Direct Employers Association: New Direction for Online Job Search

Bill Warren founded an early online job board in the 1990s, helped kick-start an industry, and was president of Monster.com , one of the leading Internet career sites. But these days he's not very happy with the results. So he's taking another crack at it, going after Monster, Career Builder, and similar commercial job sites. Warren is starting a nonprofit job listing system that could lower the costs that employers pay to list positions and make the process easier and more fruitful for applicants. He has the enthusiastic backing of hundreds of large companies, including IBM Corp., American Express, AT&T Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, the kinds of employers that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year searching for new talent. "This is probably the most significant play that I've seen . . . since the invention of the online job board," said Joshua Akers, vice president of Recruiting Blogs.com , a social networking site for human resources professionals. The commercial rivals say they are ready for new competition. "We remain confident that we're one of the most cost-effective sources of hiring for recruiters today," said Monster spokesman Matt Henson. Warren, 68, says that those commercial sites charge employers so much to list openings that the companies don't post all their jobs-leaving potential applicants unaware of opportunities. Warren also believes that the sites push too much advertising on jobseekers and include too many "work at home" scam jobs. Meanwhile, employers want ways to have a direct relationship with jobseekers. Many say they prefer résumés that are tailored to the positions they're trying to fill, not a generic résumé posted online. As the ranks of the unemployed have doubled to roughly 15 million, recruiters say the response to jobs they post on the boards has gotten overwhelming. The solution that Warren hopes to launch is being hatched by the Direct Employers Association, a group formed by more than 500 large companies. Warren is executive director. The association's plan calls for companies to list jobs under the Internet's ".jobs" domain name to better organize job listings on the Web. For instance, someone can visit ATT.jobs to see all the listings at that company. Direct Employers' software will automatically code such listings to make them easily searchable by city or occupation. The association will sort the listings in as many as 30,000 regional ".job" Web addresses, such as "atlanta.jobs." That will help people search for jobs in specific places. The group hopes to add thousands of occupational domain names, such as "engineer.jobs." Companies that belong to the association pay a $15,000 annual membership fee and will receive prominent placement on the ".jobs" Web sites. Smaller companies can purchase a ".jobs" domain name for about $125 a year and then post jobs for free. They can also work through their state employment agencies, which post jobs online at no charge. At those prices, the new ".jobs" system could be another online innovation that undercuts what currently exists-much as the invention of job boards themselves undermined newspaper help-wanted ads. Monster.com 's basic rate is $395 per job posting, though it offers volume discounts. Companies also pay to search the résumés that applicants have posted. (Jobseekers can access the sites for free.) Considering that some Fortune 500 companies hire thousands of workers a year, even in tough times, the cost of listing all their open jobs can approach $1 million. SOURCE: Excerpted from Christopher S. Rugaber, "Pioneer of Online Job Search Starts Over Again,"

Questions

1. What advantages does this new system from Direct Employers Association offer to big companies? What advantages does it offer to small companies?

2. How would you expect the introduction of this system to affect employers' use of the various recruiting methods described in this chapter?

3. Imagine you are recruiting for a mechanical engineering job at a small manufacturing company in North Carolina and have decided to post the job opening on this system. What information would you want to include in order presenting your position most effectively to desirable candidates?