The New Online Job Hunt.
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One such company, Beyond Credentials, is using technology to shrink the applicant pool to a more manageable, higher-quality few--mostly Gen Y professionals with good grades from good schools. (Specialized algorithms search for the best candidates.) The firm also works only with employers offering a minimum $30,000 starting salary, room for advancement and working environments that Beyond Credentials staffers say they'd want for themselves. While this means a higher cost base per capita, they improve the value proposition for both candidates and companies. Beyond Credentials wants users to land "somewhere we would've been O.K. starting our careers," says co-founder Kevin Melgaard, who views the site as a kind of Match.com for picky potential partners. Invited applicants get to show off their smarts and pizzazz on a personal pitch page that can even include video. This sense of personality, stripped away in most online applications, is important to clients seeking sales talent, like Northwestern Mutual recruiter Leslie Griessel. For her company, Griessel says, the site eases the headache of high volume and improves the quality and appropriateness of candidates. Northwestern Mutual and others are willing to pay for the privilege: Beyond Credentials charges $5,000 annually for one recruiter to use the site and $1,000 more per additional recruiter. The company has added 3,500 members since June and is beta testing a sister site for older, employed job seekers.
Such workers, who are more choosy, want sites to work better--they don't want to feel as though they are ending up in the black hole. Thus, many companies are working on job sites that aim for greater responsiveness, even if the feedback is computer-generated. Recruitment-technology consultants Taleo and Kenexa offer software platforms that can track the entire hiring process and notify applicants at "touchpoints": when an application is received, for example, or passed on to a higher-up. Experts say these more genteel features produce higher-quality candidates, which employers will pay more for. "The business is changing," says Evercore Partners analyst Douglas Arthur. "It's less about the volume of posting and more about software, search algorithms and matching technology. You don't want to produce 2,000 candidates, but 20 great candidates."
In perhaps the most dramatic shift in the business, job searchers are migrating away from traditional sites and toward social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook, where many feel more comfortable and in control. They've helped LinkedIn raise its market share in job search from 4.7% in 2010 to a projected 12.2% by 2013, according to Evercore Partners. That's why last year, for example, Simply Hired integrated social networking into its search process to allow job seekers to mesh their own networks with its job listings, making contacts and referrals to target companies easier. Jobvite, another trendsetter, helps client companies by marrying social networking with the personal referrals that employers prefer. Clients' employees are allowed to send their online "friends" a "jobvite" to apply for an opening.