Unholy Trinity: The Greatest Threats to Job Boards

[00:00:00] Hi, it's your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Soosh and Joel Cheezeman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where hers. Complete with breaking news, Flash Opinion and loads of snark, Bop-a-Lop Boys and Girls. It's on for the Chattanooga's podcast!

[00:00:31] Oh yeah! What's up everybody? It's Mack McClaung's favorite podcast, aka the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheezeman. Join us always, the posh to my David. Chad Soosh is in the house and we welcome back.

[00:00:56] Jeff Dickie Chasens aka the Jobboard Doctor. Jeff, welcome back to the podcast.

[00:01:02] Howdy boys! How's it going?

[00:01:05] Like a true island, howdy boys. How we doing? I'm just going down, I'm chucking some corn and feeding the cows. I'm ready to podcast.

[00:01:13] That's damn right.

[00:01:14] So aside from your folksy demeanor for those that don't know you on the show, give them a quick Twitter bio about the Doctor.

[00:01:23] Yeah, so I am a Jobboard geek. I am a Jobboard consultant. I work with job boards all over the world in terms of helping them make more money and be more successful.

[00:01:36] I've been in the industry since the late 90s and worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of job boards. And if you've got a problem you should go to jobboarddoctor.com and I will help you solve your problem.

[00:01:48] Oh, well we talked about some Jobboard problems or at least the ones that Joel thought were going to happen.

[00:01:57] And so that was that was an entirely other podcast and we didn't have enough time to actually get to this. So we're like, shit you know what?

[00:02:05] This could be a podcast in itself. Joel had his four horsemen.

[00:02:09] That's great. We had an entire discussion around those now we want to hear from the Jobboard doctor you had three which Joel coined the unholy trinity.

[00:02:21] That's right.

[00:02:22] So we wanted to actually take some time and start running through some of those. So Joey get any set up for this.

[00:02:28] Let's go let's start with I guess the most potent threat to the job board industry doctor. This is on you in potent.

[00:02:36] Get us.

[00:02:37] All right well number one on my list is appcast and I want to preface this by saying what?

[00:02:44] I want to preface this by saying that in reality, I feel like I'm sort of doing a devil's advocate thing here in writing this because I honestly look at that

[00:02:54] at all three of these threats and they are potential threats whether they ever become real or not.

[00:03:00] I am pretty skeptical but I will go through it anyway because if they do become real, they're going to be deadly for the job board industry.

[00:03:08] So appcast of course everyone knows is the major force out there in programmatic and they've been very, very successful in executing and getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

[00:03:19] They're active in the EU, they're active in the UK, they're active in the US and Canada.

[00:03:26] And they recently brought Bayer's advertising agency really well known, well connected recruitment agency.

[00:03:34] So what do I start hearing from my clients this year?

[00:03:38] I start hearing from my clients, larger clients.

[00:03:41] G, we just lost XYZ client to appcast they say that we don't need you anymore and then someone else calls me and they say the same thing.

[00:03:53] I started thinking about this and I'm thinking you know this model reminds me a lot of what indeed did where they sort of came in and they worked, they partnered with job boards and then a certain point they dumped job boards.

[00:04:07] Cut out the middle man, start working direct with employers.

[00:04:10] Now the interesting follow on to this is after this was published I got a reach out from Chris Foreman who is the CEO of appcast and I've known Chris for a long time we've worked.

[00:04:22] A reach around what?

[00:04:24] What?

[00:04:25] I said a reach around what it's a joke that I make on the show occasionally keep going.

[00:04:29] You know you're too witty for me Joe.

[00:04:32] He's he's open that he gets one anyway flies over my head. I'll just keep talking.

[00:04:37] So he he and I had a chat and he made a reasonable argument to me that in fact the they they they function as the industry middleman and that's what makes them thrive and that they don't have the capacity or the interest or the desire to have these direct relationships even with Bayard

[00:05:01] with the whole sort of rainbow of companies that are out there now companies you mean higher companies employ direct employer companies direct employers.

[00:05:11] And okay I give him a little you know I you know he made a reasonable argument I'm still not sure I buy it because

[00:05:22] appcast is part of stepstone and cast will not always be run by Chris and appcast will continue to grow.

