Hippo was setup based on huge amounts of research and feedback from our main audience, the under 25 job seeker.

One of the main things they told us was that on traditional job boards they hated having to deal with ads from recruitment agencies, especially when they don’t know the actual company they will be working for. This evolved into our policy of going direct to employers to advertise, rather than dealing with recruitment companies.

In the past we let recruitment companies post under guidelines that revolved around certain numbers of ads and/or co-branding with the company they’re advertising for.

Of course, we can’t keep recruitment ads out altogether, so what you’ve observed is one of our latest products, ads tailored for recruiters. They cost much much much less than our top line ads, yet still get great stand out due to the way they look in listings. For our candidates however, we’re giving them the choice to view these ads, or not. The board is really all about them and helping them get the jobs they want to get the stuff they need.

What we’re doing isn’t discrimination; we’re in fact opening the doors to recruiters! In the past with our guidelines, we were really strict about what we sold them and allowed them to put on site. Now with recruiter ads they can post away to their hearts delight. And if our candidates don’t want to see those ads, they can switch them off.

Really, if someone want’s to apply direct to an employer, they aren’t even going to click through and read a recruitment ad anyway, so we let them turn it off to streamline their experience.

Give us a call on 1300 788 874, we’re happy to chat about it

The internet is currently all about choice, clustering and filtering.

Companies who are trying to attract an online market - paritcularly the under 25 market - must be flexible in their approach. They need to be brave enough to allow their users to make the website their own.

If a particular company isn't prepared to be flexible, then one of their competitors will be and users will flock to the service that works better for them.

A few examples include:
Facebook groups, iGoogle - tailored, google homepages. News.com.au's new tailorable homepage.

Recruiters will move where their market is. Hippo, I think you have done the right thing

I love reading your posts Thomas, keep up the good work!

What is with this pr bull? I just tried a job search on hippo and they are down to less than 120 jobs! "oh we are the best, under 25's love us, don't use other job boards, we are the best, i'll give you some free adverts" Is Culver still around?

Unless you purchase a featured advert, your ad will not show at the top. Dir. I get Seek ads for $20ish each, MyCareer for <$20, Ragtradejobs for $50ish - why bother with hippo.

I worked in an agency environment for over 8 years before moving inhouse for a large retailer. We use agencies as well as our own inhouse team, and hippo should learn that recruiters are the largest advertiser on any job board.

Why are you using commission monster to fill up the space? At lease it's not google adsense showing up competitors adverts now. Anymore investors trying to sell class 2 shares?

Wow, certainly some interesting discussion going on about my post.

#hippo you are going to have a harder time in the next 6-12 months with most recruiters slashing job posts and from the feedback I have seen and been apart and heard your sales team do not have a very good rep, you need to give free adverts to them. It's good to see you have completed integration with adlogic.

But seriously, you don't have to pay me to tell you that your default search results page is stuffed up. PS your test site is still online. Don't shift blame on others, fix it.

#abenz correction, they are down to around approx 70 live job ads on 30/12/2008

#abenz I consulted to your directors when they were presented with the investment proposals from hippo and they were seriously considering putting in the $$. But the online employment strategy I developed for you has worked!! Great to see that the career site receives more applications than job boards referrals. What are you receiving now? 50,000+ visitors per month? Well done.

Peace.

Our retail brands career sites are all doing very well, we have a number of "high impact" strategies for 2009. I will contact you when I am back in the office on the 12th, I have another project for you.

We used pageup for the erecruitment system and one of the digital marketing agencies on the panel. We are currently receiving between 500 - 1000 applications per week over the xmas break (casual recruitment) but that is beside the point.....

Our advertising/marketing budgets have reduced significantly over the past month, and we are now very selective on where/when we post job adverts. Reading blog posts like this are opening up our eyes to the various problems in the online recruitment market.

I didn't realise that the comments fields allowed html. I will have to change that.

Nice pic, but no more hippo bashing please.