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A wider Net for hiring
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July 26, 2000: 3:02 p.m. ET
The Web job market is daunting; use it only as one prong of recruiting plan
By Staff Writer Steve Bills
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - So you figure you need to cast a wider net to find qualified job candidates for your company. But should that wider net be the Internet?
Job recruitment Web sites certainly would like you to think so. According to Internet researchers at IDC, nearly one-fourth of U.S. Internet users have spent time on an e-cruiting Web site. As researcher Ellen Julian said in a statement: "Considering the newness of this medium, this finding is astounding."
When the Society for Human Resource Management held its annual conference last month in Las Vegas, it seemed like every other booth at the enormous trade show was for a dot.com of one kind or another.
Job sites are differentiating
And they are differentiating themselves in a wide variety of ways -- the worker-oriented mega-sites, such as Monster.com and Hotjobs.com; sites geared to human-resource departments to help them manage the hiring process; sites that offer live video interviewing over the Web; sites that serve specific regions, such as New England; sites that serve particular employment specialties, such as accountants or technical workers.
 Especially technical workers. A year ago, when SHRM surveyed its members on their top recruitment methods, tech positions were the only category where Internet job postings even cracked the top five techniques, recalled society spokeswoman Kristin Accipiter.
For virtually every other category -- professional staff, clerical workers, laborers, service workers -- employers relied on the old standbys -- Sunday newspaper ads, daily paper ads, search agencies, employee referral programs and the like.
But that was 1999. In the year 2000, there are as many as 30,000 Web sites touching some aspect of the employment field, Julian said. And the category is in tumult.
Media giants Knight Ridder (KRI: Research, Estimates) and Tribune Co. (TRB: Research, Estimates) set plans last week to acquire two online recruitment sites, CareerPath.com Inc. and CareerBuilder Inc., a move aimed at gaining an edge in the already crowded e-cruiting market. A few days later, shareholders of Headhunter.net (HHNT: Research, Estimates) approved a merger with former online rival CareerMosaic.
Beyond 'Version 1.0'
The consolidation is not surprising, market observers say. The online job market "is going from Version 1.0 to the next version," said Perry Boyle of the Thomas Weisel merchant bank, as competitors "morph into more professional portals."
 He predicted the "big guys get bigger but broaden their offering of niche-ified services," more precisely slicing the market to target job seekers who are interested in New York but not California, who have skills in accounting but not C++ programming, with more news and services, more community and chat, to attract not only active job hunters but also to bring in the passive job seekers -- who may be satisfied in their employment now, but who also might be lured by the right opportunity.
This kind of aggregation is appealing to the investment marketplace, where mega-sites attract enormous traffic and the hope of market dominance. But if you are trying to fill a few jobs, is it where you want to be?
Not necessarily, argues Margaret Dikel, an authority on e-cruiting and editor of the Riley Guide, a gateway to more than 2,000 job-oriented Web sites.
"Do you want all the eyeballs that someplace like Monster.com is going to draw?" Dikel asked. "The last thing you need is to get a thousand resumes, 990 of which don't meet your needs."
Seeking more specialized sites
Dikel recommended that small employers especially should seek out more specialized sites, after deciding whether they need a Web programmer, a sales guru or a procurement specialist.
"You're going to knock out a lot of eyeballs," she said, "but the eyeballs you get are going to be the ones you want to get to."
As you consider posting your job openings on a site, Dikel suggests you ask these questions:
- Do the site's backers have a background in recruiting?
- How long has the site been in business?
- Who else is posting job openings there?
- What kind of traffic does the site draw, on a monthly basis, if not weekly?
"I don't think they'll give you as much information as you would like," Dikel warned.
Use a multi-pronged strategy
She also recommended that employers use the Internet only as one part of a multi-pronged hiring strategy -- "Spring for one Sunday ad," she suggested. "I know they're expensive, but spring for one" -- as well as offering existing employees incentives to bring in candidates.
One resource available to a growing number of small companies is the business' own Web site. Many small employers don't post job openings there, but it is the equivalent of putting a "help wanted" sign in the storefront window.
"Not only is it fairly effective, it's pretty darn inexpensive," Dikel said. "But then you have to attract traffic to your own site."
Another strategy might be to put more generic job listings on the big commercial boards, referring candidates back to more detailed job description on your site, where you also can sell the benefits of working for your company, Dikel said. 
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