Here’s what 2009 has in store for job boards - vast change.
• Employers are scaling back their use of job boards. They aren’t hiring.
• Lots of HR managers will lose their jobs. But, sometimes that helps down the road when they are rehired in new companies, we gain a new customer.
• Many executive recruiters will throw in the towel and take jobs in less lucrative and less cyclical industries.
• Many job boards will shut down or sell for pocket change. Others will survive but only exist because it doesn’t cost anything to keep the website up. These will land customers every once in a while when a new sucker comes along but will never again compete in their niches. They will mostly act as affiliate sites for the major boards and land mines for employers.
But there’s nothing new here -- it’s just the same thing that happened in the last recession we weathered. So, what’s different this time?
• Competition is fierce this time. It comes from clutter and from craigslist, vertical job search engines, social networks and the seemingly never ending flow of venture capital.
• The newspapers are finally failing.
• The success of social networks is crowding out other forms of internet usage.
• The success of blogging and twitter is building trust in individuals over brands. Think Seth Godin.
• Even immigrants whose English is barely functional are using craigslist.
• Trust in brands has never been lower - think Lehman, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AIG, SEC, Republican party, etc.
• Integrity has never been scarcer – think Eliot Spitzer, President Bush, Senator Ted Stevens, Gov. Blagojevich, etc.
• We’re all jaded by the failures of loud obnoxious VC backed job boards.
And that’s why this recession is going to provoke vast change in the job board landscape. Here’s what’s going to happen:
• Employers will take fewer chances than ever. The few that didn’t demand free trials in the past, will start. The ones that demanded free trials before will be more open than ever to zero-risk pay-for-performance or CPC models.
• Small-time entrepreneurs no longer have a good shot at creating a successful job board. The window was open in the late ‘90s through the early 2000s. It’s now closed.
• Trust will be established by authenticity, transparency and results.
• Audiences will begin to see traditional branding as a red flag.
• Website visitors have high expectations of finding immediate value. They will disappear faster if they have to hunt for it.
• Established job boards will diversify into new niches at a faster pace.
• Established job boards that can survive 2009 will benefit during a period of relative quiet as the market turns and increase their dominance substantially.
• Finally, there will be waves of acquisitions in the next boom as consolidation picks up and the job board industry truly becomes a corporate world.
What do you think 2009 will bring?
