This Week, In Recruiting - Issue No24

Remember:?Recruiting Brainfood?for ever green, deep dive curated recruiting + HR content. Subscribe???

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Open Kitchen: Why 'Free' Doesn't Work

So after just 1 month of the Brainfood Jobs launch, time for a review.

Brainfood Jobs Job Board: The Data (After 1 Month)

From the employers side, we've had 400+ jobs posted, 368 of which are still active, 74 currently in queue. From the candidate side, we have had close to 150,000 'impressions', 435 candidate applications to those jobs and 216 subscribers for further job notifications - presumably these are 'passive' candidates who may not be actively looking but monitoring the feed for suitable opportunities.

From all of this, we've actually had a reported 2 (count 'em!) - 2 people hired through the job board.

I'm actually super impressed with these small potatoes. Brainfood Jobs Job Board was really just thrown out there as a response to need and because it felt futile cutting and pasting 100's of jobs every week to this newsletter.

Brainfood Jobs Job Board has also been a learning experience for me as a newbie job board operator. I wanted to better understand the mechanics of how job boards work, and identify areas where it doesn't. As ever, I'm going to share what I learn, as I learn it. The past month has shown me a lot of things I've done wrong - but the main one, which is the focus of this post - is that my pricing model was out of whack.

The Pricing - First Attempt (Ludicrous)

One of the best things you can read about pricing is Nick Kolenda's '42 Pricing Tricks Based on Psychology & Neuroscience'. I didn't re-read it before setting out the pricing model above and should have. My cod theory was 'Standard' would get the job volume in, whilst the 'too much' figure at 'Promoted' would drive most employers toward the middle tier of 'Listed', which is where I wanted most employers to be. Turns out of the 400 jobs posted, only 2 went with this option!

I had a great conversation with one of these buyers - Move's CEO Adriano Herdman, who whilst super pleased with the results (more on this later) did say that $500 was too high for a single 30 day job post. This is not Germany and I am not StepStone ??.

There are also significant downstream impact on a pricing model where the options aren't viable - too many jobs on the free tier. I actually wanted this at first (sign of a good job board right, loads of jobs??) but I've come to realise this is not the case at all. Too many jobs actually causes some significant problems for candidate experience and employer ROI. Emergent issues such as...

1. Reduced Job Quality

Brainfood Jobs has a high frequency of 'poor quality job posts' - incomplete postings, spelling errors in job titles, no copy or detail on the job description - hence the 74 jobs currently in queue. There is a danger it becomes the Craigslist of recruiter jobs - perhaps a viable concept but not in line with curated vibe of Brainfood projects.

2. Increase Job Duplication

There have been 2 instances of the same job being posted by different recruiters in the same employer - not a high frequency but an indicator of a future problem which is better to solve now. Turns out that 'free' has a decentralising effect on who the job owner is - anyone can post and do so without reference to anyone else in their business. Great if every poster is equally committed to hiring for the post (and at some point might have a conversation!), but confusing for the job seeker who might end up in parallel processes for the same job - obviously bad for employer brand.

3. Increase Rate of 'Content Decay' For Single Job

Staying visible on the feed makes a huge difference to applicant flow. I mentioned Adriano earlier and whilst he felt $500 was too much to risk for unknown offering, it was worth it now he saw the results. I had totally under estimated the value of being Featured top-of-page. But it's a truth all SEO folks know - nobody goes to Page 2.

The high new job volume (70+ every week) generated by free tier meant that most jobs did not stay on front page long enough to get decent traffic.....

4. Promotes Page Rank Optimisation

... directly leading to the recruiters trying a classic hack - reposting the job anew in order to get back on front page. The first instance of this user behaviour occurred last week. I'm not annoyed at all at the person who did it because the system which I have set up, encourages this type 'page rank optimisation'. That recruiter is just being smart (definitely a brainfooder) - it was me who was being dumb ??

5. Reduces Applicant Experience

The end outcome of all of this is that it degrades applicant experience, which in turn degrades employer ROI. Candidates are seeing too many jobs in the feed, of varying job quality, some which cannot trusted to be real, serious or ones that they have seen before - then either turn off the job board, don't apply to jobs they don't trust or over apply in order to mitigate against all of the above - criticism we all know about job boards come true for Brainfood Jobs Job Board - all from a misjudged pricing model.

The Pricing - Second Attempt (Better?)

This is the new pricing model, rolled out as of today. The free and promoted tiers are gone. We are now going with just two options - Standard job post for $10 per day for 10 days, and Featured job post reduced by 50% to $8.3 per day for 30 days. I expect that this will reduce the job volume overall - probably by an order of magnitude (from 400+ to around 40+ live?) at any one time. Jobs that do now get posted on Brainfood Jobs Job Board will be much more likely to be seen and taken seriously by job candidates. Those that additionally get Featured will sit at the top of the feed for 30 days and receive hyper visibility as they are always on the page, and as we have seen with BrightHire and Move, will get quality applicants. Additionally, I'll be pointing to the job board via both Recruiting Brainfood (25,000 subscribers) and This Week, In Recruiting (now 16,000 subscribers) every week, so anything on Page 1 will be seen.

I hope the overall experience - for candidates and employers - will improve. Will it really? As you know by now - I have no idea, but lets see.

Out of the kitchen, onto the lounge ??

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What's in the News?

Paradox acquire mobile first assessment tool, Traitify

The move looks primarily motivated by an interest to improve the offering to the booming hourly hiring market. I like the way both parties give their version of events - Paradox tell the story here, Traitify here here

iCIMS file for $100 million IPO with the SEC

Filings are always interesting, as the accounts have to be opened up for viewing. Headline number? ￡265 million booked revenue for the 12 months ended June 30, 2021. More details here

Compa emerge from steath with a $3.9M seed round.

