Job-a-matic

Publisher Spotlight: Jeremiah Owyang of Web-Strategist.com

It's time for another Publisher Spotlight, where we interview a distinguished Simply Hired Publisher to learn his or her tips and tricks for customization, promotion, and new uses. In this spotlight, we interviewed Jeremiah Owyang, who runs Web Strategy, about how he uses the Simply Hired Job-a-matic.

 

1. Tell us a little about your site/company/product.

I run a "Career Blog" which spans my career focus on Web Strategy: How companies connect with their customers using web technologies. I started this several years ago and was one of the first bloggers to cover social and big business. I kept at it, and it paid off. It's now an extension of my job as an Industry Analyst at Altimeter Group, where I'm one of the owners. I use it to glean research insights in the comments, build connections, and share my insights from my research.

2. Why did you decide to sign up with Job-a-matic?

I saw Guy Kawasaki do this, but I don't think he's using Job-a-matic now. I didn't want to put ads on my site, as I really want to add value to the readers, not hit them with ads. I want to be a trusted source of content and actually since I write for corporate web teams, they are often thinking about growing their careers. It's a good fit for my content, as I've discussed their career paths at great extent in my research and my frequent "on the move" posts where I discuss who's getting jobs in the industry.

3. Why did you pick Simply Hired over other options?

What? There are other options? Quick tell me who they are so I can cut a deal!

4. What have you found to be the biggest benefit of Job-a-matic?

It's turnkey, simple embed, and away we go. I configured it a few years ago, just once, and that's it. It's been running smoothly for years, and I get a check in the mail every month. At first it was beer money, and now it's keg money! Boo yeah!

5. Do you have any customization to your board? If so, please describe.

I had a developer adjust the CSS so it would match my style, which was key to have a smooth experience.

6. What is the biggest benefit of Job-a-matic for your audience?

This is great content, which fits my audience's career-minded objectives at work and their next jobs.

7. How do you promote your Job-a-matic board?

Oh yeah, this is a great question. An integrated perspective is key: I tweet out when new jobs are here to my near 100,000 followers on Twitter, and as I do regular "on the move" series shouting out who got jobs, I point to the job board, aligning the content. As you might imagine, my promotion of the job board attracts recruiters who know I have a large--but targeted--audience of web, business, and marketing professionals.

8. What kind of promotion do you give job listings posted to your board?

It's featured above the fold on my right hand column. I'm planning a redesign soon, and it will receive similar levels of awareness.

9. To what do you owe the success of your job board?

It took some patience, this isn't something that you can turn on and expect to be successful. You have to provide people with a reason to come to your site on a frequent basis and do integrated marketing.

10. If you could pass along a single piece of advice to a new Job-a-matic publisher, what would it be?

Build compelling content on a weekly basis (I've over 2,500 posts written nearly all by me) and be consistent. This gives people a reason to come back.

11. For fun, what do you do with the income generated from your Job-a-matic account?

Sooth my patient and beautiful wife with fancy gifts in exchange for my incessant blogging. Wait what? I could use the money for myself?

 

Publisher Spotlight: Maynard Anderson of VetFriends.com

Continuing our Simply Hired Publisher Spotlight series where we interview a Simply Hired Publisher to learn his or her tips and tricks for success, we caught up with Maynard Anderson, the Marketing Director of VetFriends.com. Maynard shared with us some great marketing and promotional ideas--both to drive traffic to the Vetfriends site and job board, as well as how to entice employers to post jobs.

 

1. Tell us a little about your site/company/product.
VetFriends.com (www.vetfriends.com) is the largest web site reconnecting U.S. military veterans with over 1,200,000 members nationwide. Founded in 2000 by a proud U.S. veteran, VetFriends continues its mission to reunite, honor and support all U.S. veterans and military personnel. Some of the main features/tools at VetFriends are: Veteran people search; search over 10,000 Military Units; Veteran Business Directory; Veteran job boards; information on how to receive your own or a family member's military records and medals; reunion postings; message boards; military discounts and more. VetFriends.com also offers a variety of authentic veteran-submitted content from reunion stories, military photos, military jokes, lingo and cadences. VetFriends.com additionally runs the largest online store of U.S. military veteran pride items and collectibles, helping veterans to show their pride of service.

2. Why did you decide to sign up with Job-a-matic/Simply Hired's API/Simply Hired's publisher tools?
VetFriends.com launched a nationwide online database of open job positions to help veterans in search of employment and career opportunities. U.S. veteran and military men and women are the foundation of what has made America the symbol of freedom and opportunity that it is today. Companies nationwide can now give back and post their job openings for the VetFriends military veteran community of over 1 Million veterans to apply to. The job board is one of many tools and directories that VetFriends offers to help veterans nationwide. 

