over-reaching Wall Street temperament will drive growth and in-turn create jobs.  And as always, it will be the companies with genuine confidence, innovation, and guts who lead us out of this.  Not ones that are laying-off risks, hunkering down, and refusing to buy coal to warm Bob Cratchit’s feet. 

I just completed my first month of mornings without the daily newspaper.  No sobriety coin reward waiting, but it does make me think about our print brethren more.  For me, it started with the guilt of loading piles of parchment into the recycle bin each week, then an examination of the expense of it, the duplicity of the content, the clutter, and the sheer volume of ads.  I had zero alternative use for the discarded paper…I don’t have a parakeet or new puppy in the house and we don’t have a wood-burning fireplace.

Reverting to reading the news on my iPhone at the morning table was inevitable.  Plus I rarely read more than two articles in their entirety in the print version and for some reason I feel like a faster reader when the screen is only 2 inches wide.

Having made the leap away from paper, I feel more for the folks who work diligently to keep those institutions running.  They have a tough situation.  And many are still finding their way in the mobile news world…lots of room for improvement there.

But I do now look forward to picking-up a REAL paper when I’m at the coffee shop or at the airport.  A tactile treat when I’m away from home.  How strange.

BTW, does anyone have a killer iPhone news app?

As odd as it seems, economists are finding the exact opposite to be the case. 

University of North Carolina economist Christopher Ruhm has found that every one-percent rise in unemployment drives down the death rate by .5%.  This holds true for the US and some 25 other countries studied in the midst of this protracted recession.  Arguments are that with more time on their hands, underemployed Americans are hitting the gym more, smoking less, walking more, going out to eat less, and getting more sleep.

So you see, there is a silver lining.  Just not for those who are working at a frenetic pace, keeping things going in the absence of those who have been downsized.  Maybe that’s what the economists are working on next.  They too, have job security to think about.   

More reading on this can be found here.

Having an early dose of front-line customer service indoctrination Disney style, one of the key nuggets I took away was that quick (if not instant) communication dissolves 75% of authentic stress or hostility in any situation.  Even if the message you carry is the fact that you have no message.

Left in a vacuum, people invent worry compounded upon worry.  Be mindful of the distress undercurrent as you wade through applicants in your recruitment process.  Imagine your ‘A’ grade candidate out there in the void.  The guy who could ultimately get your hiring manager out of hot water.  That guy’s out there wondering if you even check your email of voice mails, much less thinking about being a rainmaker for your organization.  All because of the silence (cue chirping crickets).

Have a system and use it.  Confirm resume submissions via email responders, follow with a note after an interview, provide a ten-second update to the candidate who calls two weeks after an interview.  We have clients who are getting 600+ responses for a single job ad.  If they don’t have a system in place for simple messaging, imagine the aggregate stress that floods the streets from the feedback void.

If you read many of my messages you might say they all seem to sound the same…and you are right.  It always comes back to basic professional practices.  The same business and social practices that our culture places diminishing value on, but somehow come to the forefront for the talented-yet-unemployed guy sitting by the phone.

Greater word-of-mouth within networks.  This is evidenced by a high percentage of ‘natural’ traffic (55% in the case of Showbizjobs) meaning people are aware of the site brand enough to enter and visit ‘www.showbizjobs.com’ directly over half of the time.

Saying to a friend “You should go over to Showbizjobs” has an underground, grass-roots feel to it over saying “Check out this job I and one million others saw on Monster”.  People know there is competition for jobs, and niche boards present a smaller, deeper pond to candidates who hate swimming in the ocean.

This lends to spontaneous discussions about a particular job posting within social media and networks.  The viral nature of social sites springboards the existing word-of-mouth attributes of how Showbizjobs is found.

We are a true job board, not a bulletin board or job posting distribution machine.  Our goal is to attract ‘A’ talent to client companies who have current and future staff needs.  This means our content is genuine, from the source, posted by recruiters who know what they need.  There is a large difference between this model and peer-postings found on social sites, free sites, Craigslist, and integration sites.

