no comments
I also have no inside knowledge of the actual figures but take a wild leap of logic and assume it was not making a profit and presumably was showing very little sign that it would produce the requisite margin for the company going forward.
So my view is
1. Never liked the JobJourneyNorthWest geographical position. If its a local site then it needs to be local and most recruitment is city/county based. The region stretched from Cheshire to Cumbria and was up against strong Manchester, Liverpool, Preston competition. A North West job board had the feel of something invented from London. (to me anyway)
2. Connected to the point above - but Manchester has just about become the most competitive territory in online this year and this amount of competition affects yields and client retention rate as people go from one trail to another to another.
3. What does a network of local sites adds up to what? A big national site like.......TotalJobs. And what tends to happen in many companies is that someone from the outside (or inside) looks at the numbers and thinks - Blimey we are having to put this amount of resource and effort in to make not a lot of money - what would be the result of diverting all (or some of) this resource to our successful highly profitable national Job Board? Coincidentally there are now TotalJobs sales staff in all key regions which i guess made the situation even more striking.
4. its the economy stupid - lets not be naive - its tough out there - and launching a site is twice as hard in these delicate economic conditions. Patience and long term investment can be thin on the ground in harsher economic times.
5. RBI sell off - i believe that as the company is made ready for sell off that they have conducted a purge of products that do not minimum contribution levels. Not sure about this point - it made be a convenient excuse as if a product showed enough profit potential - it would add value to any acquisition.
Anyway - it did not work out - no shame in that and i applaud their efforts.
Good Luck to all involved in the future.
6 comment(s)
In case any of us get carried away with the aspitrational nature of recruitment advertising - progressing your career, bettering yourself etc - you get sites like Loadzajobs and Gisajob who bring us down to earth and sometimes getting a job is just a painful necessaity involving no apsiration at all.
Jobsite launched their £15m TV ad campaign yesterday in swanky Charlotte St Hotel - as my colleagues were sipping champagne and hearing the glossy presentation i was reading Chicken Licken and Hansel and Gretel to my own rather demanding audience. Its easy to carp about the effectiveness of a big TV ad campaign and whether £15 million as a budget was arrived at by multiplying everything by 2.5 and adding the first number you thought of at the end but its a great sign to the UK that online recruitment is a complete solution to people irrespective of age, class, colour or creed and i think helps us all when we are out their evangelising to the HR community. Need to mention the fact that Monster have been doing TV too but this step is really significant and may see others get their marketing cheque books out again.As an aside - the ads star Max Beesly who speaking personally annoys me intensely - but women and people from the north (and probably everyone other than me) may disagree.
1 comment(s)
Its not happened in ages but its an online recruitment classic. We got given the go ahead on a small project for a client. And out of their inventory of current job requirements we got given two absolute uber niche specialist roles to go online with that have been unfilled for 6 months), rather than their main more normal generic jobs which make up the bulk of their needs. Its where straight talking has to come in - as otherwise you end up in a few weeks after lots of hard work with disappointment and disillusionment and the potenetial to stall online migration as senior decision makers still "not sure" it works.Digital recruitment is brilliant - but as the saying goes there is no point putting lipstick on a pig or indeed buffing a turd.
Dominic Sumners
Blogging for:
Member since: 18 Aug 2008
Last login: 15 Apr 2009
Total Posts: 28
