CollegeRecruiter.com ditches resume access
This was a bit of a shock to me. CollegeRecruiter.com is abandoning its resume database search due to security fears. According to their blog;
we came to the conclusion recently that the juice simply wasn't worth the squeeze when it came to selling resume searching. Many and perhaps most larger job boards generate 30 or so percent of their revenues from resume searching. Because of the strength of our targeted email and cell phone text messaging (SMS) products, resume searching was under five percent for us. We sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of it last year but expect most of those dollars to find their way into job postings, targeted emails, cell phone text messaging, or some of our other products. So we felt we weren't looking at a huge hit to revenue yet inevitably were looking at a potential huge hit to the security of the database.
They go on to say that other job boards may do the same. However I think this is an isolated incident. Other job boards wont be willing to give up the extra revenue. I use Jobtarget to power my sites and they protect jobseeker privacy by giving control to the jobseeker as far as who can contact them. Its a system that works pretty well. I think we may see more sites moving to a model like this.
we came to the conclusion recently that the juice simply wasn't worth the squeeze when it came to selling resume searching. Many and perhaps most larger job boards generate 30 or so percent of their revenues from resume searching. Because of the strength of our targeted email and cell phone text messaging (SMS) products, resume searching was under five percent for us. We sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of it last year but expect most of those dollars to find their way into job postings, targeted emails, cell phone text messaging, or some of our other products. So we felt we weren't looking at a huge hit to revenue yet inevitably were looking at a potential huge hit to the security of the database.
They go on to say that other job boards may do the same. However I think this is an isolated incident. Other job boards wont be willing to give up the extra revenue. I use Jobtarget to power my sites and they protect jobseeker privacy by giving control to the jobseeker as far as who can contact them. Its a system that works pretty well. I think we may see more sites moving to a model like this.
Tags: resume database
Comment
-
Comment by Steven Rothberg on June 8, 2008 at 1:01pm -
The protections offered by many job boards no longer cut the mustard. Chris mentioned that he uses JobTarget to power his job board and I know that many boards work with JT or one of their competitors. But if a well known financial services company signs up for resume searching and pays with a legitimate credit card, how do you know whether they're using the data for employment purposes or to pitch credit cards to your users?
While it might be tempting to say "buyer beware" (candidate beware) and to fool ourselves into thinking that what they want more than anything is for their resume to be distributed as widely as possible in order to maximize the likelihood they get a job, I think a better long-term, more ethical perspective is to ask yourself what truly is in the best interests of the candidate. Getting credit card pitches and having their identity stolen are not outcomes that they likely contemplated when they posted their resumes so it is disingenuous to argue that the candidates assumed the risk. If they didn't know the risk existed, how can they have knowingly assumed it?
The pursuit or profit is noble and drives capitalism. I'm all for it. But the blind pursuit of short-term profits at the expense of others in the short-term and our own profits in the long-term is foolish.
-
Comment by Todd Goldstein on May 21, 2008 at 8:17pm - this is a really interesting topic. I use job target to power my board with a relatively new database. We do however offer our employers access to the entire Job Target database, but I have found that it is pretty dated and a bit of a turn off since www.AccountingJobToday.com is so highly targeted. I think we have lost customers wanting to post jobs but after they viewed the resume database and didn't find what they were looking for decided it wasn't for them. I have been contemplating turning it off so they post jobs instead. Any thoughts?
-
Comment by Dennis Gorelik on May 21, 2008 at 4:03pm -
Job Seekers care way more about landing a job than about protecting his resume.
The more available resume is -- the better chances are to land a job.
That's why I'm trying to make resume as easily available for recruiters as possible.
Take a look at PostJobFree.com free resume search
-
Comment by Eric Shannon on May 21, 2008 at 12:18pm - we put a lot of effort into policing our resume database. Both in programming and in human vigilance. Yes, it is costly.
© 2010 Created by Slouch on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
You need to be a member of Job Boarders to add comments!
Join this Ning Network