by Margaret Clark
If you automatically click on For Employers when
judging the potential of an Internet career site to help meet your
staffing needs, you may be putting the cart before the horse. "Why
don't you get on as a job hunter?" challenges workforce consultant
Jane Lommel. From that angle, you are more likely to learn how the
site will actually work for you, than simply what the site's marketing
people want you -- as an employer -- to focus on.
Lommel was speaking to an audience of experienced
Internet recruiters at last month's War for Talent conference, co-sponsored
by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Hudson
Institute. Very few of them, however, had ventured into cyberspace
disguised as job hunters. "We all get stuck in our little boxes,"
Lommel observes.
Once you spend some time out there wearing your
job hunter hat, what will you find? "Your competition," Lommel says.
Whom they're hiring. What they're spending. What their benefits
are. What does it cost you for that industrial espionage? "Nothing!"
Lommel says.
What's more, advertised job descriptions are
changing rapidly and you can stay abreast of the trend, Lommel says,
by searching as a job hunter. Find the descriptions with a little
pizzazz, she says, and update your own accordingly.
Fundamental five
Drawing upon her background in instructional
design, Lommel offers a handful of must-haves for a seeker-friendly
career site.
Speed. "The faster the better," says Lommel.
Job seekers are with it, impatient, and even spoiled. They expect
a clear and powerful message. A site has just three seconds -- or
maybe only a nanosecond, Lommel quips -- to make an impression.
Savvy, friendly design. "I like being
here," is the effect you're looking for. "Younger folks, in particular,
are pretty sophisticated consumers of visual media. Complex pages
are a big turnoff to job hunters," she warns. The top talent will
say I can't be bothered.'
Navigability. A site should be easy to
navigate, intuitively obvious (i.e. If I click here, I am going
to get there.). "Cool factor is important too," she says, referring
to technology that permits the clever use of buttons and links.
Creative, appropriate content. Lommel
says clean, helpful content, not crazy miscellany is what works
for job hunters. Salary information, training opportunities, and
e-mail newsletters are attractive features.
Interactivity. A career site should have
some ongoing relationship or feedback mechanism with job hunters.
If you are investing in a particular site, you want to be sure that
it stays in touch with seekers and keeps them coming back, she advises.
Features like job scouts regularly send a job hunter pertinent information,
for example. e-Mail newsletters are good for this too.
Complex resume builders, Lommel says, are not
so hot as interactive devices. Nobody wants or should be expected
to write a dissertation for a job application, she says.
Selections from Jane's list
Rather than waste time reviewing the top 10 career
sites, Lommel shared her second-tier faves with the group. FlipDog
rates high with her, she says, because its technology "will sweep
into your corporate career site, and ask if its OK with you to put
your jobs on their site."
"Who wouldn't want the double exposure?"
she queries. "It's a real revolution in job searching." Lommel also
cites FlipDog's Job Opportunity Index (a state-by-state analysis
of job vacancies) and a feature that allows seekers to select passive
or active search modes.
Don't overlook regional websites, Lommel recommends.
She cites CraigsList, founded by a San Francisco area realtor who
decided to put job listings on his business website. Now Craig's
out of the real estate business and his site includes eight major
metropolitan areas in addition to several Bay area subregions. A
bell-and-whistle-free zone, CraigsList defies all the conventional
wisdom, but Lommel considers it a "fabulous ... very powerful site."
Lommel also points employers toward human resource
recruitment consortia such as Central New Jersey's Talent Alliance.
Small and medium-sized employers in the region were eating each
other alive to snare job applicants. To stop the cannibalization,
they pooled their resources to form a new model which, Lommel says,
is "doing a lot of things right."
And the Internet is not just about filling vacancies.
"It can be used much more broadly than most employers are using
it," Lommel says. For example, she says, "Smart HR folks are finding
their company on Vault -- the electronic water cooler -- to find
out what people are saying." Then they use the cyber-scuttlebutt
"in their weekly staff meetings." Sleuth is another site where employees
dish about the daily grind.
Exploring the niche's niche
The Internet, Lommel says, can be a powerful
tool both for learning about and accessing the talent pool in a
variety of groups. Sites that target the military, racial, and ethnic
groups, and the disabled can be both educational and productive
for staffing professionals. And, Lommel counsels, don't fail to
consider free agents and interns to meet your staffing needs. "Free
agency is going to be a big, big deal," Lommell says. And, as far
as she's concerned internships are for people "K through gray. Don't
just look for the 18- to 25-year olds."
This article is courtesy of HRWire. All rights
reserved.
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