[00:05:31] And as we've seen with indeed one of the things that makes a company grow is to dump partners and go directly for their clients over and over and over again.

[00:05:42] So I would stick with that if that really happens if they go forward and they keep doing this over and over again it's going to be a real problem for mid tier and large job boards maybe not the little ones so Jeff let's I don't say dumb this down but so the threat is.

[00:05:57] Why use a middleman and indeed or another job board when I can go directly to the relationship of the appcast where I'm I assume I'm paying less per click the traffic is cheaper so why would I ever use.

[00:06:11] Another job board when I can go direct to the service that's the threat is am I missing anything on that any nuance.

[00:06:18] To why people are leaving job boards for that you get the access to the the full range of things that appcast can do not only through the appcast network but through the advertising agency they've acquired because at agents very good sort of putting together packages in a way that historically job boards have not been so good at doing so.

[00:06:40] So you put those two things together particularly for enterprise employers it's pretty strong argument okay so here's a thing though you're talking about appcast being prospectively a threat to job boards and without a robust ecosystem of job sites indeed and LinkedIn win so why in the hell would

[00:07:00] you get a lot of access to the best job boards when it's not in their best interest now they did take down and LinkedIn or an indeed or something like that there's still a much larger ecosystem that actually works there so to me I understand in this it sounds good but it doesn't make any sense because

[00:07:16] you don't have other than steps down and shit that's all in Europe right they don't have any entities that are actually here so they would be they would be killing themselves and they would literally be handing over all the business to indeed in LinkedIn so why why do you think they would do that why do you think this is

[00:07:35] a problem for job boards so again I said I'm playing devil's advocate here right so I've been around long enough that I've seen companies act against their own best interest in pursuit of quarterly profits and now that they're you know now they're part of the stepstone group

[00:07:54] they're you know their future is not necessarily their own you know there's a lot of things that could happen particularly if steps down IPOs and a lot of pressures brought to bear on appcast to make up for shortcomings in the other parts of the company

[00:08:12] Chris leaves maybe his executive team leaves and anything could happen you know I watched dice shoot themselves in the foot I mean you know literally just bankrupt themselves we all did we all did Jeff you did from the inside right and I watched monster do the same thing

[00:08:32] and I watched many many large theoretically you know good companies do dumb things indeed did something dumb last year with paper you know paper application so yeah it could happen Jeff appcast is not the only game in town

[00:08:48] and there are there are new ones popping up all the time we talked about the the the rebirth if you will have jobs to being a programmatic so now so what happens in that world because from where I said the whole game has been a race to the bottom it started the bottom it went high and then Google came along we'll get to search engines in a second but it's always seems like where can I get it cheaper where can I get it you know easier

[00:09:15] and appcast is going to have competition that's going to impact them where do you see that the whole programmatic universe playing out well it reminds me a lot of what happened in the late 2000s with aggregators in the growth of aggregators where it was sort of the same trajectory right

[00:09:32] and one of the problems for aggregators was differentiating themselves in the sense that you know the argument that I'm cheaper may initially be persuasive but then if I'm cheaper but I get no good results that's a problem for the aggregator that's a problem for the programmatic vendor

[00:09:50] and I think ultimately you know you may have this initial burst of popularity you know if you lowball everyone but if you don't deliver then ultimately you know it doesn't help you as a company

[00:10:05] and I think one of the things that appcast has done as far as I can tell from talking employers is it has actually been pretty good at delivering on quality so you know that's an argument that if they change that's going to hurt their quality

[00:10:20] to your point it could open up the door for other competitors but ultimately a lot of this is going to come back to who has that best mix of price and quality you know you can't just go all the way to the bottom

[00:10:34] and competitors are going to come on us because there's no there's no particular secret sauce that appcast has right data.

[00:10:42] I would say that there one of their secret sauce pieces was sort of the development of their software is I believe in my opinion it's more sophisticated than their competitors at this point.

[00:10:55] I mean that someone else can't come in and shake that up but they've got the advantage in terms of first mover and the fact that they technologically were better than many other competitors so.

