The web sites of professional societies and associations would seem to be natural destinations for online recruiting. These organizations were established for occupational advancement. Their sites promote developmental programs as well as conventions, publications and accreditation activities. Some provide employment assistance, offering links to resume writing, interviewing assistance and information about other web sites where their members can archive resumes and look at job postings. Precious few, however, provide direct employment support, and even fewer offer services to connect members with employers and recruiters.
The world of work has morphed dramatically in the 1990s, and professional associations are in a perfect position to capitalize on that shift. Men and women are increasingly committed to managing their own careers and to forging occupational paths that support their objectives. They no longer expect to work for a single employer for most of their worklife, but instead expect multiple job changes. As a result, they need resources that can help them record and promote their credentials, locate job opportunities, negotiate compensation packages, identify near- and long-term objectives and build a strategy for accomplishing them. In short, people in the workplace today need an agent, a representative committed to fostering their individual career success.
While commercial recruitment web sites provide a measure of this support, professional associations have a clear competitive advantage in assuming this role. Why? Because their relationship with members is rooted in promoting each person's fullest possible advancement in a chosen field. In effect, they have already established a track record as an agent.
Their notion of this role, however, needs to be updated. The responsibilities of an agent have now expanded. They include member development and employment. In today's ever-shifting workplace, people need resources and representation in order to advance in their career.
Why is that important to recruiters? Choice. Associations are in the best position to extend the range and depth of candidate sources on the Web.
Look at what's happening at the top of the e-heap today. A very expensive battle of the brands is underway among the top 5-10 commercial recruitment web sites. These enterprises are spending tens of millions of dollars to build visibility among working men and women. In the process, they are making it more and more difficult for small- and mid-sized commercial sites to survive. Without brand recognition, these sites attract less traffic, and without sufficient traffic they cannot generate the advertising revenues to make their economic model work. As a consequence, the number of such sites will shrink, and choice will disappear. If we have 10,000 to 15,000 recruitment-related sites today, this brand war could leave us with just three to five megasites in the near future.
Why is that a problem? Life would certainly be easier if you were able to do all of your recruiting at a single site. Or would it? With just a handful of sites from which to pick, you would essentially be recruiting in a near monopolistic market. And, from my vantage point, that's likely to be about as pleasant as taking a plane trip these days. You also have a minimum of choice in the airline industry, and what do you get? High prices, lousy service and endless frustration. I doubt if the outcome will be much different if the online recruitment industry is similarly constrained.
And then there's the little matter of economics. No matter how well intentioned the remaining sites may be, they will almost certainly have to answer to a higher authority than customer service. Most of the megasites are public companies, and the push for profits -- the only result that keeps the market happy -- will inevitably force them to adopt the very same kind of customer-be-damned behavior we now see in the airline industry.
To put it another way, we need choice to avoid monopolistic behavior, and associations are online recruiters' best hope for achieving and preserving it. They are not beholden to the public market, but to their members. They are not based on the profit imperative, but on service. And they have a rich heritage of acting as an agent for their members, a role that simply needs updating to be more responsive to the new world of work.
So, what's to be done? I suggest that employers and recruiters do whatever they can to catalyze a new way of thinking at professional associations. If your organization frequently recruits members of certain professional associations, speak with their leadership. Encourage your employees who are members of these organizations to do so. Collectively, make the case for expanding the agent relationship to include employment assistance as well as skills development. And if you really want to make it happen, forge a consortium with other employers to provide the technical and financial support necessary to help associations implement online job banks and resume databases. It will cost some money, but the investment will be modest compared to the cost of unfilled positions, and it is more than justified by the greater candidate availability and higher candidate quality it would produce.
There are perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 professional and technical organizations operating in the United States today. If even a quarter of them began to provide credible online employment assistance to their members, the online recruiting industry can be transformed from the monopoly it is fast becoming to an open and competitive market. And as financial commentator, Adam Smith, would observe, that's the only kind of market that offers genuine choice and its beneficial by-products: price realism and responsive service. Recruiters need nothing less.
