After CareerBuilder and Monster, it’s Workopolis’ turn to jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon! The job board now allows candidates and employers to communicate directly through social networking sites—a whole new strategy with which the portal wishes to conquer the Canadian SME market.
Workopolis’ new objective is to go beyond simple job postings by enhancing the employer brand. The site has just beefed up its recruiting offer with a new option, allowing companies to create their own personalized Web page to showcase their employer brand.
“The job hunters who come to us want to find all the information about a company in one place,” explains Workopolis spokesperson Caroline Nadeau. “Much like a dating site,candidates can now consult an employer’s main qualities before applying.”
Enhancing the online visibility of SMEs
Under the theme “Time to shine,” Workopolis gives companies the opportunity to promote themselves to be more attractive to job seekers. On the new optimization page, employers can also add links to Twitter, Facebook or blogs, thus allowing candidates to contact them.
Since most large companies are already active in Web 2.0, Workopolis is mainly targeting SMEs, which sometimes lack the means to take the leap. Caroline Nadeau says, “We are targeting small- and medium-sized businesses that do not have the infrastructure or budgets to develop a career section on their website. We are giving them a new alternative.”
On their personalized page, companies mention those aspects deemed likely to interest job seekers, such as benefits, salary and work environment. Each information module added to the page costs $500, but the first two are free for companies already dealing with the portal.
Job boards in profound mutation
With this repositioning, Workopolis is more than ever surfing on the social networking wave, following in the footsteps of Monster, which recently initiated a blog, Facebook page and several Twitter accounts. RegionsJob has done the same, in France. Other sites, like CareerBuilder, have also added RSS feeds to their platform, and CareerBuilder has just launched an iPhone application for job seekers. Does this mean that the days of traditional job portals are coming to an end? According to Caroline Nadeau, it all depends on the clientele you’re targeting.
“We can’t forget that not everyone has high-speed Internet. Plus, there are various generations of job seekers.Baby boomers are not as used to Web 2.0, and they are often reluctant to communicate directly with employers,” she wraps up.