What exactly is a job aggregator? They are websites that take jobs posted on company websites and job boards and repost these jobs to drive traffic to their website. By reposting all of the jobs they find they are able to attract tens of thousands of job seekers to their sites every month.

Like Google they sell pay per click advertising to fund their operations. The difference between job aggregators and traditional job boards is: aggregators only earn revenue from an employer if they want to be first in a search by paying for a premium link and the job seeker clicks on the link. Job aggregators also earn money with pay per click advertising and banner advertisements which can have nothing to do with employment.

Job boards on the other hand, charge companies to post jobs but they pay regardless of if people click on the job, apply to it, or even if the job is never viewed by potential job seekers..

The job aggregators also make it very easy for companies to post their jobs, even picking up all the jobs off your website if you use a computer coding called xml. 

In Canada, Workopolis and Monster have seen a large decrease in numbers of job seekers and employers visiting and paying for their sites. Year to date drops in traffic are as much as 35-42% compared to last year, even with large numbers of unemployed people looking for work. 

LinkedIn on the other hand has seen large growth and hopes to take away business from the leading job boards in Canada, the US and around the world. They are charging between $200 per job posting $10-$30,000 for large companies to have a career page on LinkedIn and $5000 per person/year to access their database. LinkedIn is encouraging its members to create content and invite friends to drive candidates and it is working, with about 14 million people visiting last month.

Facebook fan pages are also taking off as the second most popular site in the world, with career fan pages being built and pay per click advertising being used by recruiters. Finally, the worlds most visited and most powerful internet player is Google. Most job searches start on Google and the word “job” is used in almost more searches than any other word (the only exception being when Christmas bumps the word Job out of top spot in December). Will Google make a serious push into helping market jobs? Only time will tell….

We always ask candidates what they are looking for in a community and why they moved from one place to another. This allows us to understand their motivation and if the benefits of a job we are hoping to place them in will fill their needs. More often then not the candidate will tell us the reason they moved was for their family.

Having just returned from Pender Island, an Island near Victoria BC, a great place for children to grow up I was reflecting on its ability to attract residents and workers. Kilometers of trails, swimming lakes and a community were everyone knows each other; it is an ideal place to raise children.

I know dozens of people who have moved to Canada from the US and their family is again the number one reason why they moved. For example, a lovely couple in their 80’s said the ability of all children, not just the rich or highly skilled, to play sports in Canada was why they moved from California in the late 1960’s.

Given the number of people who site family as a motivation for relocating and accepting a job why do we not see this information in job advertisements? Is sensitivity over the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Provincial human rights codes preventing it?

I do not believe there are any restrictions on advertising jobs that include information that would be relevant to families. The only problem would come up if you asked about families during and interview and then based your decision to hire on that.

It might be time to highlight your community and the opportunities it presents for families, including children, parents and grandparents (who may want to live near hospitals or care facilities). Without it you might miss your biggest opportunity to attract talent.

I still remember the first time I laid eyes on my Labrador/Golden Retriever cross. He was about four months old came running up to me and jumped up on me as I kneeled down to pet him. It took 10 seconds but I knew the family who was giving him up had found the right person for him. 5 years later he is literally a man’s best friend with morning walks on the beach, afternoon swims at the lake and Saturday mountain biking.

One of my employees recently adopted a dog with much less success. Lost sleep, noise complaints, destroyed blinds, footwear, family fights and screens followed by an escape; he found his way back to the pound. This experience shows how things can go horribly wrong if a bad selection is made.

Dr. John Sullivan recently outlined how a bad hire can be extremely costly to a business. Not only can a bad hire be as disruptive as a bad dog, they can cost an organization in terms of productivity as outlined here: http://www.ere.net/2010/08/09/the-cost-of-a-bad-hire-butts-in-chairs-and-how-to-convince-hiring-managers-to-avoid-them/

After spending hours this past weekend studying for the Canadian pleasure craft operators card, I took a few minutes to reflect on the effect role testing and certification has on Canadian life, business and careers. Canada’s regulations require tests for thousands of skills and professions to ensure they will be done safely. Interestingly the way these tests are administered across Canada varies greatly as does the impact they have on careers and every day life. Having operated canoes, kayaks, speed boats and even commercial fishing vessels I was a little put off when I started the process.