Search tools don’t have to be extravagant.  Regardless of the size of a job site (boards or company listings) candidates want to narrow their path.  There is a false belief out there that a one-field ‘keyword’ search is the silver bullet to direct talent to job listings.  This is the antithesis of what should be happening.  As job boards go, the larger the list of industries, locations, and job titles represented, the more homogenous a keyword search becomes, not the opposite.

While we have keyword searches it is always as a filter against target region and job category.  This has not changed on our site in over 14 years because it is simple and it works.  Job sites and applicant response systems seem to forget there is a human on the other end of the experience, and one who is becoming more impatient with non-intuitive systems.  They want an iPhone experience, not rotary-dial methods of inviting you to learn more about them.

Two more things then I’m done.

Showbizjobs is 40% less expensive than alternative candidate sources.  This number becomes even lower for clients who can make package commitments.  You should ask a few…you’d be surprised.

Lastly…we answer our phone.  Our clients don’t interface with business development reps or call centers, they talk (or email if they prefer) with the proprietor.  This is a massive comfort for busy recruiters, HR executives, and hiring managers who just need talent, not red tape.

If you are considering how to allocate what certainly may be narrowed budget resources for next year, consider loading-up on niche boards.  Consider what Showbizjobs can do for generating talented candidates at efficient prices.

Call us.  626 798-4533

People routinely ping me about my view of the economy and business climate for our market.  From the many discussions with several market leaders who help their companies survive and grow, my take is that folks are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  Two months ago I’m not sure people had an idea how far out it was, but there are things happening.  Granted, things are slow but pieces of the Hollywood machinery are starting to move and as we all know, one move causes three others.  

My modest optimism is based on not only slightly increased staffing volume but in which market segments they are hiring in and what titles.  What I term the 'middle' of our industry which includes agencies, mid-size home entertainment, recording labels, moderate-size studios and services groups are picking up.  Folks have cut so deep that now that business is increasing on some fronts, plates are overloaded and quality is suffering...so they're hiring (some) to alleviate the pressure.   

The Confab format seems to work as a venue for recruiters and industry operators to get a pulse of what's happening.  So we do plan to continue them as the year progresses so stay tuned.   Plus we’re open to suggestions on format, location, partnerships, invite lists, etc.

Thanks again for everyone who helped make the evening happen.

Time Lapse Test: Station Fire from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Just when you think people can be rational about having a job, greed raises its ugly head and ruins the dance. The latest sighting was this week when pilots from Frontier Airlines, in bankruptcy with the court selling-off assets, declined 40% raises and the opportunity to work for profitable, culture-rich, Southwest Airlines.

Frontier was handed to Republic Air for $70 million less than the Southwest bid. You know Republic, who recently picked-up Midwest Air and terminated all of Midwest’s pilots. Let’s see, stable company, loss of seniority plus a 40% raise versus rickety airline and probable layoff…with the backdrop of a sluggish economy. It deserves the NCIS Special Agent Gibbs smack to the back of the head I believe.

This is a bad deal not only for the pilots, but for all the other workers at Frontier and the Denver economy. Then there’s the lack of competition that could have placed pressure on the big carriers who want to charge folks $600 to fly to Colorado to ski on the slopes. So for all you fans of the Rocky Mountains, start saving the pennies, planning Friday meetings in Denver, get your reward miles ready and fasten your seat belts. On the bright side, maybe Republic won’t get rid of the critter photos on the airplane tails.  [news story]

Today we’re in a post-bubble double-digit unemployment recession and everyone is going out of their way to claim to be in the jobs business. Ad agencies, social network groups, search engines, aggregator sites, newspapers, trade magazines, radio stations, car washes, you name it. On the surface you would think this makes for good economics for both the recruiting companies and the ever-growing candidate pools, when in fact almost all of these derivative forms of job boards are missing the fundamentals of what makes job search, as a true business, work.

