Job Market Globalization - Where Is It?

Transcription

1 IEEE-USA RESOLUTION ON THE NEED TO PROVIDE THE EMPLOYMENT LISTING PRODUCT AS A MEMBER SERVICE Alex Witkowski, IEEE Member WHEREAS, the IEEE, as a professional society, has an obligation to help members enjoy rewarding careers. Given the high EE unemployment rate, help is critical. The primary goal of the Job Listing Service (JLS) should be to maximize availability of permanent and temporary jobs including entry-level and mid-career internships and consulting engagements. Revenue generation should be a secondary goal. WHEREAS, the JLS is currently run by the Advertising Business Staff Executive for Spectrum (Mr. Vick). As a result, the JLS focuses on generating advertising revenue with little if any consideration for unemployed members. Publications is not organized to be accountable to IEEE members. In contrast, the Employment & Career Services Committee (ECSC) includes IEEE members from all US regions who are interested in career issues. ECSC has 10 years experience running a JLS. WHEREAS, the IEEE-USA board passed a June 2003 Resolution noting an unusually high level of complaints from IEEE members about the JLS. In the 15 months since, Spectrum has never bothered to perform a survey of IEEE members to ascertain satisfaction with the job site or gather feedback from members. In fact, Mr. Vick said they consciously decided not to survey because they expected bad results and they had already rationalized that such results would not be valid given frustration over the job environment. WHEREAS, IEEE Local Sections operate numerous, autonomous local IEEE job sites, offering free postings to maximize job availability to members. The JLS has offered IEEE Regions a share of JLS revenue if they shut down their competing sites, but most regions have rejected that offer. Spectrum needs to understand that members need jobs not the nominal cash offered to the Regions. WHEREAS, the June 2003 Resolution expressed concern that high retail prices for job postings discouraged single job listings and resolved that the retail price should be adjusted to an appropriate price that makes it an opportunity so attractive that employers cannot pass it up. Months later, Spectrum responded by raising the single job listing price from $175 to $195 (11.4%) and presenting no analysis at all to justify the JLS pricing plan at the February 2004 IEEE-USA Board meeting at which they were supposed to account for progress against the June 2003 Resolution. WHEREAS, Spectrum has an aggressive, if not reckless, attitude toward pricing since the 2001 relaunch when they tripled the job posting price from $50 (2000) to $150 (2001) without either a business plan or a plan to monitor price competitiveness. In July 2003, Mr. Durniak blames the resulting 72% drop in job posting volume on the economy, but inexplicably fails to address the contemporaneous 200% increase in price of job postings as a likely culprit! He obfuscates the problem by combining Spectrum online and print ads (which had not undergone such a dramatic price increase), stating that total job advertising only dropped 29%. WHEREAS, the online job posting market has been growing dramatically, in part at the expense of the shrinking newspaper classifieds market. This did not bode well for continuing to support Spectrum by print classifieds. Although JLS is not dependent on Spectrum magazine at all, Spectrum took over the JLS from ECSC in 2000 (without even discussing it with ECSC) and has used JLS revenues to support unrelated Spectrum activities. Best management practices (i.e.,

