Take Your Job Search to the TV

August 8, 2008

Over in the states, Job Search TV hopes to reinvent the traditional job search by using a dedicated television channel to broadcast ads. The offering differs from many of the ‘video products’ currently circulating the online recruitment world, with the format modelled on a news presenter style information show. The recruitment videos are broadcast on cable television (currently only in the Chicago area) for two hours each morning and one hour each night and are available via the Job Search TV web site.

Due to geographical restrictions we’re unable to review the daily TV show, however much of the content is duplicated on the web site, which in our opinion provides a much more interactive interface to the job content than a television based approach could hope to. The web site is similar to a traditional job site, with the addition of information video presentations on most pages.

As with most career sites job searching remains the focus of the homepage, which also features a video of a selected role (job of the week perhaps?). This has the annoyance of auto playing every time you navigate to the homepage but does seem to be an effective in drawing your attention both visually and audibly.

The job search is straight forward enough, although there is only small inventory of jobs on the site. We noticed some issues with the searching system however. Multiple attempts to search for position titles failed to return any matching results, despite the fact jobs with those position titles were listed in the job inventory. The category or sector based searching seems to work fine.

Once a position is displayed the screen is split into two parts, a textual job description to the right and a news presenter style video playing to the left. Despite the somewhat repetitive nature of the ‘news presenter job adverts’ this actually works extremely well and leaves a strong impression of the role on the job seeker. The site also has company profiles, which feature videos of selected advertisers and are similar to the type of corporate videos showcased by the likes of Reed and CareerTV.

So is the TV really an effective medium for career content? We find it hard to believe the traditional ‘TV channel’ model is right for job advertising, the online searchable model seems to have so many more benefits, which can still include professional video adverts (as Job Search TV shows). Then again we are constantly surprised that shopping channels still exist on the TV, so perhaps we shouldn’t rule out TV career channels yet.

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