By Sharon Hill
Recruitment advertising agency executives delivered an inspirational day-long message
to a small group of community newspaper recruitment managers June 23 in Chicago.
This annual recruitment roundtable, free to SNA members, focused on what hiring
managers want from media.
Ann Troxell, Client Director for Bayard Advertising, clearly understood the plight
and the products of newspapers. A former Los Angeles Daily News advertising executive,
Troxell pointed out to attendees that newspapers aren’t the only ones experiencing
a downturn in print recruitment revenue. “HR Magazine, for example, the SHRM [Society
for Human Resource Management] product, is down considerably as well,” Troxell said.
Ann Troxell
She told the newspapers that human resource staff tends to skew young, which makes
print a hard sell to her clients. The exceptions, she said are event-driven recruitment
ad campaigns, and companies that have multiple openings. Even then, however, these
Bayard clients need an integrated solution, what Troxell called “firing on all eight
cylinders.” Her recommended combination is online postings, banner ads, print, career
fairs, sponsorships, and radio and TV. Meghan Dewey, Client Development Executive
for RADA Advertising said that her grocery store and security company clients still
choose print-only advertising campaigns.
Troxell emphasized the value of creating robust niche recruitment Web sites. “Career
boards are not selling like five years ago,” she told us. “The age of the national
job board is over. HR folks don’t want to talk to 1.3 million job seekers. They
want to reach the 5000 that are qualified.”
Bruce Skillings
Bruce Skillings, President of Bernard Hodes, had much the same message about the
value of the niche. “Today’s [national] job boards are yesterday’s classifieds,”
he said. “Imagine one million ads and no way to index.” He suggested newspapers
consider collaboration with niche firms and sites such as After College, SnagAJob,
JobFax, ClearanceJobs.com and Simply Hired. Skillings discounted a recent Source
of Hire Survey which noted that 54 percent of hires come from corporate sites. He
disputed the statistics, saying that corporate sites are destinations, not sources.
“Eighty percent of Bernard Hodes clients spend 80% of their recruitment ad dollars
in the local market, in good times or bad,” Skillings said. “And, 80% of people
who change jobs each year do so within 25 miles of their home.”
Joe Shaker Jr., Vice President of Shaker Recruitment Advertising and Communications,
talked about his company’s own niche sites. What began with ChicagoJobs.com, and
then RIJobs.com has now expanded to New Jersey, Atlanta, Tampa, Texas and Boston.
Shaker has also launched DriverJobs.com. Executive VP Cathy Shaker — Breit
suggested another niche to study — Jobs & Pods, which we actually visited
at the SHRM annual conference exhibit hall.
Joe Shaker Jr. and Cathy Shaker-Breit introduce their agency’s niche job sites.
Meghan Dewey suggested that newspapers replace their standard house ads with job-seeker
success stories. She also encouraged newspaper reps to provide case studies and
testimonials to advertising agency account executives as part of their product presentation.
One piece of advice for newspaper recruitment managers from Ann Troxell: “The front
page of a section is a good sale,” she said. “It is an easy sale to our clients
— above the fold, a place where they can say ‘see our ad inside.’ The Los
Angeles Times used to sell the top rail this way. Now they don’t. It was a big disappointment
to our clients — and a big mistake.”
Recruitment and Classified managers who’d like to hear more ideas about growing
their multimedia recruitment ad dollars should attend the annual SNA Classified
Conference, “Classified Marketplace — Our Evolving Future” Nov. 19-21 in Las
Vegas. Click here (PDF) for details about all you’ll learn.