Blog

by Ron Feldstein

I have always had a lot to say about newspapers partnering with Careerbuilder, Monster, and Hot Jobs. I started complaining many years ago, I believe it was 2001 when I found out our large local paper entered into an agreement with Careerbuilder, one of the biggest job boards on the planet. I guess I was crazy, but I thought newspapers were competing with job boards at the time? Back then, I was in my 5th year as President of a small but growing recruitment ad agency. I met with a couple of newspaper reps for lunch, I'm pretty sure it was Macaroni Grille, so I got to draw on the tablecloth with crayons which is always fun. The bread's good too. The reps were there to sell me on their new partnership and how I should sell it to my clients. You see, not only was the paper now partnering with its biggest competitor for employment ads in the history of print advertising, they were also now forcing all clients to pay I think $350, maybe $300, for the ad to get posted on Careerbuilder, and this charge was mandatory. The whole concept seemed crazy to me, but I listened and ate my chicken parm.

First, I explained that clients would revolt and not want to be told they HAD to advertise online if they preferred print products. If they wanted to advertise with Careerbuilder, they would do it on their own. I said at least make it optional, and make it much less expensive. Umm, that never happened. That year I remember 5 or 6 of my clients boycotting this paper and saying they would never advertise with them again, and they never have since - the year before those clients spent about $350,000 with them. In my estimation, those clients would have spent at least $800,000 in the few years after this went into place. Who knows how many millions the paper lost by making it mandatory. But those few clients of mine did continue to advertise in local papers and online. Second, I questioned the whole concept, why would a newspaper basically walk a client over to their biggest competitor, show them the product, spoon feed them the resumes, and rename the whole employment section CAREERBUILDER. The response I got was this, "Everything is going online, we need to stay current." But they had (have) a local site, that could have been used instead and that could have been marketed better and could have had a greater impact locally than it did (has).

I later learned that Knight Ridder and Tribune Co. bought Careerbuilder so it made a little more sense, but not really. Why not keep the products separate? They didn't have to ignore the online revolution, but couldn't they have stood up and said, "Ok you want to go, lets go, we have a couple hundred years of history and a damn good product and a lot of happy customers." But them along with many other papers ignored early warning signs, chose the easy way out, the path of least resistance, the route with the least amount of hard work, and now look at them. Some of the biggest publishing companies in the country find themselves in bankruptcy, including the our local paper. Sure the recession has a lot to do with what's going on, but if newspapers would have just fought a little harder, competed better, instead of walking all of their clients over to the competition and handing them over on a silver platter, they would have been in a much better financial position to deal with this economy.

I still own that recruitment ad agency and I will place print ads in newspapers as long as my clients need them. Problem is, within a few years, my fear is that there wont be anywhere to place those ads, except, of course, on-line. That's why I just launched my own jobs website dedicated to just display ads, www.healthcarejobsondisplay.com and I plan to launch a few more. Whether there are government bailouts or moves to non-profits, the industry will never be the same. The classifieds, most notably employment, will never bounce back to where they were. It's too late, and they know it. Just wondering where those marketing execs who made those decisions 8 years ago might be now? Maybe Monster, Careerbuilder, and Hot Jobs...

by Ron Feldstein

Today, July 13, 2009 is the first official day and launch day for www.healthcarejobsondisplay.com. After a year of thought, research, questions, answers, copywriting, design, programming, frustration with programmers, happiness with programmers,  we're finally where we want to be, and very proud of the product we're delivering to healthcare employers and job seekers throughout the East Coast. It's a unique concept, but one that requires a lot of work by the people responsible for making it happen, US (along with our developers too who did a great job)!

We are very much still a recruitment ad agency, wanting to promote our clients brand and stand apart from the throng of employers placing ads or postings in ant medium. All ads or postings are BRANDED DISPLAY ads. Each ad must be individually designed so when a job seeker does a search, and the results populate, all ads filter in as display ads, 3 ads across and 7 rows deep, 21 display ads to a page. If I may say so myself, it looks better than I envisioned it about a year ago. Its a much more Visual experience for the job seeker and allows our Employers to brand every ad we create and post. The initial display ad gives the important info like position, city, website, email, website, maybe a requirement or certification, in a branded, display ad. Then each ad has a 2nd, much larger ad with the same branding message but much more copy.

We looked to be different in a very crowded marketplace and I think we've done it. If employers and jobs seekers want more of a visual experience, they will get just that. Along with a functional, easy to navigate, nice looking site. If it sounds like self promotion, it is. We're proud of what we've done. Now comes the fun part, selling and marketing it to the East Coast employers and job seekers.