[00:11:06] Let's let's hit the aspect of Bayard up real quick I want to break this up in appcast and Bayard so recruitment at agencies they've been around since the days of newspaper yellow pages before that right.

[00:11:16] But a more chaotic landscape benefits them because employers can't make heads or tails of the market that's why they need an ad agency so taming the ecosystem doesn't make any sense and for Chris to say oh we can't deal with all those big brands come on Chris that's just fucking stupid you want all those big brands in your portfolio you need all those big brands in your portfolio

[00:11:40] and so I call bullshit on that but from from that standpoint a more chaotic market means these big brands have to go to the Bayards of the world because they just can't make heads or tails of it why do you think Bayard would want to make this cleaner and easier by killing off other job sites money.

[00:12:01] But again it doesn't it doesn't be who of them it doesn't be who of them from a from a long term standpoint right yeah it doesn't because a more chaotic market means they have to be there I don't I don't disagree with you on that let's get to point number two.

[00:12:17] I'm not sure I won't even go through the beating on this one. Oh you want this one in some ways is what I think more realistic although again I still think it's probability rate of maybe 20% or less and it's what I call the death of the of the search engines right from the very beginning of the job board industry it's sort of revolved around the altavistas

[00:12:45] and the Yahoo's and the Googles of the world you know in terms of discovery and job boards knew that that was both a strength and a weakness which is why you have job boards like monster trying to build a big brand so that people come direct to them and by and bypass it but you know there is something out there right now that could

[00:13:05] there's several some things out there right now that could sort of unseat Google or any other search engine you know look at tick tock that's a discovery engine at this point for a large piece of the population just the way Facebook was for a decade or so.

[00:13:21] You've got and late down to is to lesser degree and then you've got AI which you know who's to say I mean there's already plenty of people out there building little apps that say hey you know just punch this into the app we'll bring all this stuff to you.

[00:13:36] Someone might hit that right mix of ease of use and quality that jumps out the way Google jumped out at one point in time and basically people say that's my discovery engine and you've got thousands of job boards who all of their efforts are tied to SEO on search engines and suddenly they've got a switch and figure out how the hell are they going to be discovered at this point now.

[00:14:04] Yeah, they job boards are great survivors I mean you could call them the cockroaches of the recruitment industry you know they just you know there can be this nuclear blast that destroys everything in their recruitment industry and they'll still be job boards out there cranking out content and getting people you know jobs.

[00:14:22] So and so you know they'll probably they could probably figure it out but the pain and suffering could be very substantial if this happened in short period of time.

[00:14:35] Yeah, I agree 100% I think this is to be quite frank of the three the biggest and it could be the biggest impact but but Google is already starting to enhance their traditional search with generative AI so anyone who's paying attention will understand that they have to get a job.

[00:14:52] They continue moving and not stinting still now those organizations who do stand still are threatened yes but those who are more fluid they have a better opportunity and for instance when programmatic advertising started job boards could have seized up one into the fetal position and just died.

[00:15:08] And they didn't they embrace programmatic and sources tell me that company little company name career builder that still isn't dead yet they're making over a million dollars a month just in programmatic alone right.

[00:15:21] So we've seen whether the cockroaches are not they've been able to evolve in some cases to be able to ensure that they're finding new revenue streams and it's probably you know from from dealing with guys like you over the smacking them in the head saying hey there's opportunity here go get the revenue so I do think search engines are a problem but they're only a problem for organizations who aren't paying attention.

[00:15:46] It's interesting I would I would argue that there's been no more disruptive force in our industry than Google was before good like even before the internet and a lot of people would like to go back to the days where you got your local paper all the jobs were sort of nearby who are those

[00:16:02] people who are those people the agencies who made a lot of money on display at there are one of those people still alive. There are those people that still would like to go back to those times and when monster came along as like monster was going to be the monolithic newspaper for everybody the classified section for everybody Chad you know this story about talking about $5,000 ads yeah just display ads on the internet Andy McElvy wanted every job to do it.

[00:16:32] So it would be $1,000 that was his peak man and Andy McElvy the CEO of TMP who owned a monster at the time yeah that was we talked about a meeting all the time.

