One of the tracks that really stood out for me at #truStockholm was the future of job boards track. I’ve been in this track quite a few times at different #tru events, and the take is always quite different according to the participants. In Stockholm, our excellent hosts were Monster.Se. With so many images of Trumpasaurus (the Monster logo), around the building, I expected this track to be dominated by talk of the major job boards.
You have to bear in mind that some things made the #trustockholm participants a bit different. Firstly, the Swedes, by their own admission are about 18months behind other parts of Europe, which makes their outlook a bit different when it comes to talking recruiting. The issues and the discussion points though are all pretty much the same, it’s the solutions that differ.
Perhaps the real differences center on the geography of Sweden.The population is largely centred on 3 city’s, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Malmo/Gothenburg. Each of the cities have distinct business sectors in each location. This distinct split might explain why spend in print media is up by 40%. This is quite different to most of the rest of the world, but I think this is in part due to the geography, combined with the cautious approach to change taken by the Swedes.
In the job board 2020 track, one of the job seekers attending courtesy of our hosts Monster.Se, made the following statment: 
“If I want a beer I go to a bar.If I want a job I go to a job board first.Both destinations make sense to me,”
Amongst all of out enthusiasm for social recruiting, we sometimes forget this simple fact. The majority of job seekers still think job board first. It is foolish not to consider them as part of the recruiting mix, and even more foolish to declare them dead. The recent source of hire report from Career Crossroads (Download it!) echos this, showing job boards as second only to internal sourcing and referral.
What is your “first” port of call in the job search, or your main source of hire?
Bill
Norton Folgate: The Recruiting Unblog 
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