Job Boards Versus LinkedIn: Which One Gets You Employed Quicker?
Always when I first speak to a new job seeker, they are set
on action that they think will result in them getting employed quickly. Most
often their first action - after dusting off an old CV - is to upload it to a
jobs board. Often they have heard of a friend who got employed quickly by just
uploading their CV to a jobs board, so they think: why don't I do the same, but
to more jobs boards?
As a recruiter and CV Writer, I just want to give you an
insight as to why you just lengthened your job search, and how by using free
available tools - including your own professional society and LinkedIn - that
you can get employed quicker.
Job Boards are a business
Jobs boards as I have written before seem like the modern
day panacea to the job seeker. Simply you upload your CV in the morning, and by
that afternoon you have a new job. Oh, I wish it were that simple! The average
job application via a job board stands between an 8% and 12% success ratio.
Further, once you have uploaded your CV/resume, the job boards owner make it
very difficult for your to remove. The reason for this is that simply you have
upload an asset for them that they can sell to the recruiters.
On average, when a jobs boards comes up for sale, the jobs
board as a business is worth about half its turnover as a sell-on price, while
additionally each CV/resume in the database is worth at least £1/$1 up to to
£10/$15, depending o the age of the database and the market that the jobs board
addressed.
Secondly, the job board owners uses upload CV/resume numbers
as a way to sell the need for employers and recruiters to place their adverts
on that jobs board. While we have 10,000 CV/resume was the mid-market, that's
now small when even the local systems in the UK brag of a million candidate CV
databases.
The Recruiting business
When I ask job seekers how they think that the recruiting
and head hunting business works, most do not have a clue. When you consider
still that at least a third to possibly a half of all jobs are dealt with via
recruiters, that's not going to speed your job search success.
Recruiters from the mid-market and below, only make money
when they make a placement. The employer customer may well pay up to a one
third fee retainer to a head hunter, but most recruiters work via a no win
(placement)/no fee contract arrangement. That means that each six to eight week
brief is in effect a gamble: can you find the right candidate quicker than your
competitors, which include the internal HR team. Secondly, although you may
find that right candidate, what guarantee's that only you find that job seeker?
If another recruiter or the internal HR team have that CV on their existing
database, then your fee could be halved at best.
If you knew that your ability to earn was defined by quickly
sourcing the right candidate quickly, would you go to the well where everyone
else drinks, or go some where quiet? In theory, around one third of the work
force is presently looking for a job, one third would move if the right job
offer came along, and one third are happy where they are. Hence why would buy
into a jobs board where you know that the many desperate job seekers have
already listed their CV's on that database - and probably every other jobs
board that they could find; or would you go somewhere else?
Why recruiters and employers like LinkedIn
The problem with Jobs Boards is that they only list the same
job seekers that as an employer or a recruiter you have probably seen at least
twice or more already. For an employer, if you have rejected them already, why
bother paying to see them again? For a recruiter, why go where your competition
is going? Plus there's always the "registered with three recruiters =
rejected" rule, which rejects anyone who looks like a desperate job
seeker.
Head hunters and retained recruiters hence often use
contacts and systems of the professional societies, knowing that they give them
access to the whole of the work force in that sector. The problem in gaining
access to such databases is that rightly they are well protected legally and
ethically, and hence only the top five percent of candidates are likely to be
found that way, through their demonstrated expertise in writing articles and
guidance in the publicly accessible professional publications.
Using social media sites, and particularly sites like
LinkedIn and Doostang, means that you access not only active job seekers, but
also the other two thirds of the work force, who could have better skills and
not be listed everywhere your competition is looking. While Doostang is not
accessible to Google, the use of boolean search strings in the past few years
now allow recruiters to whittle down 100million business person database of
LinkedIn to just a few suitable job applicants. Even using LinkedIn's own
search facility allows the best optimised LinkedIn profiles to dominate the
subsequent search results.
LinkedIn also comes with an added bonus: demonstration of
skills. Although you may be found through you profile, the fact that you have
demonstratable recommendations from your piers and have answered professional
questions through Answers shows a greater depth of capability that someone who
just uploaded a CV/resume to a jobs board, and whom you now have to find such
demonstration of capability elsewhere.
If you understand the basics of how the jobs board business
works, and how recruiters earn their money, then it is easy to understand why
improving your profile at LinkedIn will get you employed quicker than uploading
your CV/resume to even one jobs board. While the job seeking phase of any job
search is about activity, never since the invention of the village notice board
has it been more important where your post your CV/resume, and how your
demonstrate your proven value, in relationship to how quickly you are employed
in the age of the internet. Contact LatamRemote.
Good Luck!
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