2 activity based costing) dictates that costs be attributed to related revenue to avoid hidden crosssubsidies so that management can promptly address problems. We request that the IEEE International Board transfer JLS management authority to the Employment and Career Services Committee or similar volunteer committee, such that the committee would be responsible for managing all operational and strategic changes including partnerships, pricing, promotions, and service offerings. WHEREAS, competitive pricing for single job posting are critical because most jobs come from small employers, which are unlikely to take advantage of multi-job posting discounts. An AT Kearney study noted that in the San Francisco Bay Area, 77% of all jobs come from employers with less than 500 employees. In July 2003, Mr. Durniak told the IEEE-USA board that the plan is for modest price increases. Five months later, Spectrum raised the retail posting price by 11.4%, hardly modest and particularly callous considering so many IEEE members are unemployed. WHEREAS, the JLS offers retail job postings at $195 per 30-day post on the JLS which has about 28,000 unique visitors per month, 30,000 registered users and about 400 EE jobs compared to Monster which charges $335 for a 60-day post on Monster.com with about 18 million unique visitors per month, 48 million registered users, and 2,600 EE jobs. IEEE job postings are significantly overpriced. WHEREAS, market share is a key indicator of price competitiveness. In July 2004, Spectrum claimed almost 20% market share in EE/CS job postings, implying competitors have 4 times as many EE/CS jobs. Independent verification showed that 5 competitors had 19 times as many EE jobs (i.e., JLS has 5% share) and 26 times as many EE/CS jobs (i.e., JLS has 3.7% share). The JLS ranks sixth (last) in EE jobs among those job sites. Spectrum has repeatedly failed to explain this discrepancy over the last 3 months. WHEREAS, Spectrum claims job posting volume has increased because of improved service, without acknowledging that they significantly reduced average prices of volume job postings by 41% behind the scenes while they raised average prices of retail postings by 11.4%. In July 2003, Mr. Durniak forecasted an increase in average job posting price from $158 (2003) to $165 (2004). Instead, average job posting price fell to $128 (YTD 2004). Average discount price plummeted from $148 (2003) down to $87 (2004). In July 2004, Mr Vick wrote: The IEEE Job Site focus is one more [about] competitive advantage that negates price as an issue. Spectrum has not acknowledged that price has plummeted and that the online job posting market has grown dramatically. These are more plausible drivers of job posting growth than improved service or the phantom competitive advantage that Spectrum claims to have. WHEREAS, 87% of the increased job postings since the June 2003 Resolution were from discounted postings. The JLS pricing structure heavily favors large employers. Furthermore, Spectrum has discounted prices well beyond the published volume discounts. General Dynamics should have paid $88/post based on quantity, but Spectrum charged them $31/post instead. It is not in the interest of IEEE members to charge small employers 6.3 times as much as large employers. WHEREAS, the JLS value to members comes from aggregating job postings that IEEE members cannot easily find either on the leading job sites like Monster or directly on the large employer sites. General Dynamics and Rockwell Collins account for 32% of JLS job postings and the top 8 employers account for 60% of JLS postings. IEEE members can directly access 8 employer sites

3 and view the majority of our jobs. This does not add much value in terms of making it easier for IEEE members to find jobs. WHEREAS, Ms. Delaney (Spectrum) noted that a downside of numerous job postings would be the burden on customer service! That statement is a perfect example of how completely unaligned the mindset of Spectrum staff is relative to the interests of unemployed IEEE members. IEEE pricing encourages job postings to be concentrated in fewer, larger employers. Fewer customers makes IEEE staff workload easier at the expense of IEEE members. Mr. Durniak reported that JLS costs include 2 full-time employees. When 8 customers account for 60% of our postings and and most retail transactions are handled via online credit card transactions, it begs the question what do these two employees do? Is Spectrum using those two employees for other IEEE activities not related to the JLS such as print Spectrum activities while burdening the JLS income statement with the costs of these employees? Spectrum should account to the ECSC as to what these 2 employees do with their 1040 hours each quarter. WHEREAS, Employers cannot access the 25,000 IEEE resumes for less than $2,395 while Monster, with 41 million resumes, offers 2-week access for $400 (50-mile radius, 250 resume views) to $1,000 (national, 500 resume views) and one to twelve-month access with local to national scope for $1,750 to $8,500. IEEE resume searches are outrageously overpriced. For employers also hiring non EE/CS employees, the price for access to our EE/CS-only database becomes even less competitive with Monster. For the first 8 months of 2004, only 38 employers have purchased resume search contracts out of more than 4000 registered companies Spectrum claims to have as potential customers. Keeping price this high when volume is so low demonstrates callous disregard of unemployed IEEE members. WHEREAS, our current market share of about 4% among five other sites averaging about 19% share each suggest Spectrum does not have a foothold in the market. If we were to shut down the JLS, the five leading sites having 95% of the EE/CS job market would easily absorb our job postings. EE job availability would most likely be unchanged. WHEREAS, free job postings and resume searches would address the part of the job listing market that is not being effectively addressed by leading job sites. JLS would offer real value to IEEE members by making otherwise inaccessible jobs available to them. Free posting would eliminate the recruiter s administrative hassle of accounting for a fee. Free job posting supports short-term assignments because the short-term nature of such employment is less likely to justify job posting fees. Free postings would allow IEEE members to post job opportunities they run across so that other IEEE members could benefit from the posting. WHEREAS, facilitating the market for jobs large and small, short and long term, should be a core service offerings of the IEEE. The IEEE should promote short-term projects and internships, paid or unpaid, so (1) engineers can prove themselves in a first job or a new specialty after mid-career academic or professional training, (2) engineers that cannot find long-term employment may fill the gaps with short term opportunities, (3) employers might reduce risk in hiring long-term employees by offering short-term jobs to evaluate engineers, (4) entrepreneurs can post speculative opportunities that might be conditional on the price and skills of applicants. WHEREAS, charging for job postings and resume searches will reduce the demand for job postings and resume searches, which is contrary to member interests. We can generate revenue by other means: Employers and job fair organizers might advertise in addition to post. We can sell context-based advertising, optional services such as bolded headings, and fee-based access for non- IEEE members. Schools could advertise advanced training programs. Resume writers, job search

