Job Fairs: Online Advertising That Pays

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept 1, 2001 by Jane E. Zarem

For this, Nurse Week negotiated a fiat fee with VirtualEdge, which usually prefers a revenue-sharing scheme. "There's no risk and usually no upfront investment for the sponsor," says Joanne Barrett, E*FAIR manager of business development "It just requires a commitment to sell the opportunity and to understand its features and benefits. We're happy to provide free training to the publisher's sales reps, so they understand how to present the message to their customers. We also follow up with the participating companies to assure ease of use with the technology."

Hospitals and facilities are paying $3,000 each to Nurse Week to participate in the event So the more interest the magazine drums up, the more lucrative the bottom line. Says Sprague, "Our regional sales managers, who give 30 to 40 presentations a month to clients throughout the country, are marketing it as an additional advertising product. We expect 15 to 20 participants."

The best candidates

Not every potential advertiser is a good candidate for an online job fair. The company should have at least 25 to 50 current job opportunities available to make it worthwhile, says ENR's Kennedy. A company opening a new division would be a good prospect, for example, as would a recruiter with a number of jobs to fill. And not every magazine is a good candidate for hosting an online job fair--although it's a natural for industry-specific, niche, association and metro-regional titles. "Nurse Week's job fairs are very profitable," says Sprague, "[but] a publication that doesn't specialize in recruitment advertising will have a harder time."

ENR's Kennedy agrees. "Before pursuing it, I would advise that you have a willing customer base of companies that want to take advantage of recruitment advertising. When you try something in print, you're not wasting money if you don't sell anything. But when you offer something online, you must weigh the production costs against your potential. We've always had recruitment advertising in our print magazine, so this was a natural progression for us."

"Like nursing, IT has a lot of job turnover," says Information Week's Weston. "We're just trying to make it easier for our readers." He believes publications that help readers strategize and plan career growth-or those aimed at people who are building their careers, are more likely to find this kind of offering appropriate.

For publishers who decide to work with an outsourcer, Weston stresses that publishers pick a company with legs. "If you brand something with a partner who disappears in six months," he says, "that's a wasted effort for the publisher and frustrating for users."

Different Themes and Different Schemes

Thinking about having your magazine sponsor an online career fair? Outsourcing is one way to do it. Here's a sampling of companies that will set it up and power it for you:

CAREERSITE CORPORATION

310 MILLER AVENUE

ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 48103

734-213-9500 OR 888-314-5873

www.careersite.com

CareerSite Corporation is an e-recruitment solution provider that powers some 70 e-recruiting Web sites, including branded career centers on the sites of Advance Publication's more than 40 local American City Business Journals, as well as Crain's Detroit Business Journal, and close to 100 newspaper sites. CareerSite provides its other affiliates with software, hosting, billing, merchant and customer services, as well as e-mail marketing, content, access to a candidate database and distribution. Publisher affiliates pay a one-time setup fee ($1,000 and up) to customize the site, a monthly charge based on the magazine's circulation (starting in the low $100s), and a variable usage fee based on the number of advertisers. The publisher, of course, is free to charge the advertisers whatever the market will bear.