2000's - The Digital Age is Upon Us

Economic growth marked the beginning of the decade, followed by the Great Recession in 2007 which was the longest recession since WWII, linked to the subprime mortgage crisis. Resumes began flooding the job boards, but the quantity of resumes did not equate to quality applicants. In fact, job requirements were getting longer and more and more specific, in part as new specialized roles emerged, but also because the fact that ‘space’ on the internet was not the same cost as space in the Help-Wanted section of the newspaper. Recruiters quickly got into the habit of simply passing on the internally developed job description expecting prospects to read it all.

Campus recruiting existed in earlier decades, usually in the form of employers or military recruiters setting up booths along hallways and courtyards; but the early 2000’s is when companies started to review and expand their strategies around university relations, networking events, and on-campus interviewing programs for early career workers.

As competition on campus ignited over seniors, paid internships could attract talented and promising underclassmen. The reasons why campus recruiting became such an important strategy are that companies could hire students with potential and mold them into hard to fill positions, as well as market their brand for future roles. In some mid- to large-sized companies, campus recruiting efforts have virtually eliminated the need for companies to advertise and search for entry level hires. A very few even eliminated the need to hire experienced workers as their internal mobility for all but entry-level approached 100%.

At the same time, technology demands outpaced the ability to hire or train workers. More and more companies started to hire IT and software engineering workers, the phrase “war for talent” was coined in 1997 and a book of the same name was published by McKinsey in 2001 (see 1990’s Milestone Reference # 44). The book never did define Talent but it was in such high demand that even more recruitment organizations started to run Superbowl ads.1

The good news is that companies were able to attract and hire workers at a faster rate than ever before. The bad news is that the increased use of technology, stronger demand, and higher stakes led to more impersonal recruitment practices and negative sentiment from candidates increased.

Recruiters even got their own Yahoo HotJobs Super Recruiter action heroes in 2005.

Prior to LinkedIn’s ascent, significant numbers of top managerial jobs were filled primarily by ‘executive search firms’ including large, prestigious firms like Korn Ferry, Russell Reynolds, Heidrick & Struggles and Goodrich & Sherwood along with thousands of independent headhunters. By the turn of the century as the economy, especially as the tech sector exploded during the dot.com boom, these firms rapidly expanded their services from C-level to Director and Managerial levels. Kennedy Publications’ Red Book, a directory of more than 13,000 search firms during this decade was the bible for these organizations, each with databases (consisting of file cabinets full of resumes) built by their researchers. They were the most efficient AND most expensive source of candidates for employers. As gatekeepers, they developed an understanding of candidates’ career goals and generally only approached candidates with an opportunity that was appropriate. On the negative side, employers who used these firms extensively included agreements not to recruit for other companies from their clients- something few candidates realized as they sought to improve their careers.

But it was LinkedIn’s launch in 2002 that eventually would structurally change the recruiting marketplace forever. LinkedIn changed the market by making the information about who-worked-where public. Now employers could recruit for higher level professional positions in-house or with the help of contingent placement agencies willing to negotiate much lower rates. LinkedIn may have been one of hundreds more digital ‘sources’ emerging but it was the most visible and collectively they led to increasing recruiting specialization around analytics, recruitment marketing, sourcing and operations throughout the next two decades.  

2000’s Milestones:

  • 2000 – Newspaper Income from Help Wanted Ads peaks at 9 Billion dollars in the US.2
  • 2000 – The Dotcom ‘Bubble’ bursts.3
  • 2000 – ZoomInfo founded.4
  • 2000 –  ePredix created.5
  • 2000 – Search Wizards launched6
  • 2001 – 9/11 Terrorist attack on World Trade Center.7
  • 2002 – LinkedIn launches.8
  • 2003 – Myspace launches.9
  • 2003 – Android software released.10
  • 2004 – Facebook launches.11
  • 2004 – Jobster is launched.12
  • 2004 – Hirevue launched.13
  • 2004 – Indeed launched.14
  • 2004 – Corporate Recruiting Blogs emerge.15
  • 2005 – Youtube launched.16
  • 2006 – Internet Applicant Rule defined.17
  • 2006 – Twitter launches.18
  • 2006 – EY pioneers Facebook for interns.19
  • 2007 – The first SourceCon was held in Atlanta.20
  • 2007 – Sodexo begins using social media to tell candidates about company culture.21
  • 2007 – Sourcing Institute Foundation launched.22
  • 2008 – Glassdoor launches.23
  • 2008 – StackOverflow launches.24
  • 2008 – Biometric Information Privacy Act.25
  • 2008 – SmartRecruiter launches.26
  • 2009: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.27
  • 2009 – First HRevolution in Louisville, KY.28
  • 2009 – First Social Recruiting Summit ‘Tweetup’ at Google.29