   2a. Why did you pick Simply Hired over other options?
VetFriends.com decided on Simply Hired because of the ease of implementation to our site; the user friendly control panel with reporting and statistics; along with the vast amount of jobs that were shown and could be offered to our veteran members through their directory. In addition, the pricing platform is both reasonable and competitive, and gives us the freedom to create discount codes and special job packages to offer.

3. What have you found to be the biggest benefit of Job-a-matic?
With the help of Job-a-matic, the Military and Veteran Job Network at VetFriends enables visitors to search by location, job keyword and specific company through 5 million job postings to find and apply to open positions. This addition to VetFriends.com provides an easy way for veteran and military heroes, along with their family and friends to search and apply to recent job openings both locally and nationwide. New jobs are updated daily in the Job-a-matic network, and we can present them to members through a variety of unique marketing tools, specifically the local job post feeds, which add a touch of personalization.

4. Do you have any customizations to your board? If so, please describe.
Customizations include adding our header and design feel, along with a targeted link taking visitors to a customized veteran & military specific information page at: http://www.vetfriends.com/jobpagevetfriends.cfm

5. What is the biggest benefit of Job-a-matic for your audience?
The Job-a-matic network provides a quick and easy way for our veterans to search a vast database of jobs by specific search criteria. The listings are up to date, and can be easily promoted through feeds. Furthermore, the network provides an ideal platform for companies to give back and thank U.S. military veterans by posting their employment opportunities in the network.

6. How do you promote your Job-a-matic board?
We promote through a variety of platforms, some of which are: targeted focus emails to our subscriber base, strategically placed banner feeds throughout our site matching user IP address to location; SEO and online press release distributions, along with package and discount code offerings. We also emphasize to all companies that military veterans are ideal employees to have working for your business for a number of reasons:

1. When you hire a veteran you are eligible to receive a tax creditfrom the U.S. Government.
2. Veterans are fantastic hires because they work well in teams, have leadership qualities, learn quickly and know technology.
3. Veterans have passed at least one extensive background check.

7. What kind of promotion do you give job listings posted to your board?
VetFriends.com has an email subscriber list of 140,000 veterans, and averages ~600,000 page views per month. All job posts through the VetFriends.com board at http://vetfriends.jobamatic.com/a/jobs/find-jobs are strategically placed in our devoted member emails; are promoted throughout our web site; and we offer competitive pricing along with codes and discounts.

8. To what do you owe the success of your job board?
To our valued U.S. Veteran and Military members, along with all our service men and women nationwide. In addition, we thank Job-a-matic for providing the platform, tools and resources helping us to promote new jobs to our veterans, their families and friends.

Special bonds are formed between U.S. military personnel who have and are serving side by side in the U.S. Armed Forces. These friendships can withstand the test of time, serving side by side with their brothers & sisters in arms. With this in mind, VetFriends would like to take a moment to thank and reflect on the sacrifices and bravery of all who have served their country in times of need. Thank you U.S. veteran and military heroes of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard – We salute you.

9. If you could pass along a single piece of advice to a new Job-a-matic user, what would it be?
Promote, promote…promote! Constantly display your Job-a-matic banners and/or links throughout your site and e-newsletters to help awareness and to bring in new visitors. Also, do not be afraid to offer great package discounts and competitive offers for your board.

10. What do you do with the income generated from your Job-a-matic board?
Funds generated by the job board go towards the continued mission of VetFriends.com – to reunite, honor and support all U.S. veterans and military personnel. Additionally, funds help with the advertising of the job board to reach out to veterans and companies nationwide who support and would like to thank our veteran heroes. VetFriends.com encourages all companies and all Americans to honor and support U.S. veterans and active military of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard -- Heroes of our nation.

Your Crystal Ball into a Golden Future - Simply Hired's Employment Outlook

Each month, SimplyHired.com releases an Employment Outlook which highlights the national and local employment forecasts as well as industry and employer trends. This can be a great resource for publishers to find out which industries are gaining jobs or losing jobs, the areas with the highest job counts, and even the top employers in major metropolitan areas.

How publishers can use the Employment Outlook:

• Create job boards specific to the metro areas with the highest number of jobs
• Create job boards for specific industries that have plenty of jobs
• Customize your job board results to specifically include jobs at the largest employers
• Reach out to (or create) online groups for job seekers in the most competitive metropolitan areas, and link to your job board with jobs in that area

In general, this can be a great way to get a sense of the hiring market, and how to tailor your job board(s) to maximize your earnings. If you provide content to your site visitors, it can also be great information for those job seekers as well. Quality content like this will keep them coming back for more!

