During last year’s ERE in San Diego I had an opportunity to meet many of the people face to face that I normally trade email, phone calls, friended on RecruitingBlogs or following on Twitter. During the onset of one conversation the following comment was made by a job board owner “DirectEmployers Association, a non-profit.. Now that’s a great angle?“, which left me quite perplexed.
So I naturally responded.. “Angle? What angle?” Which prompted a discussion about our mission and more questions about how DirectEmployers Association is disrupting vendor revenue streams as a non-profit. My answer was quite simple, our members want:
1) better return on investment,
2) increased labor market efficiencies, and
3) new, innovative products and services.
Working as a non-profit DirectEmployers Association can create technologies, programs, processes and partnerships that will achieve the above three points without the need to answer to investors, worry about stock prices and/or push for higher costs. DirectEmployers Association is guided by a board of directors and led by the executive committee and our Executive Director Bill Warren.
Furthermore, we’re in a position to demystify seemingly complex solutions like SEO, because we don’t have an interest in keeping SEO veiled in a cloak of secrets. Instead, we can build an automated solution implementing the technical best practices of SEO, integrate well-known, free, and industry standard analytics from Google, and provide opportunities to improve content best practices of SEO by partnering with agencies. Since we have removed the cost of the technology and data collection, the work-hours provided by the ad agency can be focused on optimization and education.
The DirectEmployers’ employer community only decides to deploy new solutions at no additional cost to our members if the market (our member community) dictates.
The moral of the story:
If your organization fails to provide cost cutting products and/or services, if it fails to provide heightened efficiencies or if your organization fails to provide continued innovation then the market will naturally produce a successor.
So let’s get past our “non-profit barriers“ and better understand the DirectEmployers Association for what it really is, because this type of employer led group is a necessity for the online recruiting industry.