Alweer een tijd geleden heb ik een aantal vragen aan Forrester gestuurd. In een aantal afleveringen zal ik de vragen, en Forresters antwoorden de revue laten passeren.

Vandaag de eerste twee vragen; mbt. grote vacaturesites, uitzenders, recruiters, sociale netwerken en HRMS/ATS vendors:

• Komt er een consolidatie in de komende 2 – 3 jaar en zo ja, waarom?
• Wat is de impact van The Social Web?

Komt er een consolidatie in de komende 2 – 3 jaar en zo ja, waarom?

We find that consolidation is inevitable and continuous in virtually all of the technology markets. The drivers, however, vary based on factors in each marketplace.

• Large job board consolidation is being driven by the current economic downturn (less hiring activity in the recession), as well as by alternative methods of hiring, particularly referral-based hiring aided by social networking connections, and lower-cost multipurpose sites such as Craig’s list.
• Staffing agency consolidation is being driven by economies of scale.
• Recruitment agency consolidation is being driven by job losses resulting from the economic crisis and reduced hiring activity, as well as corporate recruitment strategies to use lower-cost methods.
• The social network space is still in a very early stage of its evolution, so consolidation is not yet a factor. Consolidation will occur, however, within the next few years as it reaches a maturity stage where weaker players seek to be acquired by larger and more viable firms.
• For ATS vendors, consolidation will likely continue as stronger vendors (e.g., Taleo, Kenexa, etc.) look to acquire customers or technology. With the SaaS delivery model, vendors must reach economies of scale, and many of these vendors have too few customers and subscription revenues to be sustainable.

Wat is de impact van the Social Web?

Social networks are having an increasing impact on recruitment markets by:

1. Encouraging referral-based hiring
2. Enabling access to passive candidates

The traditional process of posting for jobs externally and reviewing pools of applicants is often more costly and less efficient.

Job boards, recruitment agencies and ATS vendors are most at risk from these technologies unless they learn to incorporate these technologies into their business models.

Staffing agencies are less at risk due and will actually benefit in terms of being able to find contractor resources more easily.

Public employment services are likely to be slower to adopt the latest technologies, and will see less impact, but can benefit from job aggregation technologies (e.g. Indeed, SimplyHired).

De volgende keer de antwoorden van Forrester op de volgende vragen:

• Hoe veranderd de toegevoegde waarde van uitzendbureaus in de komende jaren?
• Zal de arbeidsvoorziening in de toekomst door de overheid worden uitbesteed?
• Hoe worden vacaturesites en vertical search engines geraakt door de verbeteringen in zoekfunctionaliteit van de grote zoekmachines (Google, Bing)