Find the current Simply Hired’s Employment Outlook each month at http://blog.simplyhired.com/employment-reports/.

Publisher Spotlight: Mike Clark of HealthCareHiring.com

It's time for another Publisher Spotlight, where we interview a Simply Hired Publisher to learn his or her tips and tricks for customization, promotion, and new uses. In this spotlight, we interviewed Mike Clark, who runs Health Care Hiring, about how he uses the Simply Hired API to create customized job sites within the health care sector--both in and outside of the U.S.

 

1. Tell us a little about your site/company/product.
Health Care Hiring (www.healthcarehiring.com) was started in 2001, after the dot-com bust, when I realized that the health care sector is not subject to mass layoffs and that there is a continuing, growing need for nurses, nursing aides, medical technicians and technologists, advanced practitioners, informatics, and all job descriptions throughout the health and medical fields. My company, Coconut Island Software (www.coconutisland.com) had developed and marketed "passive candidate" search engines for recruiters --but after 2001, companies were no longer looking for employees. Rather, people were looking for jobs. Recruiters were going out of business. The site has grown to about 5 million pages with contact information for health providers in 140 specialties, searchable by specialty, state, city and name. The basic idea is that job seekers can contact hospitals, clinics, doctors, etc. in their local area. We also have a lot of users who are medical billers and transcriptionists, and who use Health Care Hiring in their daily jobs.

2. Why did you decide to sign up with Job-a-matic and use Simply Hired's API?
Well, having kids to feed and tuition to pay…turning websites into revenue is a great idea! After healthcarehiring.com gained momentum, we began with AdSense ads. We published CareerBuilder jobs for a while, however in early 2009 they discontinued their publisher program, so we did some in-depth searching and found Simply Hired. We were invited to participate in the publisher program. Using the API to generate fresh page content is also helpful, and we have made use of this feature on a series of about 70 local jobs sites linked from www.jobs-central.info.

3. Why did you pick Simply Hired over other options?
When we were searching for a new jobs affiliate program, we talked to some other companies, and we found the Simply Hired/Job-a-matic staff to be the most responsive, helpful and courteous. Also we felt the time was right for the pay-per-click model. This gives employers a cost-effective way to advertise job openings--really a very competitive business model when compared with the costs of job postings on monster et al. When you invest a lot of time in site development, it's nice to believe the affiliate program is going to be around for a while.

4. What have you found to be the biggest benefit of Simply Hired's API?
There are many. (Sorry, here comes the geek-speak...) I am a programmer, and have experience working with several API programs. Simply Hired is simply the best. It's a programmer's delight. It's well documented. It's configurable. The variables are named with short names, which makes programming easier. It accepts variables separated by dashes (-) and slashes [/] rather than by equals [=] and ampersands [&], which makes it easier to pass the variables by http using different scripts on different servers written in different programming languages. The query structure is "friendly" to apache URL rewrite. It's accurate. Specifying certain health and medical jobs can be tough, because certain keywords (i.e. health, medical) appear in many, many job descriptions. The Simply Hired API accepts a long string of exclusion terms [+NOT+] which is invaluable in keeping the results on-target. They don't make changes requiring sites to alter their scripts. It's blazing fast. There have been very few problems and they get fixed quickly. We pound it relentlessly from 300 websites and 600 RSS feeds. It holds up to the punishment.

5. Do you have any customization that using the API allows you to do? If so, please describe.
There are specific API calls for international jobs, which we use for healthcarehiring.co.uk and healthcarehiring.ca. We have also developed a script which calls the XML from the Simply Hired API, and converts it to an RSS feed. Not a big deal really, but this allows us to use services like Twitterfeed to post to social networking sites. We have a job search box on most every page, which uses one script to access the API, and these pages feature a list of current jobs, which uses another script to post jobs relevant to the page content.

6. How do you promote your job board?
For search engines, we rely on organic search. Most of our web pages include a list of job postings, and the pages get submitted to the major engines using sitemaps.

7. What kind of promotion do you give job listings posted to your board?
Our primary focus is posting jobs. We do have employer sign-ups, but it is a small fraction. For social networking sites, we are using Twitterfeed to post individual job descriptions to Twitter and Facebook. We can reach a lot of people--especially young people--and we are doubly qualifying them because when they click on a twitter link, they come to our site, and they have to click a second time to follow up on the job posting.

