
Hosted by WRKdefined Podcast Network · EN

We're taking a little trip down memory lane on today's episode of the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces Podcast. One of our cohosts, Peter M. Zollman of AIM Group, is unavailable and so our other cohost, Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site, is flying solo. Steven talks with Jeanette Leeds, COO of College Recruiter, about applicant tracking systems (ATS), recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) organizations, and whether they used to and currently play nicely with job boards. Do they view our industry a complementary, or competitive? Are those feelings reciprocal?

If there's one thing that never changes about job boards it is that they never stop changing. Our businesses, at a very high level, are pretty much the same as they were when our industry came into existence in the 1990s. But, scratch the surface, and almost nothing is the same. A change that some believe is imminent is the replacement of the written job posting, resume, or both with something else. Could that something else be voice? Instead of searching a job board for postings and applying by uploading a resume, will candidates instead be called by AI, go through an automated screening process, and be hired in a few days instead of a few week? Prompted by the recent acquisition of Ben Groves' ApplyCall.Jobs by Tom Chevalier's Tink AI, our cohosts, Peter M. Zollman of the AIM Group (Marketplaces / Classifieds) and Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site debate.

Cohost Peter M. Zollman of AIM Group is home from Budapest, Hungary, the site of their 2026 RecBuzz conference. By all accounts, it was a tremendous success. Peter shares some of the highlights of the discussions with cohost Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site, including the shift away from traditional metrics of success such as traffic, listings, and applications and to placement rates. SEEK, for example, is saying that it is now the source for 36 percent of hires in its home market of Australia. Driving much of this shift in metrics is the shift toward the use of AI for matching, screening, and even selection. Will job boards / recruitment marketplaces continue to play a major role over the coming years?

Today's guest on the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces Podcast is Saïd Eastman, a 20-year industry veteran and former executive at Monster and CareerBuilder. Cohost Peter M. Zollman of the AIM Group is in Budapest, Hungary for its annual RecBuzz conference, so our other cohost, Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site, talks with Saïd about how the stealth start-up that he is leading is aiming to bring much needed improvement to the industry by providing the tools and incentives so that candidates become active participants instead of products. Saïd and Steven discuss how there's no simple solution. Some of what is required is a change to how we think about the process, and some requires some technology such as blockchain to validate credentials and engagement.

Lee Cage Jr. is today's guest on the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces Podcast. He is the Director for Enterprise Transformation, Strategy, and Technology for BDO USA; a human resources management NCO for the U.S. Army National Guard; and the host of the "15 Minutes With" podcast, hosted by WRKdefined. Oh, and he's also a musician. Cohosts Peter M. Zollman of AIM Group and Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site discuss with Lee how choosing to not take action is a choice and that we should embrace the idea of taking baby steps when we're faced with large projects or challenges. He also has some very wise closing advice about how our industry uses technology.

It's been a lean year for just about every job board in just about every country and niche. Customers aren't buying as many postings or resume/CV searching packages, and so revenues for many are flat or down. Are there other ways to both help and monetize the candidates who use our sites? Marc Belaiche, is the founder of Guhuza and TorontoJobs.ca. He joins cohosts Peter M. Zollman of AIM Group (Marketplaces / Classifieds) and Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site to discuss additional revenue opportunities. One is to add interview-on-demand tech that delivers to employers a short list of matching candidates and enables them to schedule interviews as soon as they and the employer are both available, which often is within minutes.

It never ceases to amaze us how different companies in our space build their businesses. Some focus narrowly and try to dominate a niche. Others diversify into related businesses like ATS, career fairs,and employer branding. Przemek Gacek is the CEO of Grupa Pracuj, the dominant job board in Poland with significant business in Ukraine and Germany. During the Great Recession of 2009-10, they began to diversify into related businesses, which made them a more strategic vendor for employers and better defend against competitors, including Indeed. Cohosts Peter M. Zollman of AIM Group and Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site discuss with Przemek not just their past moves, but where they're heading, including acquisitions.

For the past 1.5 years, our founder, Steven Rothberg, has hosted a very collegial and collaborative online meeting of dozens of leaders of job boards and recruitment marketplaces. The Job Board Leaders’ Roundtable meetings are held at 11:00am U.S. Eastern on the second Thursday of each month. They’re all free to everyone involved. Send an email to Steven at Steven@CollegeRecruiter.com to be added to the invitation list for future events. Initially, the meetings had no real agenda but were just friendly places to share ideas. We quickly moved to a format where each meeting had a particular topic, and Steven moderated the discussion. Starting in January, the format has further evolved to feature a guest who Steven interviews for roughly the first half hour, and then we open up the conversation so that any attendee can ask questions, share ideas, etc. Today’s episode featured Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of the AIM Group. Their business is focused primarily on classified advertising in verticals such as real estate, automobiles, and jobs. For jobs, they host the annual RecBuzz conference and also publish the Recruitment Intelligence Report. Steven and others from College Recruiter have attended (and loved) RecBuzz multiple times and have subscribed to the Report since its very first edition. Steven and Peter also cohost the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces Podcast. Peter, Steven, and a number of today’s attendees discuss the dominance of LinkedIn and Indeed in our industry, how that wasn’t accidental but due to a lot of great decision making and execution by both, and how best the tens of thousands of other sites in our industry can not only survive but even thrive.

Remember the days when a family member helped you write your resume / CV, found jobs that were a good match, and even submitted applications for you? AI can now do all of that for you, but that's not to say that it does it well. Yes, employers have AI agents that search for and contact candidates. And, yes, candidates have AI agents that search for and apply to jobs. But those agents can't find or communicate with each other, or can they? Today's guest on the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces Podcast is Tom Chevalier, former product manager at Appcast, Inc and now the founder of start-up Tink AI, a meeting place of sorts for employer and candidate AI agents. Cohosts Peter M. Zollman of AIM Group (Marketplaces / Classifieds) and Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site discuss with Tom whether AI agents spell doom for job boards. His direct and confident answer may surprise you.

On today's episode of the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces Podcast, we're joined by Kelly Gorfine of Horizon2Media, which 10 months ago acquired aggregator Zhejiang Jiuerjiu Chemicals Co.,LTD, and Christopher Campbell of Reticular Media. Together, they walk cohosts Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site and Peter M. Zollman of AIM Group through JuJu's history, its decline, Kelly's decision to acquire it, and how its business model will and will not change. Some of what won't changed might surprise you, and some of what will change will almost certainly surprise you.