ITJobCafe Launches New Version

ITjobcafe is a popular niche site focused on helping employers recruit tech talent. Launched in 2008, the Atlanta based job board was found by Chand Akkineni. The site currently connects connects 100,000 + active Job seekers with 7000+ employers.

I asked Chand a few questions over email about his experience running an IT job board.

What inspired you to start the site?

At that time and even now, Portals like DICE, Monster, Careerbuilder were charging a lot of money for job posting and resume searches. We wanted to create an economical portal solution for small and medium enterprises.

How many resumes does the site have to search through?

Over 100,000 resumes and growing.

How are you different from Dice?

Subscribing employers can leverage our Job distribution network which is bigger than DICE’s organic DB. We distribute your jobs to 20 sites including Indeed and SimplyHired. We also give employers access to ITIQ  - our Skill assessment tool. We distribute a valuable newsletter fortnightly. We also offer skype integration.

What trends do you see happening in the IT market?

With low unemployment rate in IT, there will be a continued demand for resources/job seekers resulting in rates increase. I see more recruiters using social networkings sites as well. New technologies will continue to evolve thus creating a sustained demand for consulting into the foreseeable future.

What have you learned about IT recruiting since starting the site?

Since we started, we’ve seen the ups and downs of the job market. It’s finally back to where it was in 2007. More employers are relying upon third party recruiters/head hunters to fill their critical needs. Job seekers are now able to gather more information about potential employers. Both recruiters and job seekers have never been more empowered than they are today.

What are the main features you offer on the site?

• Distribution of your jobs to major job aggregators -

• Indeed.com, Simplyhired, ZipRecruiter and Social Networking Sites.

• Get Profiles matching your jobs within 10 sec.

• Get unlimited resume alerts in your inbox

• Profiles in ITJobCafe are mostly current and active

• Search our resume database free of cost

• Pay only after preview of the resume

• Communicate with the Job Seeker directly through skype integrated network from ITJobCafe.

• Attractive subscription packages to contact/download suitable resumes from $5

• Attractive premier job subscription packages ranging from $149

• Schedule tests to Job Seekers on IT Skills through a secure online test ITIQ for $10

The job board recently launched a new mobile friendly design. The enhanced platform will yield results for both job seekers and recruiters quickly and accurately thus saving time and money specially for hiring managers.

Another feather in the cap is the online skill assessment test – ITIQ. It is a unique service that will help assess candidate's’ skill levels in their area of IT expertise prior to being hired. This offers tremendous benefits to recruiters in terms of time and hiring costs. Candidates too can determine their skill level and present the score on their resume or during an interview or take action to improve.

What strikes me most as to why employers should use ITjobcafe is the job distribution. For $149 you pay one price for multiple sites. That is a tremendous value to any recruiting budget. You’d pay hundreds more in order to do that yourself. Sounds like a bargain to me :-)

Let me introduce your product to 10,000 Recruiters

Part of what I do as a consultant in the online recruiting industry is to raise awareness of my clients among recruiters and employers. Over the years I have amassed a strong network of followers who like what I share and write. I’ve also built several email lists and groups of recruiters that I can quickly get your name in front of. Think of me as your brand evangelist. I help both job boards and other types of recruiting tech companies who want to target recruiters and employers.

So I’m now offering a simple, affordable public relations product to do just that.

It’s called “PR Boost“.

Using my various channels and lists I will personally introduce your site/service to a minimum of 10,000 recruiters and HR professionals.

Your PR Boost starts with a custom written article which I’ll be publishing on my LinkedIn Pulse account. Like this this one I wrote for TaxJobs.

From there I will share it across various groups on Facebook and LI that target recruiters. Then I’ll email it to a variety of opt-in email lists which I’ve been curating for many years online.

All of this happens over the course of two weeks to maximize exposure and raise awareness of your brand.

Benefits of a service like this include;

• SEO boost: I will end up getting you several back links from related websites that will help increase your Google ranking.
• Traffic: My PR efforts will result in more quality, employer traffic coming to your landing page or site.
• Branding/Awareness: Introducing your name to a large group of recruiters/employers will help establish you in the marketplace. This is particularly useful for new vendors who are not well known yet.

So if you are ready to get started just contact me.

RecTech Podcast: Clinch.io

I got a demo of Clinch recently. Clinch is a new recruitment marketing tool for employers and today I'll be speaking with Shane Gray, their VP of Sales & Marketing based in Dublin where the firm is headquartered.

I chatted with Clinch.io's Shane Gray recently via Skype to get his take on their new recruitment marketing tool based in Dublin Ireland. The tool helps employers get better at content and design by offering a drag and drop interface as well as some other cool features that help you connect with more candidates. Screenshots below.

Entry-level Recruiting with WayUp

Employers across America love to hire college students. They can’t seem to get enough of them. Visit any career fair today on campus and you’ll see dozens, sometimes hundreds of companies vying for their attention.

Last year, while recruiting for a hospitality company, I was tasked with attracting hundreds of them to the company career site. My number one tool quickly became WayUp, formerly known as CampusJob. They are a next generation recruiting tool that I think all entry-level employers should get to know.