8. To what do you owe the success of your job board?
We try to post valuable content that people want and need in their lives, their jobs and their businesses. We hope that people will find us through organic searches because our sites are not focused on individual keywords or phrases. Rather, we now have over 300 sites with about 40 million pages. Most of them are directories of contact information. Our latest series of sites is linked from www.guide-central.info. Volume, a numbers game, shelf space--call it what you will. There are hundreds of millions of people searching the web every day, and a lot of them are looking for jobs.

9. If you could pass along a single piece of advice to a new Job-a-matic publisher, what would it be?
Keep on truckin'. Keep developing good content. Keep promoting your content. Keep improving your efficiency. Keep innovating. Keep looking for new ways to reach out and touch someone.

10. For fun, what do you do with the income generated from your Job-a-matic account?
Food, rent, gas, tuition--it goes into the general fund--and maybe a little bit filters into the general's pocket...

Setting up Contextual Widgets

Over the past few months, we’ve had a number of announcements regarding job search widgets, including customizable widgets and international widgets. You may be wondering what the big deal is. In fact, job widgets can be a great way to boost your revenue, as well as provide very targeted and relevant job content to your site visitors.

To set up contextual widgets, first sign into your Job-a-matic® account (if you do not sign in before visiting the Widget Gallery, you will not get paid for sponsored jobs clicks). Navigate to the Promote tab and the Widget Gallery will appear. There are two types of widgets to choose from: the new customizable widget and pre-skinned widgets. Choose which widget you would like to display on your site. You can adjust the job content of either to match the pages of your site.

Choose the number of jobs that you wish to appear in the widget (max 20) and select whether you would like jobs posted to your Job-a-matic board above backfill jobs (recommended), or if you only want to display jobs from your board.

For customizable widgets: Enter the header for your widget (Ex: Product Marketing Jobs)

The Keywords and Location are where you can adjust the job listings that appear so that they match the content of your page.
 
Keyword Options:

1. Backfill: This means that the Keywords / Location will match your backfill settings. If you click the edit button and change your backfill settings, it will also change the backfill jobs of your Job-a-matic board.
2. Custom search: Here you can set this particular widget to search for particular jobs, differing from your board’s backfill. For example, if the widget will be alongside an article about healthcare, you can set your custom keywords to search for nurse jobs, physician jobs, physical therapist jobs, etc.

Location Options:

1. Backfill: This will set the location of the jobs displayed in the widget to your backfill location. Clicking the Edit button and changing the backfill will also change the backfill of your job board.
2. Based on user IP: Great for widgets that are placed along content that does not mention a specific location. This option matches the job content to the location of the user viewing the page, using information from their IP address.
3. Custom location: You can set the widget to show jobs from a specific location, and can be set to match the content of the page you place it on (Ex: San Francisco jobs). This will not change the backfill from your Job-a-matic board.

 Finally you can adjust the width, inclusion of an “All Jobs” link, “Post a Job” link or search box and (in the case of customizable widgets) the colors and appearance of the widget.

To place the widget on your site, copy and paste the customized HTML code provided below into your page.

Not sure how your content relates to job search? Just look for keywords within the content of the page. Possible content for widgets include:

• Company names
• Locations
• Skills or experience
• Job titles
• Industries (healthcare, finance)

Relevant job content displayed throughout your site is seen as valuable information rather than spam, making your users more likely to click on links to those jobs. Not only can contextual job widgets increase the user experience on your site, but they also promote your job board and increase your revenue.

Spotlight: U.S. News Best Careers 2010

Want more than a Job-a-matic board on your site to offer quality job content to your readers? Our customizable widgets not only get job info onto any page of your site, but they can be tailored to match the look and feel of the rest of your site. A great example of the customizable widgets being used by one of our larger partners is U.S. News.

Recently, U.S. News, a platform of the U.S. News Media Group, launched their annual list of the 50 Best Careers for 2010 online at www.usnews.com/careers with Simply Hired’s nifty contextual job search widgets on each career’s profile pages. Using the source code for the customizable Job-a-matic widgets and making some minor tweaks, U.S. News implemented job widgets that are incorporated seamlessly into the site, both in look and content.

To implement widgets like U.S. News, sign into your Job-a-matic account, navigate to the Promote tab, and click the link to Customizable widgets. There you can customize the content and color of the widgets, and pull the HTML code to insert the widget into your site.

Holiday Promotions 2009: Discount Codes and Packages!

It’s that time of the year again. The weather becomes chilly, holiday music starts playing on the radio, and you can hear the faint “ca-ching” sound from cash registers around the globe…

This holiday season, don’t let your job board get lost in the crowd. Instead, why don’t you promote your Job-a-matic job board with a percent discount or job posting package deal to make it stand out? They are simple to set up and just might be the incentive some people might need to post their jobs on your site.