References

  1. The willingness to spend millions of dollars marketing recruitment technology to the public began with MonsterBoard.
    “Although Monster and Hotjobs ran the first Super Bowl ads in 1999, Kforce ran one in 2000 to follow these job boards. I worked for Kforce/Romac at the time and got to see the commercial before it aired. It was an exciting time for us. Unfortunately,  they were not prepared for the response. After the ad ran, the website crashed within minutes because of the response…..who knew? Oops.” Note: Superbowl ads once crashed Kforce’s website.
    Top 10 Employment-Related Super Bowl Commercials of All Time – ERE
    Source: From the notes of Cathy Henesey
  2. As a source of hire, Newspapers dominated from the 1950’s to 2000. By 2002 the 9 billion dollars+ that newspapers earned printing Help-Wanted ads had shrunk to 4 billion and, by 2011, was less than 1billion. At its worst, for every $1 in advertising that was added to the internet, newspapers lost $10 in revenue.
    Now Almost Gone: The Decline Of Print-Based Help Wanted Ads – SourceCon
  3. The Dot.com Bubble bursting is a reflection of the significant Nasdaq losses (75%)  between March 2000 and October 2002 after five precious years of incredible gains that took the index from 750 to more than 5000. Trillions were made… and lost. More importantly, the too early promise of the internet crashed on overvalued IT stocks throwing the first generation of IT employees out of work.
    Dotcom Bubble – Overview, Characteristics, Causes
  4. Zoom Information, providing contact information as B2B business leads, was originally established in 2000 as Eliyon Technologies by founders Yonatan Stern and Michel Decary and acquired by DiscoverOrg in 2007. Not to be confused with Zoom.
    ZoomInfo
  5. ePredix was one of the first companies to put assessments on line at scale.”
    Source: from the notes of Charles Handler
  6. Search Wizards was launched in August of 2000, as a technical staffing company, doing primarily perm placement. My background was in contract staffing with RHI, and I wanted to return to that service when I had built up my resources.   I worked solo wearing all hats, sales, recruiting, back office, etc.   I gradually started placing some contract tech consultants, managing about 25 on billing.   I experienced 9/11 and then the dot bomb and just kept rolling.   In 2004 I started to get calls for me to take on contract recruiting roles and was able to juggle managing my billable folks and be billable myself.   I started to get an increasing amount of requests for contract recruiters and it became apparent that there were not many (if any) firms dedicated to the placement of contract recruiters, so I rebranded and let the tech consultants die off.  In 2005 I was approached by Rob McIntosh to join his team at MS- CST (Central Sourcing).  I was put in a lead sourcing role and he gave me the opportunity to build (and payroll) the entire team – which as you probably are aware included:  Shelly, Glenn G, Eric, Jeanna Barrie, Jim Stroud, etc.   We were building out Rob’s model to have a central team supporting all tech recruiting groups.   We were virtual and on-site, your choice.   It was a dream team of what went on to become the sourcing core.”
    Source: from the notes of Leslie O’Connor
  7. While the terrorist attack on 9/11 still remains a major part of the American psyche and that of her allies, it did not empty cities but it did provide enormous impetus to the US Defense industries and proved that the volunteer approach to military services were viable. September 11th 2001 was also the first day of the HR Technology Conference in Baltimore Md- situated between the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. Thousands of HR and TA professionals were present when the towers came down and the conference was canceled with the advice to immediately leave the city.
    9/11: One Day in America
  8. “To me, [LinkedIn was] the real first professional network online that was legitimate…Linkedin.com eliminated the rusing/cold-calling into companies for us. It created a warm call that allowed us to easily find people and figure out how to call them to network. After a few years, they had to figure out how they were going to make money. They discouraged recruiters from connections and I was put in “LinkedIn Jail” often. They eventually seem to give in and figured this was their revenue stream by allowing companies to have profiles, post jobs, and have recruiter licenses. I remember the first sales call to me and they wanted $25,000 for a company profile. Like Monster, I told them they were crazy and companies would never pay this. Whew – was I wrong….and now pay 10x that for the whole package. They are still my go to place for networking and getting quick answers from my peers.
    Source: from the notes of Cathy Hennessy
  9. Myspace was the largest social networking site in the world from 2005-2008 declining thereafter as Facebook dominated the category. Today it is focused on niche spaces with ~7 million monthly visitors.
    purchased Myspace
  10. Becomes mobile phone operating system in 2004, revolutionizes the way that users interact with mobile devices which influences job searching and recruiting.
    Android (operating system)
  11. Facebook was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg but the initial membership was limited to Harvard students expanding over two years to other universities. To join one needed to have an email address ending in .edu. By 2006 FB opened up to anyone over 13 and has grown to nearly 3 billion monthly active users.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
  12. “Seen as a rival to LinkedIn, Jobster with its “web 2.0” technology allowed users to create open profiles with customized URLs for networking. It’s initial focus featured a referral model with other professionals referring you to jobs. For a while, Jobster was the darling of the conference circuit, raising significant dollars from investors, which lead them to expand jobsters capabilities well beyond ‘referrals to meet increasing investor demands for results. Eventually, Jobster crashed. One of the biggest failures in the industry at the time.”
    Sources: From the notes of Gerry Crispin  & Jim Stroud
    The History of Sourcing
    Jason Goldberg (entrepreneur)
  13. HireVue‘s founder, Mark Newman, started shipping webcams out to applicants using the product from his university dorm room. One of the very first solutions to use asynchronous, pre-recorded video for interviewing. Initially, most of Hirevue’s revenue was from the webcams- at a time before computers, smartphones and tablets had cameras.
    https://vidcruiter.com/video-interviewing/history-of-video-interview/
  14. Indeed was co-founded by Paul Forster and Rony Kahan in 2004. Headquartered in Austin, Indeed was acquired by Recruit In 2012 and has arguably been the strongest US job board for more than a decade.
    Indeed
  15. Most early Corporate bloggers remained anonymous as several were fired for violating company policies about sharing ANY company information. When Microsoft’s recruiting leaders began blogging and became known through press interest, it was a sea change for the other employers.

