Totaljobs bought by Stepstone

Here is my very quick reaction to the news here that Stepstone have paid £110m for Totaljobs group (i presume that means Totaljobs plus Caterer, CWjobs etc)



So here goes - firstly, I am not surprised



1. RBI have stated for some time that they don't really want these advertising led, cyclical products in their portfolio. They want to sell information, licenses, research, subscriptions.
2. Stepstone (Axel Springer Classified) do not have a UK job board product (well, not since its first incarnation went pop in about 2002)- so its a nice fit with Germany, Benelux, Scandinavia etc)



As for the price



Time will tell whether its a good or bad deal - i would have to guestimate about their turnover and profit and some of that info i am privy to has been off the record so won't speculate about multiples. Jobsite was bought by DMGT for £54m in 2004/5 (great deal) - Hotrecruit by Trinity Mirror for £55m a year later (absolute shocker other than if you were the people selling it). So that would tell you that you were probably paying a much more inflated dot com premium back then as TJ's figures are much more robust in 2012 than those orgs 7 or 8 years ago.



What will it mean?



There will obviously be changes over time but i dont see much short/medium term happening. They have bought a product and mgmt team in a country where they have no presence or similar competitive business. So no rationalisation needs to occur right now. Clearly the international offering (TheNetwork) will be strengthened and i am sure some cost alignment may be considered but as we all know the bulk of recruitment advertising is very much a local/national approach so very limited as to what they can do internationally on costs. I guess maybe we will see more investment and innovation with a new big player in UK market as it has been a seemingly mature sector devoid of launches in recent years.



And my final comment is - i am still not seeing many people queueing up to buy all those B2B magazines based in Sutton - now that would be a tough sell....

Flawed Concept of CPC Media Planning

I am aware my comments below are a big over-simplification but here goes - We are a metric led business or to be more accurate - we advise our clients based on a set of metrics that we hold or have access to on their behalf. However - this very puritanical form of measurement and evaluation of campaign success or media performance cannot and should not exist in isolation. I was debating with Kork earlier who works with a product agency on one of our accounts who wants to select media for next campaign based on pure CPC basis (or to be fair a CPA) basis as they would do a consumer campaign. All sounds good.... The big signifcant difference between candidate attraction campaigns and selling product campaigns is that the ideal response to a single job ad (or any number of jobs) is 1 (or 1 per job). That 1 being the ideal candidate. All further response has a cost (a sift, a phone interview etc) however minimal that would be. For purpose of this i will ignore building talent pool/database etc. The ideal response for a product/service sales campaign is as many as possible. Somehow qualitative data or insight has to be introduced and planning decisions weighted accordingly In summary - metrics, CPC/CPA are critical measures but in isolation can lead you down a very misleading road.

Why I Love Media in 2012

i was enjoying a twitter exchange last week with @mattbigg and @mattallder about launching a highly dubious pinterestjobsearch product/running a webinar etc and charging a kerjillion ££ for a barely credible product and it reminded what i adore about what we do (not the silly stuff above) and the market we now operate in - so these are my reasons why working in recruitment marcomms is so much better now than (please insert date 2008/2005/2000/1995 etc). 1. Recruitment media used to represent such goddamn awful value for clients and huge profits for newspapers, rec cons and ad agencies. 12 x 5 in Times for £15K, 26% agency commission. B2B magazines ( i know as i used to be publisher of one) running 100 pages a week at £7.5K a page. Now all media is much more realistic (including print) about pricing. 2. Recruitment media was deathly dull and working in an agency had as much in common to a sausage factory as a creative/strategic biz. job spec in - copy and setting - book 12 x 3 in Essex Chronicle. Next...and repeat ad infinitum. Sadly some businesses still operate in this way. 3. We don't know all the answers. we have (dare i say it) expert opinion, we have evidence, we have stats/MI but things are moving so fast that maybe this nonsense new product (insert flavour of month) is the way forward. Maybe TJ's link up with Branchout will be amazing? maybe Monster's Beknown is a game changer? Will LinkedIn take over the recruitment world? just how clever is Targeted Facebook PPC going to get? and i have not even mentioned Google yet... 4. Clients are doing it for themselves. We have RPO and rec agency clients but the trend to direct sourcing is a really positive move. The quality agencies will thrive and body shops will/have reinvented themselves. So what we now do for our clients extends to employer brand, engagement, recruitment process (prob what we understand better than anyone), attraction, retention etc as all of this is the bedrock to a great recruitment and retention strategy. 5. Innovation. So much you can do, our advice is always to do one new thing and do it brilliantly rather than lots in half arsed fashion. But it is really easy now to pick a growth media and exploit/gain competitive advantage. And you know what - you don't even need an external supplier like us for soem stuff - just do it, measure it, enhance and repeat. And finally - a selfish one - the market is incredibly complicated so what many (well....enough) companies want is a supplier/partner/sounding board/consultant/procurer - who can cut through the maze and make the whole piece work. And that's where.....i think you know what i am about to say here.

