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Will all recruitment be free in future?
PRESENT RECRUITMENT PRACTICE
Joel Cheeseman has a blog on online recruitment - http://cheesman.typepad.com - and has recently written an e-book called " Battling Free" - http://www.hrseo.com/battlingfree/ - on his contention that sites such as Craigslist - http://www.craigslist.org - and search engines like Google Jobs - http://www.google.com/jobs/ - and Yahoo! Hot Jobs - http://hotjobs.yahoo.com - are "spearheading an ongoing and relentless commoditization of information that's quickly pulling the value of a job sites and possibly recruitment agencies into a position where it's possible that no one will be willing to pay" for job advertising, agencies etc. (Actually he says that it might also apply to just about any 'brokered' service or product - estate agency, insurance, cars etc.)
Basically he says that "if you currently run a job site, or some other organization whose livelihood hinges on charging a fee" then your livelihood and your business could be at risk. He doesn't say there is nothing that you can do about it. The question, of course, is: "is he right?"
Well anyone who thinks it can't happen should remember Freeserve, and then what about Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page - or Linux, PHP and other 'Open Source' softwares that seem to be having a pretty good time of it?
OK, so maybe it won't all go that way but what about television - isn't that free? Has that not been so ever since it started?
Makes you think?
As Professor Michael Rappa (Professor of Technology Management at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina) reminds us "models can be more intricately woven. Broadcasting is a good example. Radio and later television programming has been broadcasted over the airwaves free to anyone with a receiver for much of the past century. The broadcaster is part of a complex network of distributors, content creators, advertisers (and their agencies), and listeners or viewers. Who makes money and how much is not always clear at the outset. The bottom line depends on many competing factors." http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html ]
He's right of course and in reality there really is "no such thing as a free lunch" - the crucial thing is to know how to make money out of providing something that is apparently free.
Look at Google - free search, but they seem to be making a lot from the advertising!
Every business model has to make money somehow, that's how business works. But the internet is a very interesting place. Look at Innovantage - http://www.innovantage.co.uk/ - who are going to launch a vertical jobs search engine in 2006 that will, according to Matthew Dewstowe, a director, ."provide the largest database of vacancies, contact information and biographies harvested direct from company, academic and government websites in the UK. We already have over 120,000 jobs in our database that we update every 48 hours".
The information is free and organizations want it publicised so that they can fill the jobs they are advertising - Innovantage plans to help recruiters and jobs boards by allowing them access to the database they have created.
So will anyone pay to recruit staff in future? Yes, of course. But will they continue to use the current business model? .... only time will tell, but one thing we all know: change is inevitable.
MAKING YOUR WEBSITE WORK
Setting up a website is only the first step of an Internet Marketing campaign, and the success or failure of your site depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your website goals. If you don't know what you want your site to accomplish, it will most likely fail to accomplish anything. Without goals to guide you in developing and monitoring your website, all your site will be is an online announcement that you are in business.
If you expect your site to stimulate some form of action, whether it is visitors filling out a form so a representative can contact them, or purchasing a product, there are steps you can take to insure that your website is functioning at peak efficiency. One of the first indicators of how well your site is working for you is finding out the number of visitors in a given period of time. A good baseline measurement is a month in which you haven't been doing any unusual offline promotional activities.
However, just because hoards of people have arrived does not mean your site is successful. Usually, you want those visitors to actually do something. It is equally important to monitor the number of visitors to your site who made an enquiry / purchase / whatever it is that you want them to do. This is the site conversion rate and it is an essential measure of success.
To find the site conversion rate, take the number of visitors per month and figure out the percentage of them that actually performed the action your site is set up for. For example, if you had 2,000 unique visitors to your site, but only 25 of them purchased your product, your site conversion rate equals 1.25%.
If your website is set-up to get visitors to fill out a form, make sure to work out what the difference is between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion rate. This is because not everyone who fills out your form will actually become your customer. However, whether your site is set-up to sell a service or product, or to get the visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will measure the success or failure of your website whenever you make changes to the site.