Online Recruiting Fundamentals

1- Fresh Jobs

Social networking darlings LinkedIn and Doostang make great claims to be the new ‘jobs frontier’ but have you looked at the age of the jobs there? You can’t deny the power of the professional network LinkedIn has, but if you can’t feed and maintain fresh job content what value is it? Also when anyone can post the job, there is no validity to the post or accreditation of the ‘hiring’ company.

A product manager I interviewed at job aggregator Indeed mentioned that when company job boards are ‘scraped’ or ‘wrapped’ by them, the company has no way to control the run time of the jobs on Indeed. No wonder you find 60+ day old jobs out there. Companies and job seekers lose in this scenario but they continue to knock on our doors and set meetings to review their slick deck of PP slides.

2 - Niche Focus

Why throw a net as wide as the ocean when you know where the fish are? Niche corners of the web do exist. When you evaluate candidate outlets it isn’t always about volume. One ATS group likes to promote their offering as ‘The most powerful sourcing platform on the planet...extract thousands of resumes within 14 days’. You don’t need thousands you need one.

Aggregator boards such as Indeed, SimplyHired, DiversityJobs, Fresho, etc. rarely have direct connectivity to recruiters much less relationships with them. Job advertisements are data they use to attract eyeballs which they broker back to the content sources (companies and job boards alike). Far flung and with limited filter consideration, especially for what we term Entertainment Industry job disciplines, these services offer zero original content.

The broadcast equivalent would be if they lifted episodes of Heros, rebroadcasting them on a site, then returned to NBC/Universal and said ‘We can get you a better market share if you want to sponsor those episodes’. It would be an MPAA IP attorney feeding frenzy. But in the jobs world it’s OK because aparently job content is really not that valuable (see paragraph 1).

3 - Clear Goals of the Service

When job ad services or boards offer free job postings to companies they are making money from alternate sources. Even on high-traffic sites, banner revenues are nominal and trending lower. Whenever you see a ‘free’ job site, bet that candidates are being asked to pay the freight via direct subscriptions, advance notice premiums and the banner ad blitzkrieg. That is no way to filter for key ‘A’ player candidates. But it sure feeds the need to manage high volume responses that come into a recruiter’s inbox or ATS.

If you are a hiring manager or staffing manager who interfaces with the wild world of jobs on the internet you need to take a step back for perspective in order to make correct choices on where to allocate your time (read: resources). The carpetbagger gene is pervasive in not only the list of ‘new’ web candidate sources but also within HRIS offerings, staffing outsource groups, executive search firms, ad agencies, and the list goes on.

The term ‘ATS’ (applicant tracking system) has been distorted to mean almost any system that handles digital resume files and requisitions. It has also been expanded and merged with ad distribution systems, so the value proposition is now ‘more, faster, further’ but no real method besides keyword analysis of targeting who you want to hire. Today, many of these entities who offer agency + ATS services (for a fee) charge content providers like SBJ up to a 10% premium on top of standard agency rates. So not only are they in the way, they are costing companies more for the same reach into niche audiences. Don’t ask how that happened.

ATS providers and job ‘broadcasters’ promote the value of ‘middleware’ that often adds zero value to the actual job sources, quality of candidates, or aids in the art that is true recruiting. Capital allocation to these distractions siphons money from already anemic staffing budgets... away from resources that are efficient, strategic, and performance-oriented (ie: smart, intuitive, niche audience job boards).

System Dysfunction

The systems have become so all-encompassing that the recruiter (who knows the most about what they’re looking for) is unable to control the flow. A key example is that postings that are made via ATS systems and sourcing networks rarely channel traffic to a specific job posting or response page on the client company side.

