In 1999 I started a dotcom in a SE European market. It contained issues related to management and career strategy as well as job ads for executives and managers. Every three months I surveyed a group of corporate HR professionals and selection consultants and compiled an index of prospects for entry middle and upper level managers in Marketing, Sales, Communications, Finance, HR and Production.
I ran the business for three years. Soon it featured 150 job ads, ie as many as the market leader but more interesting ones. Readership was good, after all the market was not a mature one for professional managers.
Articles about career strategy and management were reprinted after permission almost every week in the Executives page of the Sunday edition of the country's most posh political and financial newspaper, listing the site's address.
Normal ads were secured from the country's No1 business school which appreciated the site as a niche marketing tool.
The country's equivalent of the Economist published a review of the site hailing it as the site for thinking executives and managers. I heard stories of CEOs recommending the site to executives and managers. The site was appropriately titled - branded management-culture because it reflected a certain culture about management and careers in management which apparently appealed to top managers.
The main business problem was, I am afraid, with many HR professionals.
a) At that time, their opinion was that the internet was a good place to find IT people not managers. Who knew that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn would one day exist. Even blogs were rare at the time. So they kept asking for posting of their IT related ads or secretaries and I insisted that this would dilute the site's (product's) strength, clarity and "environment".
Ads that were posted received a small number of CVs but very relevant CVs. I proposed to the HR pros the addition of a special reference number in each ad so that they would know via which source the good CVs came from. Few obliged. Those who did, were impressed. Thus the site featured many and good ads but few were paid, so revenue was OK but the business was clearly under-performing. The reason I kept posting free ads was that I wanted to serve the needs of my readers and create a marketplace. Recruiters kept their business as usual, ie posting ads in mass newspapers along with ads for cooks, maids, etc.
I did not give up. I tried to educate the recruiters re media planning. I wrote a few articles about "HR Marketing" proposing that good candidates were to be found in places managers visit whether they are actively looking for a new job or not, ie not the usual newspapers.
b) The second problem was that most of the HR people I liaised with proved unable to give interesting interviews-content, I had to reply on my personal experiences and stories I heard off the record from managers for good content.
I asked many of them to provide me with interviews based on a few written questions. 99% of what I got back was flat and frankly boring replies to the questions usually leading to the point what a great employer their company was. Very few if any insightful points re career management or the job market. Selection consultants were a bit better in their interviews.
To put it in short, most HR people in that market were not good communicators. Plus they were afraid to express themselves in case they said something they should not.
Thus after three years of OK results but continuing under-performance compared to targets, I decided to call the project off, since I was busy with other activities.
Jumping to 2016, I am not surprised to see that many recruiters are increasingly using LinkedIn compared to the usual jobs boards. More comments on jobhunting in 2016 in Europe, in future posts.
PS. It is satisfying when after many years I meet managers who tell me "Oh, you were the guy who made management-culture!".
