The JobSyntax Blog is currently participating in BlogSwap with other bloggers interested in recruiting-related issues. Each week during BlogSwap, another blogger will post to JobSyntax about topics that should be of interest to our readers, and we'll write posts for different audiences on other sites. It should be a fun experiment, and we hope you discover fun new content!
Our fifth installment is written by Mike Taylor from www.Web-Based-Recruitment.com. Mike previously worked in HR as a Corporate Recruiter (IBM & Nokia) and has experience of working as an independent Online Recruitment Consultant helping companies with their online recruitment strategies. Mike’s expertise also includes how emerging technologies can benefit both job seekers and recruiters using online recruitment.
I finally managed to read a book I’d had for a while last week whilst on vacation. The book is called “The Search” and was written by John Battelle (co-founder of Wired and founder The Industry Standard). Although the book mainly covers the phenomenal rise of Google it also goes into detail about Google’s rivals as well.
It was interesting to read some of the history of how the search engines began and how things have changed so quickly. Yahoo! was launched in 1995 and Google was launched some three years later in 1998. However, before Google came along one of the major search engines was Alta Vista. To show just how quickly things can change Alta Vista was sold to Overture for just $140 million dollars in 2003 and Google is now valued in billions of dollars!
Today, around 98% of Google’s profits come from their Google Adwords service. Also known as “sponsored search”, “paid search” or “pay per click”, Adwords is a way of attracting targeted visitors (e.g. job seekers) to your web site.
One of the many benefits to Employers from using sponsored search is that you only pay when someone “clicks” on your ad and visits your site. And if no one clicks on your ad then you are effectively receiving free advertising and branding for your company and your vacancies.
For example, if you were looking to recruit Software Engineers in Redmond you may wish to sponsor the keyword phrase “Software Engineers Redmond.” This would mean that your ad would appear on the right hand side of the first page of the Google results page (subject to how much you are willing to pay “per click”) enabling you to attract targeted job seekers to your web site.
Media Channel Costs
There is an interesting chart in the book from Piper Jaffray that shows the approximate Customer Acquisition Cost across various media channels. Although not recruitment specific they do give an overall indication of just how important search engines are becoming in terms of acquiring new customers.
Media Channel Cost
Search $8.50
Yellow Pages $20.00
Online Display Ads $50.00
E-mail $60.00
Direct Mail $70.00
Considering “Search” didn’t exist as a marketing method just 12 years ago it just goes to show how quickly it has become an efficient way and inexpensive way of attracting new customers (including job seekers). Can you afford not to have Search Marketing as part of your online recruiting strategy?