Vendors claim accuracy and that reports detail this, however it our experience that the connection is missed half of the time on the first pass by the ATS or agency placing the ad. The recruiter never knows it, the selected job board looks bad on the clients traffic report, the ‘A’ candidate never gets on the radar and the search doesn’t reach its potential. This happens every day. The last thing a recruiter who is juggling 10 + searches needs or is adept at, is to audit of HRIS system for reporting accuracy.

Despite automation, the dominant complaint among job seekers is the utter lack of feedback and receipt confirmation they don’t get when applying for jobs online. Not SBJ or Monster sending an email, I mean the hiring company actually reaching back to the candidate and saying “thanks we’ll be in touch” or the like. Many report shock when it actually occurs.

Finally

One True Test. I put it to you that the one measure of a successful targeted campaign is the ability of that choice site, network, or promotion to drive quality talent not only to your doorstep but to your hiring manager within 7 days of going live. Seven days. If you use this as a goal then benchmark the locations your job is being delivered to against freshness, niche / filtered delivery, and targeted reach, you may find that 50% of your resources are causing 80% of the mess that middleware offerings offer to clean up for you.

Kevin is starting his seventh season as the host of the legendary PBS television series. You would think he came to this gig with a construction education, artisan experience, acting history or some combination thereof. As it turns out he used to be a banker, which is only one of the things I found intriguing about our discussion on career paths:

PB: You came from a traditional finance and banking background. MBA in finance, big bank experience, then boom you’re the new host of This Old House. How did that happen?

KO: My wife and I bought a fixer-upper north of Boston and at one point we hit a dead-end on one of the many projects in the house. So we sent an email to the This Old House web site and the producer contacted us. They were doing 6 minute min-segments for their new show ‘Ask this Old House’ and thought our issue and our house would be a good profile. So they showed up at my house and we started working on the project. During breaks I would grab Tom Silva, the show’s general contractor, and barrage him with questions about different issues I faced in fixing my house. I knew that when they walked out, I’d never get that level of consultation ever again.

As it turned out, the producer is there watching all this go down. The segment turned out to be what they wanted and there was a good vibe during the production. A few weeks later they reached-out to me with an offer to become the third host of This Old House. How could I say no?

PB: Have you ever thought about where you would be if you didn’t get that offer?

KO: Probably not doing so well in the banking industry right now.

PB: When you think about it, This Old House was one of the original reality television shows. How do you compare it to what is out there now, like Extreme Makeover and the like?

KO: We don’t do product placement in the segments which is the exact opposite of others that are out there. We are PBS, and that has its own culture. Plus, unlike so many reality shows based loosely on houses, ours is about the house, first and always.

PB: Do you guys shoot just a ton of video and work things out in the editing room?

KO: Not at all, this is another difference with that comparison. I’ve done other shows where they have four cameras rolling all day long and you really don’t know what will come out of the editing bay as the final show. On This Old House, we don’t operate from a script. The guys on the crew have been working on the show for 30 years, and came to it with a ton of experience, so my job is to break-down what is obvious to them and translate it to the viewers. We try to shoot complete paragraphs, explaining things that a layman would understand. Sometimes we will shoot a segment and look at it come out of post and realize we never stopped rolling.

PB: Looking back at the last six years what one quality can you say was the most important thing you brought with you to this new phase of your career?

KO: Curiosity. I am naturally curious about how things are built, how they come together and how guys like this crew overcome things. As it turns out that’s the quality the producer knew was important in the host role and its how I ended-up getting cast.

PB: Would you say you’ve achieved Rock Star status out there in viewer land?

KO: I don’t think the PBS audience is the target demographic to make something like that happen. My ‘Q’ factor does go up when I go to places where that demo hangs out, like museums and what not. Then I am catcalled as “Hey, Old House” or “Old House Guy”. It is humbling.

PB: What’s next for Kevin?

KO: I am working on doing a few new things that work in with my schedule here. Prior to this I never viewed the media world as a career and I guess I still don’t. I would love to stay and become an old timer on the show...it’s that unique of a situation for me.