You may find that you need to implement some additional marketing strategies if you find that traffic to your site is extremely low. There are several effective methods to improve the flow of traffic to your website, particularly launching a search engine optimization campaign. This is targeted at increasing your position in search engine results so that customers and potential customers can find your pages fast. [Don't forget about 85% of people start all their internet sessions at a search engine.] You can either research the steps you need to take to improve your search engine rankings, or employ a search engine optimization company like us to do the work for you. In either case, after your have improved your search engine positions, make sure you keep on top of them by regular monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high positions.
Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor to your website to accomplish the action the site is set-up for. For example, if your goal is for the visitor to fill out a form, is this form easily accessible, or does the visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If it's too difficult to get to, the customer may just throw in the towel and move on to another site. Make sure your buttons are highly visible, and the path to your form or ordering page quickly accessible.
Finally, have a professional evaluate the copy on your website. The goal is, of course, to get your visitor to make a purchase or fill out your form. Copy must be specifically geared to your online campaign and not just a cut and paste job from your company brochure. The right copy can make the difference between profit and loss in your online campaign.
MAKING CRM WORK
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business philosophy, not just a technology - understanding your customers' needs enables you to build better relationships and increase sales. Using the philosophy of CRM helps "to get and to keep more customers who stay with you longer".Although a sound Customer Relationship Management strategy has to come first, it can be effectively supported by CRM software.
The benefits of software?
Excellent customer service is about being aware of customer needs and reacting to them effectively.
CRM technology helps you to understand, anticipate and respond to your customers' needs in a consistent way, right across your organization because it provides you with management information. It has been said that the creation, distribution and manipulation of information is all that management is about and it is certainly true that without information about what is going on, when, by whom, with what, at what cost, at what margin etc. a business will almost certainly fail.
CRM technology also needs to be integrated into the business process. Organizations can only benefit from the discipline CRM imposes if it is.
Changing your system means you are leaving behind something that everyone is comfortable and familiar with. Replacing it with a modern business operation & management system is like getting out from behind the wheel of your familiar old Ford Mondeo with the worn leather seats and jumping into the cockpit of a Boeing 747. When installing a CRM system the right combination of critical factors need to come together at the right time. If they do your project will be a success and your business will take off to new heights. If certain critical elements are ignored by you or not given enough importance, you could find your project resembling a smoking crater!
How does a CRM system help?
CRM will help your business if you view it as a set of tools that let you to do more for, and get more from, your customers. CRM can help you with:
1. Operational efficiency - to be more productive. All businesses need to make their existing resources more productive, improve quality and service. Indeed surveys suggest that, for example, sales people spend as little as 10% of their time actually selling.
2. Customer responsiveness - to meet demanding customer's increasing demands. Customers are becoming used to shopping and interacting with businesses over the Internet and EMail and they expect instant responses and rapid, personalized service.
3. Cost containment - to do more with fewer resources. Continually evolve to keep pace with change and competition and make sure the investments you make today support you tomorrow, without the costs of 'elephant' upgrades.
A good system also provides:
1. One system for all tasks. No separate spreadsheets, databases and different software packages that you can access from anywhere - work from home, remote sites or even customer sites in your live business system.
2. The information you want when you want it. For example the identification of target customers or prospects in minutes delivered in your own report design as print or spreadsheets that are automatically e-mailed to you and / or your chosen colleagues.
3. Contact & quotation Information on all prospects and clients - enable your sales team to use to reduce the time they spend on admin and increase the information available to other areas of the business. Proposals can be generated in minutes and then stored and referenced by probability, value, margin or date.
4. Electronic integration - produce everything from quotes to statements as e-mails direct from the desktop. Link with Microsoft Office, Outlook, the Internet and your XDA to ensure you gain the full benefit of other packages on or off site.
5. A fully customisable system. Your own customer, prospect, supplier, product & service and staff databases, diary, planner, quotations, enquiries, sales order, despatch and invoice, manufacturing, purchase, receipts, projects and job costing, CRM operations, service and support, marketing planning and execution, general ledger and accounts all in your own language as all wording & drop down menus can be easily customised to suit your business and industry.
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Businesses Against Poverty (BAP) is a philanthropic group of businesses and business individuals who want to support the reduction of international poverty and have a desire to change the lives of others, through registered charity Robin Hood Ministries.
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