Love these point solutions into spaces where most have not thought there to be a market. Can employers make more competitive, equitable and less bias job offers? With Compa, maybe you can. PR here

If you are a recruitment service provider or technology business and have any news to share,?comment below,?this is your application to get into next week's addition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to @ mention me so that I see it

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What's On Offer? (New Segment)

So it turns out that Martyn Redstone's offer last week actually converted so he has requested a repeat - 50% of all prices on his Conversation AI job board if you quote the code: TWIR50!

This space really is available to anyone who can make an offer, and wants a bit of free promo. Fair exchange? Bot Jobs Job board here

If you are a recruitment provider and want to be featured in next week's issue, make an offer to the community and?comment below?with the link and offer details. Don't forget to @ mention me so that I see it

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What's Going On?

ATAP Global TA Day, Sep 1, 4am - 6pm ET

This one crept up on my but I'm going to sign up - some super interesting folks who are speaking at this event, including the ever awesome Wim Dammans, who I think is super under-the-radar and deserves more attention. It's on Wednesday, so register here

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep124 - How To Have Better Intake Meetings With Hiring Managers, Sept 3, 2.00pm BST

Pretty clear from last week's thread that this is a hugely interesting topic for the recruiting community - something we as an industry need to get better at. We're going to go through it, this Friday 3 Sept, 2.00pm with Mary Kay Baldino, Head of Talent Acquisition (R1 RCM), Christy Spilka, VP, Global Head of Talent Acquisition (iCIMS), Mark Deubel, Talent Attraction (Gitlab) and Libby Fox, Talent Acquisition Specialist (Payaut) - register here

The Human Development Space, Sep 7-8, In-person Two Day Residential

Garry Turner has been one of the most inspirational characters to emerge in the human development space over the past few years. I'm delighted to call him a friend. He is organising a two day get away in this fantastic country retreat in Dorset. Try something different? Tickets here

Talent Summit 2021, Sept 15, 9am to 3pm PT

Fantastic line up put together for this one day virtual conference next month by our buddies Gem. Speakers from inside (Peloton, box, Codility, Credit Karma) and outside (Sports Car Racing) the industry on the topics that have dominated 2021 - remote working, talent shortage, DEIB, recruitment operations and more. Free to attend, so get to it - register here

If you have an event, webinar or podcast going on next week and want it featured on next week's newsletter,?comment below?with the link and event details. Don't forget to @ mention me so that I see it

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Who's Hiring?

So you've read the update in Open Kitchen, see for yourself with 300+ jobs including new roles from TikTok, Immutable, BrightHire, Jones Lange LaSalle, Gitlab, OneTrust, Dext, Tipico and iCIMS. See the full list here - set your preferences and subscribe to the pallet.

If you want your job posted on the Brainfood Job Board, click on the link above. Selected the 'Featured' tier if you want 10x traffic and applications.

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Who's Moving?

Maebellyne Ventura, joins Braintrust - the decentralised network of tech and design talent - as Director of Growth Marketing. BTRST token will be launched on the Ethereum Mainnet in September - if you ever wondered what the true potential of blockchain might be for the world of work, stuff like this will be give you a clue!

Kasia Tang sets up the awesomely named Super Source Me, with Karolina Lautus, a recruiting and community training provider based out of Poland. Anyone who knows Kasia or has been involved in any of her communities knows that this will be great success

Chantelle Jones leaves The Recruitment Events Co, after 2 1/2 years as Operations Director with the best events company in the business. It has been a pleasure working with Chantelle over this period and I look forward to hearing about your next move!

Briana Carter?joins Next47 as Global Engagement Manager, after spending 5+ years with our buddies HackerRank. I had a good fortune of meeting Briana a few times on the conference scene - no doubt going to rock this role at Next47

Eric Barradas?directly joins the mothership Google, hiring for Executive Talent, after 3 years as Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Loon, the venture aiming to provide wireless connectivity by balloon.

If you have made a senior exec appointment to your business,?and feel the wider community needs to know about it,?comment below?with the details and see it featured in next weeks issue.?Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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What Are You Doing?

James Osborne, founder of The Recruitment Network is asking for survey requests for recruitment agency owners: Complete the survey The 2021 Recruitment Industry Review

Neil Ewington is looking for speakers for his next event focusing on early entry talent. If you are a graduate or campus recruiter and want to speak directly to your candidate audience, get in touch with Neil directly and asap

Stephen O'Donnell is looking for nominations for the 2021 NORA (National Online Recruitment Awards). If you are a UK based recruitment technology vendor and think you belong in any of the categories, put yourself forward here.

Tris Revill - who I had the pleasure of catching up with in London this weekend - has started a new newsletter - the awesomely named 'Recruitment Revillations'. One for the recruiters, especially tech recruiters in high growth to subscribe to. Be one of the first, here

Bill Boorman is raising ￡1000 for his birthday fundraiser to help the unhomed back into accommodation. If you know Bill and would've gladly bought him a pint to celebrate his birthday, drop a tenner here instead.

If you are doing something new,?comment below?with what it is and share a link to where you want people to go. Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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End Notes

I've been going out and meeting people this past month. I have to say, I have really enjoyed catching up with old friends and contacts in industry. I had not realised how much I had configured by life to not doing this though, so have ended up more busy than I'd like over the weekend, producing the brainfood content.

Is this something you have had to wrestle with - how to create space now for meeting people in-person?

Love to know whether this is a thing for us as we reboot out of the emergency phase of the pandemic.

Hung

Hung Lee is the curator of?Recruiting Brainfood, and now This Week In Recruiting. Subscribe to both if you are into recruiting or HR or just interested in world of work.