Click IQ have produced this article for us talking about “the big 4” and when to use them:
Based on all this activity, what can we expect the future world of recruitment advertising to look like? Fortunately, we have the advantage of history and hindsight to guide us. We are able to look at what happened in the digital marketing world and apply it to the recruitment advertising sector.
Who will dominate the market?
There is no doubt in my mind that recruitment advertising will be dominated by the big 4:
Google, Indeed, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
What all of these have in common is that they each work on a pay-per-click model. However, each of them has a unique place, use and merits.
Main use:
Google is search (especially in Europe) and attracts a huge amount traffic, including jobseekers at the start of their recruitment process.
Future:
Expect to see Adwords incorporated into Google for Jobs. This will be a huge recruitment advertising opportunity for many. It’s one of the most powerful online advertising platforms with a huge amount of reach and the ability to retarget candidates who may have visited employer sites previously.
Pros:
- Great volume
Cons:
- Everyone will want to be there, so expect to pay a premium.
- The conversion rate may be lower if people are only at the research stage rather than apply stage of their job search
- Limited opportunities to showcase employer branding until after people have clicked.
Indeed
Main Use:
Indeed is the world’s number one job board. Positioned as first or second in 27 countries and active in 60. They consequently attract a huge number of active job seekers.
Future:
We’ve already seen Indeed acquire Workopolis and Glassdoor in the last couple of months. Expect to see this trend continue with more job boards and acquisitions as Indeed expands its Global footprint.
Pros:
- Indeed delivers good levels of ROI as visitors will be actively looking for a new job and will be ‘apply ready’.
- Great volume
- Fantastic organic (free) results. Can generate a huge amount of organic traffic and applications.
Cons:
- Indeed (like other job boards) only attracts people who are actively looking for a new role, meaning you can’t reach passive job seekers.
- Minimal employer branding opportunities (but this will no doubt change thanks to their recent acquisition of Glassdoor).
- Once your jobs are posted on Indeed, there are no opportunities to target specific types of candidates, so it can be difficult to control who applies.
LinkedIn:
Main Use:
The work social network, used for sourcing white collar, passive candidates.
Future:
Having been acquired by Microsoft, I think we can expect to see it being increasingly integrated into a number of MS suite products.
Pros:
- Able to source high quality, white collar professionals
Cons:
- Like all social, people aren’t necessarily looking for a new job right now, so response and conversion rates will be lower.
- Great candidates in skill shortage areas will increasingly become fed up of being approached.
- Likely to be expensive
- Not always the best tool if you are looking for blue collar workers.
Facebook:
Main Use:
Almost everyone is on Facebook. It offers a new and exciting opportunity to reach passive applicants, especially blue collar candidates who may not be active users of job boards.
Future:
With such a new tool, it will be interesting to watch how Facebook for Jobs will develop. Conversion will definitely be an issue, as will dealing with people largely on their mobiles. The application form will need to be replaced with a more active, mobile friendly application method….probably Chatbots.
Pros:
- Best for blue collar jobs and millennials.
- Excellent opportunities to promote employer branding.
- Great reach (you could hypothetically reach nearly everyone using Facebook).
- Through Facebook targeting you can reach your ideal candidates.
Cons:
- Like all social, people aren’t necessarily looking right now, so response and conversion rates will be lower.
- People don’t like being approached on it.
- Likely very expensive
- Need a good way to convert people to applying.
The job board cloud
Under the big 4 will be what we can call the job board cloud.
These are a plethora of smaller job boards. These will increasingly gather together to form networks. This will allow advertisers to buy across multiple boards from a single place. This is already well under way with ZipRecruiter, Stepstone, Results Gen, JobG8 (to name a few) already demonstrating this trend.
Most will work on both a PPC basis and a duration business model, with the latter being replaced over time due to commercial necessity. Which in turn will mean that ads can also be distributed far and wide, but without any media risk.
The most successful networks will likely focus on a specific community and probably carry job ads from Indeed or Google (or both), as it becomes more profitable to do that than running their own direct sales teams.
What does this mean for Recruitment Advertising?
Most recruitment strategies will need to include the big 4 in different ways depending on the type of role and how hard it is to fill, along with using the job board cloud where necessary.
Like the digital advertising world, recruitment marketing will be driven by data, ROI focused and based on pre-defined rules (with so many advertising opportunities out there now you have to know which ones are working specifically for your company and for which roles). Advertising will also be bought on a pay-per-click/application basis.
Managing recruitment advertising and spend across these multiple channels will become increasingly complex, though this will be made easier thanks to automated tools using AI-powered technology, programmatic buying and real-time tracking, such as ClickIQ.
About ClickIQ: ClickIQ is an AI powered automated Talent Attraction platform that manages and optimises recruitment advertising with a built in ChatBot.
