Resume Database Access - Wrong For Nevada - Part II

Posted on May 23, 2008
Filed Under Advertising Mistakes, Resume Searches |

I forgot that I had written “Part II” to a post back in March 2008. After I wrote yesterday’s post on CollegeRecruiter.com eliminating resume database access, I discovered this: (Caution: Sarcasm follows. Enjoy)

Where do we find talent many times? In the resume databases that sell access. Here are some examples:

Career Builder
Post your ad to attract more resumes and search the resumes of all your competitors applicants all for one low price of $988. What a bargain. Until you realize you are just driving up the overall ‘cost of labor.’

Monster
Not much different than Career Builder, but get 2 weeks to search all the resumes within 100 miles of your business to make sure you only effect your competitor, who will ultimately come back to offer a higher wage and probably a sign-on bonus to steal your talent.

HotJobs
A little more discreet. They don’t openly market this service, but they also have an unfair advantage because they also aggregate jobs from multiple sites (including ours) to be able to deliver more jobs….to collect more resumes…. to sell more access.

All of their business models of selling resume database access make your job postings even more attractive. Without your jobs, there are not candidates. Without candidates, there are no resumes to sell.

The business model for resume searching is transparent:

You pay an average of $300-400 to post your job.
Your job posting attracts new candidates to leave their resume behind.
The job board sells those resumes to your competitor.

When did an advertising outlet assume the rights to own the data (resume) of your applicants? What happened to the “purpose” of an advertising outlet to just ‘introduce’ jobseekers to employers and vice-versa. In the past when a jobseeker saw an ad, opted in and either emailed or faxed his or her resume to an employer, that advertising outlet fulfilled their job.

Today it is different, the job boards feel they should ‘own’ the jobseeker. The sad part is, they can only ‘own’ those candidates by your great jobs. After that great candidate creates an account, uploading a resume, to apply to your job….. the job board can then make more money selling that resume many times over.

It doesn’t sound right, does it?