The Pleasure Craft Operator card is now mandatory in Canada and requires a 45 minute exam which examines boating and marine knowledge. This summer we have seen boating tragedies on both the west coast and east coast that have involved multiple fatalities. This testing did not prevent them but hopefully it prevented others from happening this summer and next. This was put in place over 10 year implementation period and a much longer consultation process with many parties including recreational boaters, professional mariners and search and rescue personnel, the transportation safety board and the Canadian Coast guard. The purpose is to improve people’s knowledge so they can enjoy boating safely and responsibly. Some people say it is too easy but in reality it ensures a basic level of knowledge when boating and is responsible for saving some lives.

In Ontario enrolling in an Inter-Provincial exam to test your knowledge of Power Line Technician or Heavy Duty Mechanic/Technician can be done in one day as long as the candidate has documented experience in their trade and the money to pay the exam fee. A heavy duty mechanic could be responsible for a transportation vehicle and the lives of dozens of people.  In other provinces the registration process takes months and costs over $500 to administer the same multiple choice exam. Skill and trade certification is an excellent thing that shows a person has knowledge about the work they will be expected to perform on the job.

Some individuals and groups feel there needs to be more rigorous and hands on testing to ensure this knowledge translates into skills which can be performed on the job. One of the great difficulties in this is how technology and time change jobs so drastically such testing could quickly become outdated and leave candidates no better off then knowledge testing. A Heavy Equipment Technician trained and tested 30 years ago would have had no exposure to computer diagnostic equipment but will have had the opportunity to see the changes and advances in electronics over time. The knowledge they displayed on the Red Seal exam 30 years ago will ensure they have the ability to learn and understand new concepts but it is on the job training, mentoring and continuing challenging of skills that will help them continue to learn.

Every person hired needs to display credentials and then their continued knowledge and skill development. A thorough phone interview and up to date skills testing can assist in the process to ensure these skills will assist your business and keep everyone safe. Nothing will replace having knowledgeable senior staff on site to interview and do hands on assessments of skills once a professional is hired.

As a recruiter I have always wondered why vacation time is not more prominently featured in Job Advertising? Only 13-16% of job advertisements on Workopolis and Monster feature the word Vacation and some of those are only highlighting job duties of scheduling employees. A large percentage of the candidates we place are concerned about the amount of time they will have with their families and the amount of time they will have off. Senior candidates are often looking to match their time off if they are leaving a company which they have been with for many years and people with young families are often concerned about the amount of time they can spend with their kids.

Canada’s minimum standards for vacation are two weeks which are “earned” and can be taken in the second year. Essentially when a new employees starts they are entitled to no paid vacation time off until they start their 13th month of employment. Most employers accumulate the vacation time and allow it to be taken during the first year and many employers offer 3-4 weeks vacation to entice employees. One thing we often see negotiated with senior candidates switching employers is “unpaid” leaves of absences which make up for vacation time they may have had with their former employer.

As recruiters we often advise candidates not to push time off early in the interview or negotiation process. One of the interview “enders” is when a candidate asks for or communicates how much time they want to spend away from work. Candidates need to keep in mind they may be replacing an employee who was fired for attendance issues or the interviewer may have just spent hours on the phone looking for someone to come in and fill an absence. As a candidate you want to show that you are going work enthusiastically and not cause difficulties for your prospective manager, so save the questions about time off for Human Resource personnel or in final negations.

2009-2010 have been very interesting years for Canadian mining as mineral companies as prices recovered or remained near all time highs and labour strife was felt across the country. On July 22, 2010 we saw a BC mine that has been in production for 40 years become certified for the first time. While in Ontario and Newfoundland we have seen two of the most costly strikes in Canadian history for both miners and one of the world’s largest mining companies.

According to a survey by Infomine.com this labour unrest took place  while most companies were sharing  the profit  they make through wage increases and bonuses .Wages were up 2.5% in the last 12 months with 80% of mines increasing wages, and only 20% seeing wage freezes. 76% of mines reported that they have an incentive plan with gold, silver and copper mines paying out the highest bonuses. It is clear that Canadian mines have some of the highest paid workers in the country and high safety standards, thanks to a history of unionization.

Over 90% of our customers are unionized and we recruit people who end up making some of the best wages in the world. Our ability to find both non-unionized and union workers helps companies give senior employees time off in the summer, reduces overtime and burn out, and it also helps the unions earn more dues as a result of a larger bargaining unit.

Most of our customers are unionized and few experience strikes as labour stability is one of the most important things to customers, companies and families. A year of strike pay is a small fraction of what a worker would regularly earn and it can take 10 years to recover, while the loss of customers and earnings can be devastating to stock prices and company stability. Let’s hope that a new decade sees more effective negotiations, less work stoppages and higher profits for both unionized and non-union companies.

