The employment-advertising market is a mixed bag, according to a report
released today by the media consultancy and research firm Borrell Associates.
According to the report (which carries a $995 price tag), recruitment
overall enjoyed a “bonanza year”; even newspapers saw double-digit
gains in help-wanted advertising. And Monster, CareerBuilder and others enjoyed strong growth.
That’s the good news for those companies. The bad news is that
“hundreds — perhaps thousands — of niche sites emerged,” says
Borrell. In some cities, the company found more than 100 online job
boards competing for local listings. “There are job sites solely for
pharmacists, for stay-at-home moms, for cruise-ship musicians, and for
professional dancers in San Antonio.”
What that means, of course, is that there’s a new focus on a bevy of
online options that are siphoning dollars from nonmedia recruitment
methods as well as traditional media-employment services. Recruiters
are shifting major portions of their budgets into new online
services — including their own Web sites — that meet their needs more
efficiently.
And, of course, there’s the continued and growing influence of Craigslist, which “had people uttering the ‘F’ word in more than 100 cities (we’re talking about ‘free’ here).”
So, what we’re seeing is not only a shift toward free ads (with money
coming from things like up-sells and contextual display advertising
around classified job ads), but the emergence of niches job boards —
many associated with magazines and trade publications — “eager to hop
aboard the up-sell bandwagon and firms investing in their Web space.”
The result of all this is that online-recruitment advertising went from
$1.3 billion in 2004 to $3.5 billion in 2005.
Borrell also says that there’s much variation between markets. In some
cities, Craigslist or Monster might be in the lead, while in others
(especially smaller cities), the daily newspaper remains the
marketplace leader. Says the report: “As formidable as the pure-play
job boards seem and after a decade of trying, they still can’t reach
the majority of job seekers who don’t use online services at all. In
some job categories, two-thirds of the job seekers conduct their
searches entirely offline … which puts the advantage squarely in
the hands of media companies that can offer both online and offline
help-wanted advertising.”