4 consultants, engineering consulting companies, support services providers, and manufacturers of goods might advertise. Job posting and resume search prices shall be dramatically reduced, if not free. The ECSC and Spectrum shall explore other means to generate revenue. WHEREAS, IEEE cannot use 40-year-old print classifieds business model for IEEE Job Site because mass customization allows Monster to compete with IEEE Job Site in a way that Time could not compete with Spectrum. A user can find EE jobs on Monster as easily as on IEEE Job Site, but Monster has economies of scale. WHEREAS, scale is absolutely necessary to avoid being marginalized by the leading job sites such as Monster. A joint Job Site supported by numerous technical professional organizations such as IEEE-USA, ASME, AIChE, ASCE, ASM, AIME, NSPE, ASQ, ANS, SPIE, HFES, ACerS, APS, ACS, AMS, ASC, ACM would have 1.3 million members and a $3.3M budget at $2.50 per member. Other professional organizations worldwide might be included in this partnership. WHEREAS, The partnership of professional organizations can: (1) shut down duplicative career sites at each professional organization as well as IEEE regional job sites thereby saving money and effort; (2) Negotiate better deal with ASP or develop custom-tailored JLS with support from technology community. Share cost among partners; (3) Advertise JLS through respective periodicals, websites, membership s, mailings and conferences of partner organizations, leveraging complementary technical constituencies for greater awareness and usage; (4) Offer onestop shopping for technical recruiting, increasing mindshare among technical recruiters and making JLS efficient place to seek technical talent. Breadth of technical coverage makes JLS useful when increasing innovation happens at the interface between technical disciplines; and (5) Share advertising costs in newspapers, magazines and billboards. ECSC should be authorized to approach other professional societies to persuade them to combine their job postings on a jointly branded job site that will provide greater awareness and more efficient operation through cost-sharing. WHEREAS, JLS has provided this IEEE board insufficient data and analysis to evaluate job site operating performance and strategy. ECSC has a stronger interest in monitoring performance, especially with respect to alignment with IEEE member interests. WHEREAS, Spectrum stated that they are happy to provide all information to IEEE member representatives as long as (1) access to that data is limited to such representatives to protect competitive interests and (2) IEEE staff time required is limited. We request that the ECSC be given direct access to JLS information including: (1) an administrative access account at CareerCast and full authority to direct the job site vendor to perform services. (2) A file containing individual sales transactions from finance (i.e., date, customer, service/product purchased, payment method, revenue, quantity, etc.) for the last three years. (3) All readily accessible historical & current JLS documents,

5 charts and files. (4) JLS financial and management information going forward.