whisper it quietly

but we dont make any money from most of our social media work. Its a difficult one for us as we have two conflicting forces at work Force 1 - a drive for efficiency - we want to reduce cost per hire, we want to improve quality, we want to build/improve employer brand. All can be summarised as value for money - delivered with brilliant customer service. (a bit salesy i know but it's the truth) Force 2 - a passionate belief in social - a knowledge backed up by case studies that it can work - and an "expert" view that it will form the central tenet of most attraction and engagement work in the future. The problem as of 2011 and maybe Q1 2012 - social is not efficient as defined by Force 1. So it leads to us not charging enough for the time we put in to help build social programmes for clients. So are we being idiots as we should charge for our work? or are we being canny in that we know what the future looks like and we have build up a really good body of work (and learnt along with our clients and why should they pay for our education) which means the profit will come later. Answer - have not got a clue as usual

We won't be pitching in 2012

Got chatting with some people last night #SoME2012 (grad awards) and heard some horror stories of money spent by agencies on pitches and the work which goes in without any payment or guarantee of return.
So i have decided that we wont pitch for ANY business in 2012. Here are my rules and reasoning in more detail.
1. Long lists of pitch suppliers is surely a sign that the client does not really know what they want and i dont want to pay for someone else's journey of discovery.
2. The creative beauty parade. Accounts being won by through the showing oodles of creative work is misguided at best. Creative is key but is an output of strategy and that comes from working closely with a client not in a restricted environment (which a pitch process has to be)
3. We (by "we" i mean "me") are tight. I love the fact that we are still (5 years in) extremely careful about how we spend our or our clients' money. And so the thought of spending time and money with no fixed return goes against what we are about.
4. I like the sound of it. It makes us sound like a quality company and a business with a bit of cachet if we are able to say - i am sorry but we don't do creative pitches/tenders of this nature.

Let me be clear - we will continue to offer people
1. A (mostly free) digital audit of their rec comms
2. Proposals as to how we can help them
3. We will come and meet you anywhere/anytime and discuss openly without any strings your needs and suggest solutions
4. Seminars and training to educate (be educated) and discuss what is going on in industry

But we just wont go down a long winded, long list - chemistry meet - short list - presentation - final 2 - visit to offices - special videos, party hats and fancy dress etc etc. *1

*1 this policy is subject to constant change dependent on business needs and if you ask us really nicely. But i am probably
categorically going to stick to this in 2012

Review of 2011

So here goes - all these things relate to business rather than life (we had a baby this year which i think just about probably trumps the good stuff below but lets not let reality interfere with an obsession of all things digital, recruitment and media)

1. Best thing about the year - we have grown revenues by 30%, permie staff by 30% (thats 3 people), profitability by approx 25% (creeping costs...). So there will be turkey on the table on Xmas day rather than KFC Bargain Bucket.

2. 2nd best thing - a lot of new clients (LIDL, TGIFridays, Ocado, London Business School, ASOS, netaporter, Anglian Home Improvements, Jamie Oliver Group etc)

3. Most disappointing thing. Mid year we lost a long standing client who we loved working with. I took it well and in no way sulked for a month and pretended that i was so over them and was in fact better off now and much happier now to everyone i spoke to. part of the sentence above is untrue....

4. Biggest surprise - we have sort of become a full service agency. We create and plan a lot of print adverts, we do brochures and EVP projects. Bringing Northgate Arinso into the fold gave us a much bigger skill set and our clients trusted us to deliver our service in new areas. I am pretty sure we justified that trust in spades

5. Nicest surprise - a client was going to go all RPO on us and therefore we would be delivering a much reduced service - then last month they said no we are not.

6. My biggest conversion - i got and now fully evangelise "mobile" and mobile readiness to everyone and anyone. Its where your users will be accessing your site and content - so give the customers what they want.

7. Biggest growth area in our biz - no shock - its social (for projects/and time) and PPC (for revenue and clients)

And finally - its been fun, tiring but fun. Its been my favourite year since launch in 2006 - the work has been varied, the clients have been largely great, suppliers and partners remarkably co-operative.

Not sure i wholly recommend for the sake of your sanity being a father to 4 young children and running a business in a very hands on way (i need to state at this point that i probably do about 20% max of the important parenting stuff).
But in 2011 - i got away with it.

Merry etc and Happy blah blah

Turning Point

I may be insanely optimistic given the macro economic news (FTSE, Eurozone,low growth) but i see a really good year ahead next year for the UK recruitment economy.

Speaking from our own client base (biased towards retail/catering/hospitality/IT) - we are booking increased ad volume in contracts for vast majority of businesses who are up for contract review

we have sign off for (long awaited) new initiatives for Q4 2011/Q1 2012

seem to have some movement of personnel of clients - which has created a healthy new business pipeline

But.....still the news out there is so grim, maybe we are just lucky...