The New York City based startup won me over by delivering 50 applicants to my job listing within 24 hours. Seeing such immediate results from a job board was pleasantly surprising experience. I had also posted the job on other college job sites which delivered decent applicant flow over the course of a month but none could match the immediacy and quality of what I found on WayUp.

I was hooked. I re-upped and they continued to send us dozens of recent grads over the next few weeks/months and a sizable portion of those kids were ultimately hired. The best part was we only had to pay for the applicants we got ($10 each). It was true “pay per applicant” college recruiting. They even let us pre-screen applicants by major and GPA.

Recently I spoke with Liz Wessel, CEO of WayUp and asked her why she thinks the company is resonating with employers and students.

“It's all in our success rate: 1 in 3 students who apply for a job on WayUp get hired. There are so many job boards out there where applying for a position feels like you are submitting your application into a black hole. But on WayUp, we're actively working to make sure that students get jobs. We follow up with every single student who has applied for a job on our site and if a student hasn't had any luck, we suggest 5 more positions that they can apply for. Our mobile app even notifies students when an employer is reviewing an application. We bring a human element to the job search.

We are also helping to create a level playing field for young candidates - especially graduating seniors and recent grads - who would otherwise be competing with candidates who have 2 - 3 years of experience (or more!).”

She also had the following tips for employers on how to best leverage the platform.

• Employers can get the most out of WayUp by using filters for job listings and our "Invite Students" functionality. Filters for job listings include GPA, major, expected degree, school, and many other options.  These ensure that only the most qualified applicants can view and apply for a listing, making both sides of the marketplace (students and businesses) happy.

• Our "Invite Students" functionality allows employers to filter through qualified students in our database and invite them to apply to a job within seconds - this gives students the confidence of knowing that they're desirable applicants, and we've seen many listings increase their pool of applicants through this feature.

• It also never hurts to write a great job description that compels students to apply!

Recruiting college students doesn’t have to be hard. It just takes a consistent, well-planned effort by your recruiting team. Pay for performance tools like WayUp are now making your job as recruiters a lot easier. So check them out and tell ‘em I sent you.

Good timing for a TaxJobs Launch

Niche job boards do it better. They offer employers access to targeted groups of candidates in any niche you can imagine. Today, there are job boards for every niche market and in many cases multiple boards for each vertical market. As someone who keeps close tabs on the job board industry, I would like to introduce you to the newest entrant in the niche job space; TaxJobs.com.

TaxJobs represents the fourth business in an existing Family of Tax Brands all founded by tax recruiting and retention veteran Tony Santiago. TaxSearch was the first company Santiago started in the tax field back in 1987. Beyond TaxSearch that specializes in retained search assignments, there is TaxTalent which serves as a free career and leadership development community for tax professionals and Tax Bridge Staffing which supplies top tax consultants on demand.

The team at TaxJobs knows the market so well that they want to empower their clients to attract the best talent in a scarce market. As talent demand in tax continues to outweigh the supply, Santiago stresses two critical aspects of hiring on your own:

• The candidate experience inside the job posting must be written to entice the passive tax professional.

• The pre-interview process needs to be geared towards the tax professional having easier access to information about open positions.

The TaxJobs model goes above and beyond the standard job board by working directly with the employer to create candidate-driven ads. When ads are posted that are not written effectively, TaxJobs notifies the employer and offers a free guide that lays out a step-by-step process to writing jobs ads that attract more qualified candidates. The guide also provides detailed insight on how to enhance the pre-qualification process where candidates can have their questions answered confidentially about the position before they need to apply.

“We have created a valuable incentive for employers that take our advice on writing more effective job ads and providing a knowledgeable contact for inbound candidate inquiries,” says Santiago. “When employer ads meet our standards, we recognize the ad with a special quality job icon which lets candidates know the ad is more relevant. Additionally, our system takes these quality ads and places them higher in search results,” Santiago explains.   

“TaxJobs is unlike any other medium for capturing more qualified tax professionals,” says Santiago. “We know active tax candidates make up the minority of the tax population so we have developed TaxJobs as the leading DIY solution that attracts and engages both the active and the more highly valued, passive tax audience.”

TaxJobs offers a mix of personal service combined with custom-designed technology specifically geared to help tax professionals find positions that meet their needs and wants. For example, TaxJobs offers a powerful Job Agent tool that alerts candidates when opportunities arise within very specific criteria, from tax specialties and functions to specific companies that have open tax positions. In a high demand, low supply market like tax, the Job Agent is a game-changing tool for the hard-to-reach, passive candidates who do not want to get inundated with irrelevant career opportunities in tax. 

The TaxJobs audience includes the full spectrum of corporate tax professionals from tax interns to senior tax executives. TaxJobs is especially helpful for mid-management to staff level positions, which are currently in the highest demand out of all the tax positions. Unlike many other professions, tax work is difficult to outsource to foreign talent due to the complexity of the U.S. tax code.

There are two things that I find unique about TaxJobs that most job boards don’t typically offer. First, they feature an index of tax jobs that tracks hiring activity on a national, regional or local level. Users can search by zip code among a variety of different tax job titles. Secondly, their Tax Hiring Campaign service offers employers the chance to have their job ad written for them by experts at TaxJobs.

