Go Cheap or Go Brand

David Monreal posted an interesting comment on my blog asking, “why spend X in Monster or any other big job board if I can use a cheaper small one and get also listed in Indeed, WorkZoo or Hotjobs.”

First, this is a great question David, and I have an answer for you. The answer is brand recognition. This is still one of the most important factors driving traffic to a site. Most of the job boards, job search and other job tools out there are not genius technology. The reality is you can hire a web developer and build a crummy job board in no time. The true genius comes from the ability to get your brand through the massive clutter.

Here is a simple exercise to test this theory. Go find a few of your top performers—not including recruiting or HR. Then ask them if they have ever heard of Indeed or WorkZoo (Jobster is a different story because they actually are making huge strides in brand strength, but still have a long way to go). Now go ask them if they heard of Monster? What do you think the answer will be?

As recruiters we have to be careful not to underestimate the brand of the top job boards. We live in the recruiting world and read about all the new tools out there—but does the average person? You can post to some cheap job board and have it picked up on Indeed but do you think there are more people looking for jobs on Indeed or Monster? Just because there are thousands of jobs posted there doesn’t mean the people you need are there.

Hotjobs has an interesting model—they say you can search the web for jobs. Have you ever conducted a test search on their site? Try it and see what comes up. Hotjobs postings come up first—several pages before you get to general web postings. Then the kicker is that their search algorithm excludes their competitors—you don’t see Monster postings popping up. So the reality is that it’s not a true web search.

The one job board that seems to consistently fly under the radar that in my opinion should have competitors worried is Craig’s List. Their brand is viral and their traffic is very strong. In my opinion they are the Linux of the on-line job advertisement world. Until the Indeed’s, WorkZoo’s and SimplyHired’s of the world increase the brand strength I wouldn’t put my money on the cheap job boards. But hey, throw your jobs up on the free boards and on your blog and let these sites spider them. There’s no harm in this.