Over 108,700 jobs were created in April in Canada and BC is one of the provinces leading the way with 13,000 jobs. Manitoba and Saskatchewan continue to have the lowest unemployment rates in the country at about 5%, which was not surprising considering our trip to these provinces last month.

It is the largest number of people hired in one month since 2002 and is the fourth month in a row we have seen jobs added. We are getting calls from lots of employers worried about the candidate market in the months ahead. September will likely be when things heat up the most as people come back from vacations and see all the work and business that could not get completed in July and August.

It looks like we may return to an “Employees” market for jobs this fall but not as crazy as we saw in 2006-2007.

For the first time I have been recruiting for a company that has brand recognition around the world (Brand Y). Their brand is so powerful Y employees buy tee shirts, hats and mugs, and they feature the Y brand logo on their facebook pages.

In this digital age people can take pictures of their work and show all of their friends. Their friend may have never even thought about working for brand Y. These same employees are on fan pages and have an ongoing love for the company and brand Y.

Conversely I was talking with a friend yesterday who works for a different company with one of the worlds most recognized brands (brand X). This friend had a lot of insight into what the company was doing to ruin their brand reputation.

Management was cutting the working hours of poor employees so they would quit. This is a common practice known in legal circles as constructive dismissal. Some companies take the view that progressive discipline and termination pay is too hard, costly or time consuming, so they reduce the amount of work until the employee is forced to find another job and quits.

The unintended consequence of this is how it will effect a brand over time. The company performing constructive dismissal has a “Fan” site on Facebook called “I hate company X” with over 5,000 fans. If someone feels poorly treated by their former employer they can now scream it over the internet. In this case 5,000 people hate X and each of these 5,000 have several hundred friends. 5,000 x 200 friends = 1,000,000 people who have a friend who hates X and advertise it on their Facebook.  Conversely, brand Y has 170,000 fans on Facebook meaning that over 34 million people get positive exposure to brand Y.

I’m happy to be recruiting for brand Y and hope that management thinks long and hard about how they treat employees.

The BC Federation of Labour has managed to get some headlines up about the continued shortage of skilled workers in BC by hosting a conference in Victoria. It is a good thing that Labour is concerned about the looming shortage but the ideas being presented are a little outdated for my taste. 

“Jim Sinclair supports a provincial training tax for employers. He recommends that those that train workers would not pay, those that train above the standard would get a rebate and those that do not train, have to pay.”

Having worked for several unionized and non-unionized employers I have strong opinions but I would never support a tax on business to encourage training. There are excellent studies showing the ROI on training and apprenticeships, and most leading employers intuitively know the value in investing in employees.

There are very significant government incentives in place right now that can run into the tens of thousands of dollars for the hiring and training of new employees. With training and hiring plans from HR and help from recruiters, who have the ability to recruit from across Canada and Internationally businesses should not be worried!

In Canada our habits are changing dramatically; it is time for businesses and recruiters to take note. For the first time since TV toppled newspapers as one of Canadians favorite pastimes, Internet browsing is now Canadians top activity outside of working and sleeping. 

In 1952 Canada’s first TV station opened and for almost 50 years Canadians sat in front of their televisions consuming hockey, news, excellent Canadian comedy and mediocre sitcoms. Now Canadians are spending more time catching up with friends around the world on Facebook, streaming video to watch Olympians win the gold, and buying cars, trucks, and what ever their hearts desire on Ebay.

TV stations are crying for money as advertising revenue moves to the internet, while newspapers are getting thinner or shutting down. Even video stores are being widely affected, with recent rumors of the movie giant Blockbuster going bankrupt.

If recruiters and businesses are not taking note, they better, and quickly. Canadians are spending 18.1 hours a week actively using the internet, 16.9 hours watching TV and 2.9 hours reading the newspaper. Given the interactive nature of the internet vs TV/Newspapers, I have to ask why people would spend marketing dollars on traditional advertising mediums?

Red Seal is finding that the best way to invest in marketing to Canadians over the internet and mobile phones. We find that the best candidates are on the go and their mobile phones and social life does not stop when they are on the road. We’re lucky to be able to reach industrial, manufacturing, utility and construction recruits in the field and on the internet. If your company would like to hire great employees do you have the internet and mobile recruiting strategy to find them?