    “It was 2004. I (Heather Hamilton) started my blog during a re-org at Microsoft in 2004, when I had extra bandwidth. At that time, I was not-so-confidently dipping my toe in the waters of blogging. It was a new concept, not only in the talent market, but with our PR team. I decided to launch the blog [with my name on it] and deal with any repercussions later. There weren’t any repercussions.

    Initially, the blog was focused on marketing roles at Microsoft, but I quickly found that reader interest was in working at Microsoft in general, and the hiring process in particular. I also sprinkled in personal content and some of it, like recaps of The Apprentice, inexplicably took off. I got a mention in Fast Company Magazine for those. Weird. At it’s peek, the blog was getting over 100k views a month. We were able to attribute 30+ hires directly to the blog, but its intention was more focused on branding the Microsoft employee experience.”
    Source: from the notes of Heather Hamilton


    In 2004, Zoe Goldring and I (Gretchen Garland) were selected to join Microsoft’s inaugural Central Sourcing Team, focused on building a pipeline of experienced software engineers for technical roles across the company. We were not tied to requisitions and instead engaged directly with the talent community itself.

    Early into our work, we realized we needed a website landing page for potential candidates to get more information about a technical career at Microsoft. We also needed to raise our own online profiles, so interested software engineers could find us and get in touch directly. Microsoft had a Careers Site, but the information on the site was too broad and specific job description pages were too narrow.

    We approached our Careers Site team and asked if we could create and manage a landing page just for engineering talent. We were told no. Around the same time, the Developer audience organization within Microsoft launched a blogging platform called MSDN Blogs, as a way for real Microsoft employees to share information with the external developer community. Any employee was allowed to create a blog, so Zoe and I saw this as our opportunity to create the landing page we were looking for.

    In March 2004, we launched Microsoft JobsBlog, which became known as the “first corporate recruiting blog.” We posted as ourselves and quickly realized that readers were most interested in learning about how to prepare for the application and interview process. We were happy to share our tips—as those tips helped democratize what was previously considered “insider info” to applicants. And the more prepared the applicants were, the faster and easier it was for our recruiters to match them with open jobs. During the blog’s first year—as a recruiting source, it was directly responsible for more than 200 new engineering hires to the company. And, more than anything, it spurred other companies to be more transparent and have two-way dialogue with their applicants. 


    The blog thrived and evolved. Over the years, other Microsoft recruiters became writers, and we expanded the content to cover unexpected Microsoft people and places through a series called “Microspotting.” As social media came on the scene, we launched complementary Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram channels. Over the last nearly 20 years, the same channels, tools, and editorial basis for Microsoft JobsBlog directly evolved into the Microsoft Life employer branding elements that are still going today, including the Microsoft Life website, @MicrosoftLife social media channels, and #MicrosoftLife employee advocacy. (But that’s another story.)

