Indeed has received quite a bit of attention and praise for their Google like job search engine.  Indeed allows you to search the internet for different jobs much like you would use Google to search the internet for a specific key word.  Indeed not only finds jobs posted on different job boards, but it allows job seekers to search company job boards. The product can save job seekers a lot of time, but it is for sure not the only tool job seekers should depend on.  Although Indeed’s rapid growth, they still have a US focus and have many deals to close to convince employers to post their jobs on Indeed.

While Indeed is busy focusing on the US market, this leaves the rest of the world open to other niche job search engines.  Why not have an Indeed for China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc….  Niche job search engines who become successful in their own country will for sure earn their own value and eventually become acquired.  Additionally, it seems like Indeed has a good business model that can generate some good profits, plus starting a second Indeed will not be as expensive as the first one.  Also, I am not aware of any patents that may prevent international copies of Indeed.  I will be interested to see how the job search engine market develops in the next few years.

Organizations are realizing that top performers are most interested in learning rather than only increasing their salary. When interviewing top performers and asking them about what it would take for them to switch jobs, they told me that a challenging opportunity would get them to switch, even if that meant a pay cut. Smart companies have started to consolidate their learning and recruiting staff into one group. The synergy produced from the interaction of both groups can really help recruiters not only find talent, but also promote the challenging educational opportunities their company has to offer potential candidates and employees.

Companies are starting to create communities where prospective candidates can participate and learn. Such communities not only promote an open corporate culture, but also allow prospect employees to work with employees and recruiters to create their own pools of potential talent that can be recruited once the right position opens.

We believe that a key to successful recruiting will include a learning component. We have directly seen results from our IMNO.org effort. We have many executives and potential executives who subscribe to our services to learn about management and career improvement. For a company looking for potential managers, IMNO would be a perfect pool to source passive job seekers. Where some head hunters and sourcers would charge anywhere from 30% to a full years salary of a new hire, a community could cost a lot less to start and manage and give you many excellent candidates.

In the last few months I have been able to to meet some successful owners of niche job boards. These owners have been from all over the world and have specialized their job boards in different verticals and geographies. Out of those I met, three have sold their job boards to larger companies for over $25 million dollars each. All three companies had been in operation for just under three years before they sold.

What made them worth so much? Well, they first were able to gain a large market share in their niche. Second, they were the first to market that were able to create a good brand. Third, they showed continuous growth and profitability. Most importantly, they had a team that could sustain continued success and transfer best practices to the rest of the larger aquiring company.

Good luck to all those starting your own job board. VR Recruiting is always willing to help you with your strategy, positioning, marketing, and technical needs. We love building communities and making them successful. Our goal would be to help you make over $20 million dollars in just under three years.

I just got back from the NSHMBA conference in Houston, TX. NSHMBA stands for the “National Society of Hispanic MBA’s”. It had over 7,000 MBAs running around the George R. Brown Convention Center visiting 300 recruiting booths from the top Fortune 1,000 companies in the US.

I felt like I was being recruited from the moment I stepped off the plane. The SuperShuttle to my hotel carried two recruiters, one from the State of Iowa and another from Travelers, a Citigroup Company. As I heard each of their pitches, I wondered why they focused so much on location and industry. The Iowa recruiter was trying to sell me on Iowa while the Travelers recruiter was trying to convince me of the exciting world of the Insurance industry.

I’m sure many potential job candidates value location and industry when considering employers, but neither of those benefits really tell me why I should consider their company versus all the other options.

As I was walking past the long lines of MBAs waiting to speak to an Apple recruiter, I ran into guess who? The one and only, “Tony the Tiger!” Yes, Kellogg’s actual iconic Tiger. Tony stopped me and gave me a high five. To be honest, it really did made me think twice about Kellogg.

But why does a Tiger make me more interested in a company versus a capable recruiter for CitiGroup’s Travelers division?

We are definately in a talent hungry environment. Recruiters need to find ways to differentiate themselves, even if it is through a life-size mascot.

Through this blog, my brother and I will discuss the opportunities that companies have to further differentiate themselves in order to recruit the top talent.