The reason for this, adds Santiago, is that most HR professionals who typically have to promote a corporate tax role, don’t necessarily have the skills to describe it with the candidate in mind. The team at TaxJobs are experts at helping firms attract the right candidate. Furthermore, employers also receive guidance and counseling on aiding their interview process for the candidates.  Part of the Tax Hiring Campaign is leveraging TaxTalent’s proprietary database of over 100,000 qualified tax professionals to make sure that the employer’s job ad is marketed to the precise target audience that they are looking for within subsets of the tax function

The main price point for TaxJobs is a 60 day job posting for $495. That ad comes with a no-risk offer for direct employers.  The team at TaxJobs impressed upon me that they focus on quality applicants not quantity. That’s something every recruiter wants to hear!

Aside from leveraging TaxTalent’s proprietary database, TaxJobs also syndicates their job ads to tax associations, social media and within its own private job agent system. The Job Agent reaches thousands of tax professionals that opt-in for private notifications about open tax opportunities.

TaxJobs is live and open for business at http://www.taxjobs.com/. The site serves both direct employers and third party recruiters as well as job ad agencies that cover the tax market.

Indeed's own job descriptions offer glimpse into keyword strategy

I was cruising some listings on Indeed.com the other day when I came upon their own sales jobs and decided to take a peek at how they craft them. A section at the bottom caught my eye. 

NOTE: I searched for I searched for sales job in Stamford, CT. The title of the sponsored job I clicked is "Inside Sales Executive - Online Advertising".

These 'alternative job titles' are not what you see in most job listings. I can only deduce they have a keyword purpose. They are there to help job seekers find these jobs when they type in an alternate form of the job in the search box. 

It's a smart idea. These extra job titles are essentially keywords in disguise. But they also educate the job seeker that they should be searching for alternatives job titles since many of them will have variations.

My takeaway for employers is do more research around your job titles. They are arguably the most important part of your job listing. Use the Indeed trends tool to conduct keyword research around your job. Compare things like sales vs account executive. And pay attention to your Indeed monthly advertising report which also details how job seekers are finding your own jobs.

Job titles, just like content, are king.

RecTech: the Recruiting Technology Podcast

Take five minutes to hear about what's new in the world of online recruiting.

A roundup of the digital recruiting news from mid-December. Got 5 minutes? Get informed.

Companies mentioned in this show include;

• Indeed - read the press release about Prime.
• Linkedin - read the Techcrunch coverage.
• Tinypulse - read the story on Geekwire.
• JobNow - read the story.
• Internwire - read the story.
• Recfluence - read the press release.
• Talentsky - read the story.
• WorkHere - read the story.
• WorkanGo - read the story. (UK)
• FreeJobPosting.co.nz - go to site. (NZ)
• Talenetic - Seattle Times job board.

That's it for now. Look for new shows in 2016.

Sometimes an ad like this is all you need

Saw this on social media last week. Great example of a real world job ad that is funny AND honest. Kinda makes me want to work there! Notice the "-o -e -o" prhase as spoons and forks below the headline.

How one restaurant advertises their gigs.

A Tale of Two Linkedin Visual Job Ads

Since taking over the strategy and execution for ACLcareers.com I have been on a mission to make their social recruiting more visual than ever before. I launched channels on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and took over a dormant Linkedin company page with around 5,600 followers. 

I began sharing 1-2 images per day on Linkedin and in the 6 weeks of doing that we've gained 350+ new followers. Comments, likes, shares and engagement has skyrocketed.

My strategy has been to show off life at the company, welcome new employees, tout the occaisional news byte and promote our priority job openings in a visual format. I want the page to drive brand awareness and of course hires.

I've been posting real images and also visual job ads that I make myself. After posting a few dozen images I began to notice which ones got more impressions, likes and comments. The results surprised me a bit.

First lets set our averages so you get a better idea of how many impressions you can expect. Our posts average around 2,800 impressions each. Thats with a follower count of almost 6,000 people. 

As I started to look at which images performed better, two stood out.

The first was just a simple image with our careers tagline, logo and url.

As you can see it almost doubled the number of impressions of the average image. It also pulled in more Likes and comments than normal. And LIKES are important because they will show up in the newsfeed of the people who liked it, thus increasing the number of impressions, thus increasing our brand awareness. 

Then I decided to alter the same image to try and make it more interesting. I added one of our ship icons and created a bigger image with more impact.

Wow! I almost tripled the number of impressions. Engagement went from 1.79% to 2.06%. Comments almost doubled and the number of Likes took off. As of this blog post going live, that image has received 82 Likes and is getting 2-4 new ones each day.

I wasn't expecting an image this simple to get that kind of traction. But it seems that its clean, sparse design, limited color scheme and overall focus were the reasons why. So my advice is to simplify your recruitment marketing images. Simpler is better. Focus your message for the viewer.

They say the best billboards you see on the highway should have no more than 7 words on it to have the best readability. I think the same can be said for images on social media. Keep your message succint, have great design elements and it will be seen by more people.