The future of online recruitment; where do we go from here?

By Steve Evans, mediafigures.co.uk

Simple points reiterated; recession and a massive decrease in employment growth means thatÖ

1. Employers are finally able to take a breath and look at strategic recruitment and recruitment strategies rather than ongoing reactive growth.

2. Recruitment budgets are being cut from advertising and consultancy fees.

3. Suppliers will have to become creative to match this change.

This is going to completely change the recruitment sector so this is the first of a mini series with my thoughts on how I think this will affect us all and ideas for change, firstly, this is what I think it could mean for the online recruitment industryÖ

* Job boards offering more recruitment services, not just through technology with price per placement but full ìhumanî response management, blurring the lines between recruitment companies, advertising agencies and job boards. If I were a media owner with a portfolio of sites this is what I would explore immediately (Emap, Haymarket, Incisive, Centaur, UBM, RBI, step forward).

* Merger of the niche job boards to survive, either by acquisition or through centralised affiliation selling, creating gateway technology to host each others' jobs.

* Centralised out source of job board sales selling via networks to media houses (why doesnít RBI already offer this service and re-sell other job boards?).

* The growth of the corporate job board built to compete against the job board sites (tesco.jobs anyone?).

* Rise of the widgets for aggregators, with targeted jobs placed on blogs and other social networks (www.jobamatic.com becoming the norm and provided by the aggregators).

* More focus on the employer brand and employee communication driven via job boards and social networks.

* Rise of the flat fee/low touch online recruitment service selling across networks of job boards.

* A welcome return for recruitment companies to actually provide real recruitment, with more demand for traditional search services regardless of the level.

What will hold the industry back from moving forward and taking this next stage effectively? The right people.

Despite what many may think - selling recruitment advertising is different to recruitment services and any company that will want to go through this route will need to carefully consider the strategy and who will implement it for them. All previous hires have been based on ability to sell ad space and increase revenue from that point of view, but this new world will require different skills.

There are big steps to take and the right strategy needs to be implemented thoughtfuly..

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts and whether you think this is all nonsense.