Other Job Boards "Shocked" CollegeRecruiter.com Eliminated Resume Searching
The feedback continues to flow in from stakeholders in the job board industry regarding the decision by CollegeRecruiter.com to eliminate resume searching. Our two primary concerns were:
- Illegitimate organizations, most of which were international, using the resume data for illegitimate purposes such as identity theft. Most job boards have done of good job of preventing that by manually verifying their clients.
- Legitimate organizations, most of which are domestic, using the resume data for illegitimate purposes such as pitching credit cards and other financial products to high income earners or those who have the potential to be high income earners, such as the college students and recent graduates who are the primary users of CollegeRecruiter.com.
The feedback we've received from other job board owners has been decidedly mixed with those who rely on resume searching revenues tending to fall into the negative camp while those who have never offered resume searching all falling into the positive camp.
Chris Russell of AllCountyJobs.com and the creator of social network JobBoarders mentioned that he uses JobTarget to power his job board and I know that many boards work with JT or one of their competitors. But if a well known financial services company signs up for resume searching and pays with a legitimate credit card, how do you know whether they're using the data for employment purposes or to pitch credit cards to your users?
While it might be tempting to say "buyer beware" (candidate beware) and to fool ourselves into thinking that what they want more than anything is for their resume to be distributed as widely as possible in order to maximize the likelihood they get a job, I think a better long-term, more ethical perspective is to ask yourself what truly is in the best interests of the candidate. Getting credit card pitches and having their identity stolen are not outcomes that they likely contemplated when they posted their resumes so it is disingenuous to argue that the candidates assumed the risk. If they didn't know the risk existed, how can they have knowingly assumed it?
The pursuit or profit is noble and drives capitalism. I'm all for it. But the blind pursuit of short-term profits at the expense of others in the short-term and our own profits in the long-term is foolish.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Chris and many of the other members of JobBoarders. And I like the people at JobTarget. But they and we have an honest disagreement over the future of resume searching. I feel that it is a product that most job boards are better off not offering. I suspect that many of them would agree if they felt confident that they could replace the revenue that they would lose if they followed our lead. But they aren't so confident so are unlikely to eliminate resume searching unless it is forced upon them. I hope it isn't forced upon them, but I believe it is only a matter of time.
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