Posting 'help wanted' online

Do all the job listing sites use the same data?

[ScottM]

We are fortunate enough to live in a part of the country where the unemployment rate is very low. In fact, it is so low we are having difficulty getting people to apply for jobs when they open up.

(Our competition has taken to radio advertising for current openings. The unemployment rate is THAT low.)

I have come to the conclusion that we just aren't advertising the openings in the right media. We used to advertise openings in the local newspaper years ago (something like $20/week). NOW, they want $100+ or something like that, and we aren't sure that the newspaper reaches that many people any longer. (So many college students don't even really read the local paper.)

We want to start listing openings online, but we have no idea what particular job listing board most people use in our area. It is my guess that it is a large mixture of various sites.

So...my questions are:

Do all of these "job listing sites" all use pretty much the same data? From some feed? If so, where does one add a listing and get listed over the majority of them?

It would be nice to know if you listed an opening with say, 'Monster', that your opening would be fed to all the other job listing sites.

Is there anything like this?

[seoskunk]

You can syndicate jobs to about 120 sites through any decent recruitment consultant

[lucy24]

You left out one crucial detail: Who you're hiring. Entry-level, minimum wage is one thing. Technical positions requiring education, expertise and experience are another.

If Barbara Ehrenreich is to be believed-- and I see no reason to doubt her on this point --newspaper Help Wanted ads have little-to-nothing to do with currently available positions. They're permanent listings by large employers who have such a high turnover they need to carry a backlog of applications to call in. So your target employees may not even be looking in the paper.

Good on you for continuing to hire your own. A lot of employers do everything through agencies: unless you're a six-figure-a-year programmer, you don't work for Microsoft, you only work at Microsoft. Saves a lot of trouble of course if you can just pick up the phone, call the agency and ask them to send someone.

[lawman]

I get new employees through a temp agency. The agency matches skills and does the screening including criminal background checks. They handle the payroll taxes, etc. I just send them a check.

If the person works out, after 3 months or so they go on my payroll. If they don't they are gone immediately and I don't have to worry about my state unemployment tax going up.

[ScottM]

Thanks for the answers.

Our rural location and limited population base makes using a temp. agency nearly impossible. I used to use it myself about 5 years ago for a personal side business and the quality of personnel available was...well...interesting, to say the least.

The 'joke' was that the local temp agencies only had people who had run out of cash for booze the day before. (So they were only available 1-2 days a week.) You also had to get them early in the day because after 9 AM, the only ones available were either hungover or already drunk. I still remember some of the signs in the temp. agency building itself...something like "no alcohol consumption allowed on the premises" and "If you haven't been assigned a job by 10 AM, you cannot sleep here". All the signs posted just reminded me that the typical employee you would receive lives at the local homeless shelter.

Oh...and the temp agency shared the building with a 'payday loan' office.

Lucy24: These aren't minimum wage jobs, they are in the manufacturing industry. Laser cutting...welding...fabrication, etc.

...any decent recruitment consultant

I checked and we don't have a recruitment consultant (that I can find) in our city.