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With so many job boards focused on care jobs and nurse jobs popping up and competing for space on search engines it seems that things are getting rapidly out of control and that it’s a job in itself just keeping up with it! Certainly in terms of the internet, the job board methodology is prehistoric and quickly losing ground as job seekers wise up and tire of recruiter tactics to obtain their details.
I can’t yet say that we’re an authority on this, but as former recruiters in the social care sector we grew tired of the need for using so many job boards, the spiraling costs of advertising on everything available for our industry, and most importantly in recent times, the dramatic dip in quality applicants to our advertised vacancies no matter where they were shown. It would of course be unfair to say that we never received any applications at all, and I know that every jobs board can throw numbers and statistics at me all year long, but as recruiters of specific jobs we found most of the applications to be unsuitable for purpose. It was for all of these reasons that we took up the challenge of evolving current concepts and producing a better system for the future…
Although we had a good idea as to the cause of these issues ourselves, we began researching ‘job board problems’ on the internet and soon discovered that we weren’t alone in our thoughts. In summary of the countless articles, blogs and forum debates that we found, the general opinion was that;
Online advertising services within niche sectors that target specific candidates for relevant jobs produce higher yields of quality and successful applications, especially if managed professionally and ethically with both employers and job seekers in mind. It could be argued that there are more resumes and unique visitors on the better known traditional sites, but they actually don’t bring in the best candidates, plus there are too many companies fighting over the same individuals. Many of these ‘major’ job boards still charge ‘premium’ fees simply because of Google rankings or on the back of their brand, but very few are policed properly and tend to be littered with expired jobs and outdated CVs which serve no purpose. The attitude of demanding large sums of money simply because of ‘rankings’ or stature is quickly losing ground to users feeling that they gain a sense of value from a service.
Though useful, the opinions were unsurprising. The fact is, we all use search engines and we all use the same pattern. Over 50% of us click on the number 1 search result before moving on if we don’t find what we’re looking for. So considering that we advertised on ‘every’ top ranking jobs board for our required search terms, why weren’t we getting the right people for our roles? Some could argue that it could be the way our adverts were written? Or that people just weren’t looking for that kind of job in that area at that time? Or that our jobs were simply lost among the many on the jobs board itself? After looking into these areas we weren’t convinced.
Again, we already had our own thoughts and looked to candidates on our database to seek their opinions of jobs boards? How they thought their job seeking experience could be improved? and what we could do to keep them coming back to our site, rankings or not? Without divulging all of the details I thought I’d share a few common and interesting statements made by genuine job seekers in conversation;
From the moment you register your CV to a job board you become a target for recruiters. I don’t think they realise how many phone calls you actually get and more often than not, they don’t have a job that you want but instead persist in getting you to go for something completely irrelevant.
I find it completely underhand that you have to register to apply for a job. In most cases you don’t have an option to hide your information so I just don’t bother now. It took literally months to get my details removed from some sites.
I’m tired of all of the emails I get, even when I unsubscribe. I’m clearly a senior manager but I still get care assistant jobs emailed to me every week.
Most of the jobs are faked anyway and it’s just the same conversations over and over again. Rarely do any of them ever come back to you, or it’s always just after you’ve already found work and don’t want the calls anymore.
The only responses I’ve ever received are from recruiters who tell me I’m not qualified for a job and probe me for names and phone numbers of colleagues and friends.
Mostly I get agencies trying to get me on their books and my response is always that my profile must say ‘permanent work only’ as I make a point of adding it every time
After some bad experiences and having to change my phone numbers and email address, I do everything to avoid registering with job boards and spend time scouring the web to find jobs with direct companies.
I have to admit that there are some very professional recruitment companies out there and I have been helped into work in the past, but there are also some real sharks.
I’ve found the best thing to do when searching for jobs is set up an email with Hotmail or Yahoo (not use my main one) to avoid spam emails, then just ditch it. I’ve also done the same with phone numbers. Just get a free SIM card for a different mobile number and put that on your CV.
Whatever your thoughts on the above we’re obviously picking up on some of the negatives, but these responses are far too common for a world that now lives and operates online. In our opinion, job seekers are losing trust in jobs board and recruitment methods. By recognising these problems, along with many others, we have developed a solution which we’re about to launch for the UK social care industry.
Without giving too much away, we’re bringing a next-generation, people powered and person-centred jobs system which recognises both the needs of employers while protecting job seekers information from public view at all times. Instead of ‘selling’ access to CV’s and personal details we are using our former recruitment knowledge to provide a free-to-use ‘industry relevant’ information and support service from an experienced team. We want to work closely with employers and recruiters to reduce the cost of advertising in order to provide our job seekers with the widest selection of available opportunities at all times, and by helping people find the jobs they seek we can generate quality leads from relevant candidates to increase success rates for our advertisers instead of simply relying on rankings to get jobs found.
Understanding that search engine rankings are still all-important to any jobs board you’ll find us on Page 1 of Google UK for over 50 general Care and Nurse search terms including RGN Jobs, Registered Nurse Jobs, RNLD Jobs, Home Manger Jobs, Care Manager Jobs, Clinical Lead Jobs, Care Home Jobs, Nursing Home Jobs, Senior Care Assistant Jobs, Project Worker Jobs and many more, with our individual job pages achieving number 1 spots for many geo-specific searches.
As we have clearly discovered, search engine rankings are only part of the battle. It is through job volume and selection, quality of service and the protection from unwanted contact that we will continue to win and maintain the trust of care and nurse job seekers to keep them coming back!
We launch properly in June 2011 and I’ll let you know of any developments along the way.