    Source: from the notes of Gretchen Garland
  16. Every minute more than 500 hours of video content is uploaded to Youtube. Purchased by Google in 2006,Youtube hosts countless corporate videos related to careers and jobs. Increasingly these are being connected to job descriptions, job boards and social media to curate the candidate’s journey
    History of YouTube
  17. The Internet Applicant Rule was a means to answer the question, What makes an Applicant an Applicant? In the case of legal questions about discrimination an employer could then be expected to show that the demographics of the applicant pool any hire was drawn from was, in fact, diverse and, over time, that the hires reflected the diversity of the pool. Government contractors particularly are required to comply in their periodic reporting.
    What You Need to Know About the OFCCP’s Internet Applicant Rule
  18. New social media platforms like Twitter quickly became a platform for future job sites and sources of prospects:
    “The Twitter effect saw people being more open to connecting with people they didn’t know but who shared an interest with, resulting in a significant growth in personal network size; which added to personal branding, and provided a new source of prospects”
    Source: from the notes of Bill Boorman
  19. Facebook’s initial focus was on college student populations. To get into FB you needed to have an .edu email address. By 2006 FB was open to anyone over 12. Dan Black, EY America’s CampusTA leader in 2006 (currently EY Global Leader Talent Attraction), launches one of the first Facebook career sites.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116820950568269651
    “Back in 2006, at EY, we were recruiting for 5,500 entry level and intern positions. We wanted to do something different to create more brand awareness and differentiation and we felt reaching students in their “natural habitat – a social networking site” would make a huge difference in our efforts. So we started a Sponsored Group on Facebook where students could learn about EY and have a dialogue with recruiters through a discussion board. We were very overt that we weren’t looking at their profiles, we just want to give insight into careers at EY and engage in dialogue. We were one of the first to do ‘social recruiting’ and it was a big success for us.”
    Source: from the notes of Larry Nash, Americas Director of Talent Attraction and Acquisition, EY.
  20. Founded by Leslie O’Connor and Rob McIntosh with the help and assistance of many other industry professionals, SourceCon was acquired by ERE in 2009 after the housing market crash. It continued as an in-person conference until the pandemic with expectations to return to in-person post pandemic. The following Editors (in order) have been responsible for Sourcecon’s conferences and curating online content at ERE: Amybeth Quinn, Lance Haun, Jeremy Roberts, Shannon Pritchett, Mark Tortorici, Tangie Pettis.
    Employees at SourceCon
  21. Sodexo was easily one of the employers pioneering the use of newly emerging social media sites to tell candidates about their company culture
    https://us.sodexo.com/careers/careers-blog/show-vs-tell-how-sodexo-uses-soc.html
  22. Shally Steckerl’s charitable organization begins with a mission to impact unemployment of military veterans, their spouses, disabled individuals, and the unemployed with qualifying hardship by providing sourcing & recruiting education.
    Source: from notes of Shally Steckerl
  23. GlassDoor was cofounded in 2007 by Tim Besse, Robert Hohman, and Rich Barton to allow current and former employees to anonymously review companies. It was acquired by Recruit Holdings in 2018.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glassdoor
  24. Stack Overflow was created by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky in 2008 as a question and answer website for professional and enthusiast programmers. It is a sourcers goldmine for technology prospects and currently has more than 14 million registered users. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_Overflow
  25. Illinois passed the Biometric Information Privacy Act  in 2008 and became the first US state to regulate the collection of biometric information; important for organizations who use fingerprints as a method of timekeeping.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_Information_Privacy_Act
  26. Jerome Ternyck creates a free ATS for smbs while still the founder and CEO of Mr. TED. After Stepstone acquires Mr.TED in 2010, Jerome begins developing the future of SmartRecruiter.
    https://www.smb-gr.com/blogs-laurie-mccabe/meet-mrted/
  27. “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)nicknamed the Recovery Act, was a stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed in response to the Great Recession, the primary objective of this federal statute was to save existing jobs and create new ones as soon as possible.”
    American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
  28. HRevolution held nine events over 10 years with average attendance around 150.
    “I came up with the idea in May 2009 because I was working as an HR Director and my company would not pay for us to go to SHRM’s annual conference, nor any other HR training.  Out of frustration, I tweeted that I would start my own event and invite smart HR pros to come together and teach each other.  Steve Boese, Crystal Peterson and Ben Eubanks jumped on board.  I had never met any of them.  We had no event background but planned it in 4 months.The first event had a limit of 50 attendees.nce we partnered with HR tech, it grew to 350.  We hated it at that size.  Our goal was that people would walk away knowing everyone at the event. When it got over 120 or so, that was no longer possible. We had great success with people building life-long friendships, working relationships and even one wedding.”
    Source: From the notes of Trish McFarlane
  29. The Social Recruiting Summit held in June 2009 at Google headquarters and the nearby Crowne Plaza Hotel was described by its organizer, Jenny DeVaughn, as follows,
    One of my favorite moments in our recruiting history was the evolution of social media for recruiting and what we know as employer branding. This Google tweetup was the first time many of us who had networked and shared best practices using Twitter met in person.”
    From the notes of Jenny DeVaughn