Its obvious that the next big battleground for online recruitment media is the local one - the majors have all had regional salesforces for some time, Totaljobs have just launched JobJourney, the MyJobsGroup continues to be successfully expanding and there are big launches coming from other significant players. Its not much of a surprise as the regional market is worth between £750-800 million in total rec ad spend and this is over 50% of total market and is relatively in the early stages of migration. It was perhaps neglected somewhat by the
So who will this affect
- Local Press - from my experience in an earlier life (i was Sales Director of Fish4) i had first hand experience of how unready and unwilling many of these businesses are to meet this huge challenge. Their bosses realise this (Trinity Mirror/Northcliffe/Newsquest) and are buying up any online property that moves. Cannot see any other result - than the job pages of local press being decimated.
- Fish4 - they have had this market to themselves for some time - and possibly not exploited it as much as they should as a business - however they have some great fundamentals in the business in terms of brand recognition and traffic and their market is going to explode with growth now so i expect them to be do OK out of the competitor activity.
- Crap Local Job Boards - there are a host of boards out there called stuff like www.crouchendjobs.co.uk who parade themselves as specialists on basis of their site name. Well online publishing is a bit more difficult than that so the arrival of people who know what the they are doing will spell either slow death )by neglect) of the bad ones and probably purchase of the good ones.
Anyway - one thing is for sure - fasten your seatbelts as its going to be a bumpy ride!
4 comments on Regional Job Board Battle Royale
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Local Press
Anyone would think that you have a vested interest in the internet?
Seriously though, words like decimated shouldn't be used when describing the future of recruitment in regional press, it's just not true. In terms of the traditional rec ad, agencies and clients are fully aware of the strengths of on and offline platforms, and the importance of fully integrating both. They simply work best in tandem. Pushing just one is a dangerous and very sticky road, a trend reflected in the business being placed and the conversations being had with agencies right now.
Also, I need to make it clear. Newsquest have not gone around buying any online property, moving or not. Again, wholly inaccurate.
A very blinkered view Dom!
Cheers
Tim
Thanks for the comment
A biased view - its a fair cop i suppose but let me be quite clear i firmly believe that there is no reason why local papers should be any different to other recruitment print areas and the decline we are seeing will lead to "decimation" - a dramatic word but i believe an accurate one. Newsquest are a major shareholder in CareerBuilder currently No1 in US and being invested in heavily in UK so maybe investing rather than buying may have been more accurate.
I am going to write an entry over weekend about the stages of migration and that the "integration" phase comes shortly (define - what shortly means?) before replacement!
There is plenty of business for local press for a period of time but the massive push currently happening online will accelerate the decline of that there is no doubt.
'Decimated' needs to stay with you as your view Dom. Client trust is still a country mile away online running away with all recruitment business, if it ever will and the vertical job sites still have a way to go to 'get it right' to counter this.
A final point. Gannett is a shareholder in CareerBuilder... Newsquest is guilty by association only and still is part owner and full supporter of Fish4. But you know that Dom.
Let me be clear
i love newspapers i buy at least one every day and consume about three while travelling, eating etc and i disagree with the views of people who think we will all be consuming content this way.
But...
Weekly appointment sections are a not very efficient way for companies or candidates to "meet" and exchange details. And this means that the appointment sections are in (will be in??) terminal decline.
Newsprint owners should and are exploiting their local press vehicles for as much profit as possible for as long as possible - and make sure they own the market dominant online properties that will replace them. And that to me appears to me to be what they are doing.
Anyway - thanks for the comment and i am enjoying the debate.