Online recruitment magazine - The market view from the sales, media & marketing jobboards

Online recruitment magazine feature - Sales, media and marketing jobboards have been affected by the economic downturn like everyone else, but there are areas that have had increased numbers of jobs registered. Inherent cost effectiveness means that online recruitment will be less hit than most industries in 2009, and more passive jobseekers looking ëjust in caseí of redundancy could be an important factor, say our contributors from this sector.

Ian Partington, MD at the Simply Jobs Group looks forward to a change in the way that many businesses rethink the way they recruit new members of staff, opting to steer away from traditional methods in favour of using online media stating, ìIt is expected that companies looking to save on costs will look at a better return on investment and reduce costs of recruiting by using online job boards as apposed to print or using recruitment agencies. Similarly, recruitment agencies, also looking to save costs will look towards reducing the number of job boards that they use and focus more on niche sites such as Simply Marketing Jobs, Simply Media Sales Jobs, Simply New Media Jobs or Simply Sales Jobs as they look for more effective ways to attract the most relevant candidates. This rationalised approach from the Recruitment Agencies will lead to job boards working smarter in order to provide a good response at the right price and those who invest in new technology and products will stay ahead.î

Denise Tanham, Director of SalesJobs.ie has a pragmatic view of the market in Ireland: ì2009 has started off quite pessimistically with the CSO (central statistics office) announcing the first week of January an unemployment rise to a ten year high of 8.3% from 4.9 per cent at the start of the year 2008. Predications of year-end unemployment rates of 12% are being quoted by leading economists. Things will be very challenging in 2009 for online recruitment and in particular sales jobs boards will be impacted as many Irish businesses operate in the small to medium private sectors and will struggle to stay afloat. SalesJobs.ie saw an overall decrease of job postings by 5% in 2008, with the impact of the downturn affecting figures greatly in the last quarter of the year. Since October of this year we have seen many of our clients specializing in sales recruitment cut their teams by half or in some cases close sales desks due to a sharp reduction of companies advertising sales roles. We had over 75,000 sales roles advertised in 2008 but predict this to drop by 50% in 2009. The highest activity of sales roles advertised in any one sector was IT. We experienced sharp declines in finance, construction and property sales roles being advertised.î

However, Denise Tanham is also looking on the bright side: ìFacility service providers and renewable energy companies continue to hire staff as their sector continues a steady growth path despite the economic downturn. We saw an increase of jobs advertised in the media sales sector largely due to the high demand for online marketing sales executives as more and more businessís compete for high search engine positioning and sales online. The business sales executive role was highest in demand in 2008 with average salary offerings of 45k. Felix Wetzel, Jobsite Marketing Director is also positive: ìThe sales, media and marketing sectors are generally doing well to buck the downward trend thatís affecting some industries. Jobs within the media sector are perhaps suffering slightly more than those within sales or marketing but with increasing numbers of online media jobs, candidate experienced in this area should still see positions available. Jobsite currently has around 600,000 registered jobseekers across these sectors. Historically sales is one of Jobsiteís strongest sectors and this continues to hold true with over 300,000 job hunters registered here.î

Felix Wetzel continues by saying Jobsiteís recent brand campaign (October 08) has seen significant uplift in candidate activity within the sales, media and marketing sectors. He says: ìWith searchable CVs increasing by over 200% in each of the sectors and registrations also up across all three; media (up 125%), marketing (up 83%) and sales (up 92%). With the second phase of the brand campaign in January 2009 we should continue to see increased candidate activity in these sectors. To support the growing numbers of candidates searching for sales and marketing jobs online Jobsite launched two niche sector sites. SeniorSalesJobs.com was launched in 2006 and boasts an average of 15,000 sales vacancies a month including Sales Director and Area Management roles. MarketingJobBoard.co.uk was launched at the end of 2007, specialising in the B2B, B2C, Communications, Direct Marketing, Online and PR sectors. These sites accommodate those who prefer to search on a specialist site.î

Jobboards will undoubtedly face challenging times in 2009. Felix Wetzel says: ìItís difficult for any sector to remain completely untouched from economic downturn and whilst sales and marketing havenít suffered like the retail and financial industries, itís likely that recruitment in these sectors will remain static or decline slightly. Sales positions are vital for all businesses to boost revenue but at the same time, consumers and businesses are being more careful with their spending, making it hard for sales targets to be met. Marketing roles are normally concerned with promoting the company which helps to bring in revenue, but businesses in tough times are cutting back on extra spending and instead are investing marketing budgets back into the business to recover from loss in sales revenue. Many companies are only making critical hires that are essential to their immediate survival and depending on the nature of the company, this may not include sales or marketing professionals.î

He continues: ìWhilst we have seen some firms, particularly SMEs, being especially cautious when it comes to hiring, whatís really interesting is the way that candidatesí jobhunting activity seems relatively unaffected by the economic climate. Due to the economic downturn you also have more passive candidates than ever before who are speculatively looking to see what other jobs are around, just in case they should lose their current one. If they find a better offer theyíre more than happy to make that leap. So whilst now may seem like a risky time to recruit there are thousands of new quality candidates out there looking, who could be fundamental to your businesses success. In the current climate people want a job board partner who understands how tough jobseeking is and is doing all they can to make finding a new job quicker and easier. Jobseekers are willing to compare competing job boards to find the right role for them, so job boards need to offer these candidates the best service possible to take the pain out of jobhunting.î

Denise Tanham, agrees jobboards will have to offer extra services, saying: ìAs the market turns from a candidate driven to client driven, job boards will have to offer added services for less as competition tightens. Implementing software to help clients filter and process applications will be useful and CV profiling is the new hot topic of job board offerings, whether clients will have the time to appreciate it is another thing.î Ian Partington believes that there will be fewer surviving jobboards: ìNaturally there will be some consolidation of the market place with fewer new entrants expected as well as some smaller niche sites, especially those which operate within markets that have been affected by the credit crunch, disappearing from the market. Looking forward to the next few months, we will look forward to working with SMEís who may not have previously considered advertising their vacancies on niche jobsites and will also look to tailor packages across our 13 niche jobsites.î

As with other sectors, the surviving jobboards are going to need to focus on fulfilling the needs of their clients to maximise their potential this year. There will be greater emphasis on attracting passive candidates in addition to providing the additional services candidates have begun to expect.