[00:16:42] And people did super well as because they wanted to be coke or Pepsi or Phantom and then they wanted to have the pricing accordingly to that Google came along and let some dude in his mom's house in Toledo optimized for Toledo jobs and that person had a business because of the traffic that Google created and that ultimately

[00:17:01] kind of smashed the whole monster ethos and then he came along and said we're going to do search just for jobs and we're going to leverage Google to be that thing and then you know this is what we have today is sort of in response to that.

[00:17:16] So to me there's no other more disruptive force than our industry than Google has been do we have co pilots one day that we say hey co pilot hey jeeps whatever what's a perfect job for me and 10 you know within 10 miles

[00:17:30] of where I am right now and jeeps or whatever co pilot says here's a list of 12 jobs do you want me to apply to them today sure they send you or whatever and then like you're done there's no search for that that could happen.

[00:17:43] That's a possibility you know one thing that's funny to me is is you guys always say like job boards are going to die if you go back to that interview the four apocalypse I don't know if I ever say they're going to die.

[00:17:54] There's still help wanted ads in every window of every like retailer that I that I see there's still newspaper ads are still radio spots it's not going to die just think there's no growth there.

[00:18:04] Which could I think if that happens we go back today where we have these sort of monolithic brands it's the companies that can afford advertising and local markets it's the companies that can put billboards up and radio spots that are going to have people drive directly to their sites and not use Google.

[00:18:21] So I think there's a way that we could go sort of circle back to more bigger brands on the job board space if we lose search engines which is a big if it's a big if it's a big if well one of the things I tell my clients and I mean this is not you know this is nothing unusual for people at no marketing but

[00:18:39] a really simple way to make 20 25% more money with your job board is to build a brand around the job board I've seen it happen over and over and over again you know it's like anonymous job board point A you know when you turn it into something that you know you know

[00:18:54] chads jobs for you and you put a you you wrap it in that brand and suddenly you've got a lot more people giving you money it's just it's one of those things that happens and the smart job boards out there know that as well as they know hey I've got to pay attention all the technological changes are going on I need to suck this in suck this input this in

[00:19:12] on just good business and by and large SEO unless you're a big brand is not an option for most people I mean there are a lot of niche boards that don't exist anymore because they can't rank for Tito jobs because indeed zip and LinkedIn and all the big brands that have the trust or what's ranking now it's really hard to rank unless you're a big sort of brand it's that's well known Google's done a good job doing that and everything's personalized Google tracks what you do where you go it's like I'm going to do it.

[00:19:42] Like there used to be a day where you could say hey go to Google and type in Cleveland nursing jobs and everybody got the same result today that's not the case right so salespeople can't do that anymore sites aren't launched with SEO in mind I would I would say in some ways search is dead for a lot of a lot of companies where it would have been alive 20 years ago it would have been the way that we market 20 years ago.

[00:20:04] It's easy wrong you're wrong you're wrong it's evolving yeah well I mean on which part on the search part of it because what's happened is there's been a transition that you know some some niche boards were on top of this to begin with but a lot of them have have transitioned over to content marketing and the

[00:20:24] content is what's driving people to their site and the rankings they're getting on the content versus the rankings they get on the job listings you're just proving that I'm right because they can't they can't they can't rank for state city jobs anymore they have to go deeper into the content so yeah yeah

[00:20:42] to me your statement is proving that I'm right because they can't do that anymore they have to be content is content job content versus being able to build your own content you're not right

[00:20:52] she's been you're wrong the number of searches done you're wrong what he's talking about are much less than I Indianapolis I know you're trying to twist out of this but you're not content is

[00:21:02] contents no he didn't be right we'll roll back and bring you easily wrong number three well

[00:21:11] yes like how he pivots off of me on that one all right Jeff number three number three and you guys are gonna have a lot of fun on this one so my my my thought is okay what if true generational change happens in the recruitment and HR world

[00:21:29] right and you've got all of these millennials and Jen whatever you know I call them Jen are in the in the article that basically they grew up in a world that's alien to the vast majority

[00:21:44] people that are running job boards you know I mean you could argue that we live in that world right now but believe me having a 28 year old

