Sales, media and marketing in online recruitment

Sales, media and marketing have been flourishing, with new niche sites addressing demand, and they are looking forward to social networking and web 2.0 for the next leaps forward in online recruitment.

Sophie Relf, head of marketing at totaljobsgroup.com explains why these sectors have been so successful. She says: ìThe sales sector has been affected by technological advancements more than most; obvious links with e-commerce, Supply chain Management and Customer Relationship Management systems spring to mind. So itís not surprising to find recruiters looking to online recruitment as a popular and reliable source of quality candidates. And there is an expectation that sales people should be able to present themselves and communicate with prospects through different channels, face to face, over the phone via email.î

David Somerville, Marketing Manager of Simply Online Services says: ìWe have seen the sales sector grow dramatically over the past 18 months. It has increased at a larger rate than some other sectors, largely due to the increase of online sales and IT sales vacancies that are being created. As a direct result of this we have launched two super-niche sites to service our clients and jobseekers ñ SimplyMediasalesjobs.co.uk and SimplyITsalesjobs.co.uk. The popularity of the sales sector can also be gauged by the activity we have experienced on our main SimplySalesjobs site this year. Our average monthly visitor figures are up year-on-year; more job vacancies are being placed by recruiters and more job seekers are registering their CVs (around 35% more year-on-year). And most importantly our application rates are up by 50% year-on-year, a rate that is slightly higher than other sectors. We would expect to see these trends following the same pattern in the next 12 months as well.î

Jobsite agrees with these trends. They say: ìSales, media and marketing is a buoyant UK sector and historically is one of Jobsiteís most successful markets. Jobsite currently has over 700,000 job seekers registered looking for jobs across these sectors whilst vacancies accounted for circa 20% of all job vacancies advertised on Jobsite during 2007.Within the three sectors the strongest market is sales where Jobsite currently has almost 300,000 job hunters registered. To support the growing numbers of candidates searching for sales and marketing jobs online, Jobsite has recently launched two niche sites to accommodate both sector specialists and generalist job seekers.

SeniorSalesJobs.com was launched in 2006 and boasts almost 6500 senior vacancies 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.î

Benefits ñ niche sites and new technological tools
As Sophie Relf says: ìThe benefits of online recruitment for jobseekers and for recruiters are broadly the same; internet recruitment has created a ëperfectí marketplace where all advertised jobs and applicants can be compared in one place; giving both users maximum choice. The opportunity for recruiters is to showcase the role, culture and company benefits of the job where matches are based on keyword searches. This has levelled the playing field somewhat for businesses; for example on totaljobs.com, jobs posted to town or postcode locations elicit three times more response than those posted to regional locations, so itís within the power of the recruiter to triple response.î

By using ënicheí or ësuper nicheí sites such are SimplySalesjobs.co.uk or SimplyMediasalesjobs.co.uk, jobseekers can already have a narrowed down selection to search from, says David Somerville. He says: ìAnother advantage for them is that they donít need to limit their search to the UK. It is becoming increasingly popular for people who want to work abroad, with areas such as the Middle East and Australia being first choice picks for sales people. Advertisers also have a large number of benefits, including the fact that the process of advertising their jobs online is quick and easy, saving them time out of their busy working schedules. And they can also save money too, a notable benefit. By using targeted niche jobs sites they can be more confident that they are advertising to the right sort of people they want to recruit ñ wastage is therefore low. Services such as CV searching and CVs emailed to their inboxes all help find the best candidates.î

Jobsite also sees the importance of such tools, saying: ìJobs by email which can be used on a speculative basis to reach the semi active job seekers and virtual headhunter services have massive appeal for this sector, allowing potential job seekers to understand the opportunities that are available to them, and make a well informed decision on their next career move. Candidates can set up jobs-by-email where only relevant jobs targeted to their specific skills/needs are sent directly to their inbox, empowering the candidate. CVs can be stored and edited to suit different roles meaning that applying to vacancies becomes quicker and easier.î

Craig Bines, Sales Director at JobsGroup.net says they have several features to help jobseekers: ìOur CV registration is powered by Artificial Intelligence Matching (AIM), which automatically extracts all the information needed to populate the forms. This dramatically improves the scope and accuracy and of the information in our CV database; a process that once took ten minutes now takes two.î He also reports that many jobseekers report frustration at using jobsites that provide no feedback ñ their carefully crafted applications disappear into a black hole. He says: ìWith JobsGroup.net candidates can track their applications in real time using our Application Tracking feature. Another step towards truly humanising jobsites is the ability to monitor interest in your CV. No longer are jobseeker left to wonder how effective their CV is, or whether anyone actually looks at it. Our CV Monitor feature provides jobseekers with the opportunity to be an active participant in the job seeking process.î Regarding recruiters, Craig Bines says that in addition to their job posting and CV search services, their clients can also utilise CV Monitor, which can be set-up to send an alert whenever candidates matching a designated profile register with our sites, and Look Whoís Looking, which helps recruiters to see which jobseekers are viewing their vacancies.

Social networks and Web 2.0
David Somerville tells us that theyíve been surprised how Social Networking business websites have become involved with online recruitment: ìIt is mainly surprising due to the rate in which these relationships have increased. As a result of this we have created a ëclubí for SimplySalesjobs.co.uk on business networking site Ecademy.com. The Simply Sales Jobs club provides both an additional advertising platform for employers and recruiters ñ and a vehicle to provide sales tips, interview tips, CV help, sales resources, sales tips, sales books, motivational quotes to job seekers. The club was only created a few months ago it has already attracted over 500 members, without any real marketing push behind it. The advantage of using Social Networks, particularly business ones, is that we can be talking to ëpassive jobseekersí, ensuring that they are made aware of the benefits we can offer them when it comes to a point of looking for a new job.

We see the online recruitment market expanding, both in terms of the number of jobs sites being launched more and more job sites, and in the number of people using the Internet to find and recruit. We are really looking forward to the development of the niche and super niche sites within the marketplace. The feedback from both job seekers and advertisers shows that the demand is there and that they work. It is likely that more ësuper nicheí job sites will be launched than any other type. Social networks will also be increasing, with lots more recruiters realising that they offer numerous advantages when it comes to attracting quality candidates.î

Jobsite also expects to see a continued increase in web 2.0 enabled applications to appeal to the next generation of job seekers, saying: ìJobsite is already integrated with the social-networking platform Facebook; with over 1000 active users on their Job Match application, whilst Jobsiteís most recent development is a Personal Profile application on Facebook called ëWhat Motivates You?í The widget helps jobseekers better understand their work motivations, providing them with critical information and insight into their own preferences to help them find a company whose company culture will best match their own. Applied in the right way, video is also going to become more important from arrival of video CVs for creative professionals to increasingly interactive content to help guide job seekers.î

Craig Bines anticipates great leaps forward in online recruitment technology too: ìAt the moment many sites still use what is, in IT terms, prehistoric technology: keyword and Boolean search. We also believe there will be a greater move towards candidate centric services. Jobseekers can no longer be expected to visit multiple sites when searching for a job, and jobsites must therefore do more to bring the information to jobseekers at the time and place of their convenience, building on Jobs-by-Email to develop social networking applications, desktop widgets, gadgets and job search applications.î


As you can see, Social networks and Web 2.0 feature strongly in the vision of the future for sales, media and marketing sectors, as also discussed elsewhere in this issue. With such innovative sites and technology, their success can only go from strength to strength in the New Year.