Discount Codes
Discount codes are the perfect way to promote your job board to a large audience, such as on your website or in a newsletter. They work much like discounts in traditional advertisements you may be seeing now online: you set the code to grant the user a percentage or dollar discount off your regular job listing price. You determine the discount!

You also have the capabilities to limit the code to be used only on a certain number of jobs (“First 10 jobs posted get 50% off!”) or for a certain length of time (Now through the end of December take $10 off!”).

Job Packages
Job packages are geared for those customers who are interested in posting a large quantity of jobs. Your customers pay for the bundle up-front with the first posting, and subsequent job postings will not be charged as long as they enter their package code.

With job packages, you can set a specific amount of jobs in the package (“Post 3 jobs for $100”) or set the package code to allow an unlimited number of job postings for a set price (“$300 for unlimited postings this month only!”).

Both discount code and job packages can be found and set up in your Job-a-matic account under the Promote tab.

Happy Holidays!

BlogHer Conference '07

We're sending two of our most trusted employees (read: the first two with blogs who raised their hands) to Chicago to attend BlogHer, the annual gathering of female bloggers. We are honored to be first-time sponsors of the event, which is slated to draw more than 800 bloggers to learn more about their passion (and in some cases their livelihood).

Because we adore bloggers, we have set up a special landing page for conference attendees at www.jobamatic.com/blogher. And if you attend BlogHer and set up a Job-a-Matic job board on your site (we're talking board up-and-running, not just sending in your info!), we will reward your efforts by entering you in a little contest we've set up. You'll be in the running for a $250.00 gift certificate to the spa of your choice. Not too shabby: your blog gets treated to a cool job site and you, if you're lucky, will get treated to a much-deserved day of me-time. Winners will be announced September 1, 2007, so start thinking about whether you're more into Shiatsu, Swedish, or Thai Yoga Massage!

Here are the rules, in case that's your thing. Meanwhile, Lucas, our Director of Marketing and non-practicing attorney (admittedly, one of the best kind), has been kind enough to boil it down. Attend BlogHer. Set up a job site at www.jobamatic.com/blogher. Get it live and working on your site. Live in the US or Canada (and where contests are legal -- see rules). Be 21 (no we will not ID you, unless you ask nicely.) Win. Get $250 towards a spa day. Do a dance of joy.

Good luck -- and remember, you need to play to win.

Spotlight on Stanford Publishing

Since 1978, Stanford Publishing Courses (SPC) has offered continuing education to working professionals in magazine and book publishing. SPC alumni include some of the worldwide elite of the publishing world, both in the traditional print media and in web publishing, as their Publishing on the Web workshop has been educating Web professionals in the art and business of content-rich online publishing since 1995. SPC even provides a Virtual Seminar Series, which allows cost-effective continuing education in the form of one-hour publishing seminars, delivered via phone and Web.

It’s no surprise that such a savvy, forward-thinking institution would be a proud user of Job-a-Matic.

The Stanford Publishing Courses job board (http://stanfordpublishing.jobamatic.com/) is a great example of a niche board that offers rich, relevant content for educated professionals looking for the right opportunity in both commercial publishing and related positions with academic institutions. As one of the elite academic institutions of the United States and in particular one whose long history of collaboration with the innovators of Silicon Valley has given them a cutting-edge reputation, Stanford needs to provide a rich, smart-looking, and usable interface for sophisticated users. This job board delivers it, with seamless design integration with the main SPC site.

They make their board visible and usable by linking to it right off the left-hand navigation on the home page, and all “child” pages have handy footer links so the job board is always easy to locate. At $40.00 per 30-day job listing, they’re selling modestly after about a month and a half, and making good use of the backfill feature to keep a steady flow of relevant job listings available for their users.

Holly Brady, Director of the Stanford Publishing Courses, is enthusiastic about the addition of an industry-specific job board for the SPC site and looking forward to the upcoming Job-a-matic features that let publishers further customize the look and behavior of their site. (Stay tuned!) Meanwhile, the SPC job board is already delivering great custom content to a highly discerning user base.

Do you have a Job-a-Matic job board you’d like us to feature? Drop us a line!

You're Invited!

Every Friday at noon, Simply Hired hosts a special catered lunch for employees, partners and friends.  If you live in the Bay Area (or ever plan to visit), we'd love to have you over for lunch. 

It's a great chance to meet the great people behind the product and voice your suggestions for future features. 

Please RSVP by , and we'll be sure to save you a seat!