[00:21:52] daughter brings us home to me almost every single day when I have conversations with her and they just don't look at

[00:21:59] the world the same way and they don't think about any of those traditional channels and you know and so you've got job boards they're chasing tick tock but then

[00:22:08] they put out stuff on tick tock that is not tick tock native you know and they they literally just no longer understand the world

[00:22:16] they're operating in and and and this Jen are audience you know sort of looks at it's like you know we have sort of a different

[00:22:23] conflict in terms of how we attract candidates how we find candidates how we lure candidates in and job boards aren't even part of that

[00:22:31] picture now to counter myself I'll say that I've already seen out there that some job boards simply refuse the title we're not a

[00:22:40] job board and they put themselves in a different box and just says no you know we're you know we're this or we're that

[00:22:47] and and some of them been successful that way you know just like HR sometimes job boards can be pretty slow moving and and not so self aware so I

[00:22:58] think that's a threat I'm not sure if it would destroy the industry or not but it could yeah I think it's interesting because I don't

[00:23:04] think recruiters are going to have a hand in that at all everything's becoming so automated you've got process automation

[00:23:10] that's happening you've got programmatic some of those programmatic players are going to go even further down funnel to better

[00:23:16] understand more easily laser target individuals who have proven they have the skills to be able to do the jobs

[00:23:23] and recruiters aren't going to be picking what job boards they go to like they do today or they have done in the past

[00:23:29] right so all that's going to go away the recruiters not going to be they're not even going to know where their jobs are popping up

[00:23:35] right so process automation I see a lot of that happening and that's good and that's very good because the recruiters

[00:23:42] of yesteryear the ones who had rollo dexas the ones who this was their profession they kicked ass they took name some

[00:23:49] of them are still around not many of them exist anymore we have a generation or a couple of generations of lazy

[00:23:56] ass recruiters who post a job and they sit back and they fucking wait until the candidate applies comment right

[00:24:02] and then they they work off of that we're moving I think into a scenario where most of those are going to get kicked to the

[00:24:09] curb and the ones who actually want it to be a profession are going to be working directly with process automation so yeah I that's that's my take on the generational gap

[00:24:20] yeah far be it for me to predict what generations that aren't even born yet are going to be doing in terms of getting their

[00:24:28] formation I mean kind of goes back to the search engine thing where do we have a copilot that answers all your

[00:24:33] life's questions whether it's where do I where should I work based on what I what I've done or my education and it just

[00:24:39] kind of serves it up that's world we could get into I think the gig economy is really interesting people more and more

[00:24:44] people are saying why go through the traditional way of getting employment or work these platforms exist I think LinkedIn

[00:24:50] probably is in a good spot in that world where I mean I still think most people that go to school or art in high school are told

[00:24:59] you got to join LinkedIn like LinkedIn is still where you got to be to network and find people and connect to as many

[00:25:06] people as you can in that world of social meeting connection which I think is going to be a long term then I think LinkedIn isn't a very good

[00:25:13] position because people will still professionally want to connect in a network and right now LinkedIn is the only

[00:25:19] only game in town they need to get their job shit right because they do a really poor job of serving up related jobs like I'm still

[00:25:27] getting a host and hostess jobs at restaurants because I'm a co-host of a podcast so they really need to up their game on search job search but yeah

[00:25:38] I'm not going to predict what generations will do I don't think anyone here will but yeah there's a good chance that they don't go to a

[00:25:44] search engine and search for jobs and then go to job boards and like you know weed through job postings then apply to jobs

[00:25:52] there's really a chance that that changes in the next few decades yeah being on LinkedIn isn't the same as using LinkedIn I mean we're the one of the biggest

[00:26:02] problems that we have is that we're in this industry and we're on it every fucking day most of the people in LinkedIn aren't right they're their

[00:26:09] information isn't up to date I mean I see where there are definite opportunities for other organizations to come in

[00:26:18] and actually take a lot of the market share from LinkedIn just because as Joel had said the tech is shit right unless they actually buy somebody some

[00:26:30] someone to re you know reenergize what they provide to the users the tiktok's of the world I mean my daughter is on LinkedIn she's probably been on

