Hosted Career Centers Don’t Make Sense

Posted on July 31, 2007
Filed Under Online Recruiting, Advertising Mistakes, Employment Websites, Applicant Tracking, War for Talent |

In 1999 we pioneered the concept of hosted career centers in Las Vegas. We managed career centers for the likes of Burger King, Boyd Gaming and Valley Health System. At the time, they made sense. IT departments did not provide HR assistance in the development of an online presence and Applicant Tracking Systems were not yet heard of. Career Centers provided HR departments the ability to easily manage their online presence and maintain their online job postings without any technical assistance. (Read more about this in a previous post)

Today - when I see a ‘hosted’ career center I cringe. Why?

The ‘hosted’ solution provider is typically a job board who’s primary business is to attract applicants for a multitude of clients.
They raise their prices/rate card based upon the number of resumes in their database.
The job board also sells resume database access to other employers and third party recruiters, both staffing firms and retained/contingent recruiters.
As your company promotes your employment brand and sends applicants to your corporate website to apply, they will be uploading their resume into the job board - not just your application bin.

Congratulations, your recruitment advertising and marketing dollars just cost you more money and benefited your competition. How, do you say?

Imagine these scenarios:

You are at a career fair and find the ideal candidate. You ask him or her to apply online.
You place an ad in an industry specific magazine that reaches a hidden talent pool. These candidates are directed to apply on your website.
A loyal customer is visiting your company website and sees that you have a ‘careers’ section. Visits it, sees the perfect job and applies.
A new graduate is searching and learning about all companies within your industry. Visits your career center, finds a great opportunity and applies.
A top employee is chatting with friends over the weekend and shares the fact that your company has job openings. Several go online and apply.

Now - because your website is hosted by a public job board. Those candidate resumes are uploaded into the job board’s resume database because it is a ‘hosted’ solution. From that, a copy of that candidates resume is then put in your in-box. However, a copy of the resume is now in the general resume database.

Your competitor down the street, a staffing agency used by you and/or your competitor and the contingent/retained recruiter you and/or your competitor use - all have purchased resume database access to the same job board.

Each has established a search agent that is scheduled to run daily for all new candidates with the same skills as your new applicant. They are immediately notified of your applicant and sent a copy of their resume.

Sadly - It was your advertising dollar (from the career fair, employee referral program, niche market advertising, or general marketing) that attracted the candidate into the resume database for all of your competitors to gain access to.

Do hosted Career Centers make sense? I don’t think so. The only way that it could is if the provider of your ‘hosted’ career center does not allow resume database access or has somehow developed the software to allow you to build private applicant pools.

DISCLOSURE: Recruiting Nevada has never allowed any level of resume database access, therefore never violating the privacy of its’ clients applicants.