[00:26:41] once to put her information in and that's it she's on tiktok she's on insta all those things right so I think again we just we have to move to where the puck is

[00:26:51] and where it's going and today how much time would I put on LinkedIn I would definitely do it for professionals but for Gen Z's and maybe even younger millennials I don't

[00:27:01] think that's where you hit them yep and then there's direct mail which is has made a comeback my friend has made a comeback you

[00:27:09] forgot about QR codes QR codes are the death of also made a comeback and the death of us let's let's review the three there Jeff number one you

[00:27:17] had a programmatic or apcast specifically being a threat to the job boards number two you had search engines or the the demise of

[00:27:24] search engines or something replacing search and then number three you had generational change those kids are going to do it

[00:27:30] differently and that's going to change the whole ball game any of any others that like didn't make the cut or anything that you

[00:27:37] thought about since then that might might make the cut I know unholy Trinity was a good honorable mentions could spend but do you

[00:27:44] any more out there do you think your threats uh you know I was I was really kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel

[00:27:49] there because I mean honestly I'm incredibly optimistic about the future of job boards I mean it's a horrible name right everyone agrees

[00:27:57] that uh it does not match the reality of the most successful and dynamic players in the industry and contrary to what you

[00:28:05] say Joel it continues to be very lucrative it's growing uh and it continues to develop in markets all around the world

[00:28:13] so no I don't I don't have any other big uh you know things that I sort of think oh my god if this happens it's

[00:28:19] going to destroy the industry I think the most likely thing that would destroy the industry is the thing

[00:28:25] that's also the most unlikely which is that successful job boards quit paying attention they become like GM

[00:28:34] you know or forward back in the 70s they're sort of sitting there fat and happy because you know what happens

[00:28:40] monster was Ford you know a monster was GM monster was Chrysler they crashed and other

[00:28:48] job boards jumped up and took their market share right and they it's a very opportunistic industry

[00:28:55] it's a very uh it's one that's very focused on pulling in new technologies uh but also not like

[00:29:03] crazy technologies it's like I want a technology that works it's totally predictable and it's

[00:29:08] something that my clients want then I'll pull it in and use it so instead of something that will kill

[00:29:14] possibly the job boards of the job sites job job site technology that's out there today

[00:29:19] what is the one thing that you think every single job site should focus on because that's going to be

[00:29:26] the thing that will propel them or amplify them and to be more successful uh guys I'm sorry I got to

[00:29:33] be boring here but it's what I tell every single client that I talk to whether they've been around

[00:29:38] for 30 years or whether they've been around for 15 minutes it's the candidates stupid

[00:29:43] it's like if you focus on the candidates if you focus

[00:29:50] boring but true boring but true it's it's very strange because you know I have work with clients

[00:29:56] that have been very resistant to that and then they come back at some point in the future and they

[00:30:01] say you know you were right when we started paying attention to the candidates we started making

[00:30:06] more money it's simple but it's not easy you know it's not an easy thing to actually sort of put

[00:30:13] yourself in the mindset of your candidates particularly if they're a particularly hard to reach

[00:30:18] type of candidate but if you do it um you'll you'll get them in you'll and then the money will flow

[00:30:25] in from employers guaranteed there it is kids there it is pay attention dicky chasins aka the job board

[00:30:33] doctor Jeff far listeners who want to know more about you where do you send them I'll keep

[00:30:37] it simple go to jobboarddoctor.com and if you want to talk to me just click on the contact

[00:30:43] b button to easy agree to disagree Chad that's another one in the can we out wow look at you

[00:30:54] you made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Chase podcast oh maybe you cheated and

[00:30:59] fast-forwarded to the end either way there's no doubt you wish you had that time back valuable time

[00:31:06] you could have used to buy a nutritious meal and talk about enjoy a poor of your favorite whiskey

[00:31:14] or just watch big booty latinas and bug fights on tiktok no you hung out with these two chuckle

[00:31:22] heads instead now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt but save some soap because you'll

[00:31:29] be back like an awful train wreck you can't look away and like Chad's favorite western you can't

[00:31:38] quit the meter we out