Job Seekers Working The Web

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday June 1, 1999

PHILIPPA YELLAND

MUCH to the chagrin of the big players, RNR International Marketing has won the tender to operate the job seeker Internet site for the Recruitment & Consulting Services Association (RCSA) - which represents more than 700 recruitment agencies around Australia.

From a field of 38 contenders - including some of the best-known names in Internet sites - RNR won the right to run the association's site which will post between 50,000 to 100,000 jobs later this week when beta testing finishes.

RNR won because of its direct marketing experience, the company's CEO, Catherine Purdie, said.

"The secret of Internet marketing is to get people to visit the site, and our 16 years as a direct marketing company enables us to do that."

Purdie said the site, positionsvacant.com.au, will be the second largest jobs site in Australia after the Federal Government's.

"But, whereas the Government has about 80,000 jobs a month advertised, we'll begin with 50,000 a week and move up to 100,000 very rapidly."

In addition to RNR's direct marketing experience, Purdie said the company's successful development of the Hong Kong Government's Companies Registry helped it win the recruitment association's tender.

"The registry allows access to information on 550,000 Hong Kong companies and requires up to 100,000 updates each day," Purdie says. "Subscribers pay $HK5,000 ($1,000) a year for unlimited access.

"Another reason we won the tender is that we're one of the few companies in the world which can show people how to make money from the Internet. We're direct marketers, and we're here to make money out of what we do."

RCSA members place more than 85 per cent of newspaper recruitment ads - about 50,000 jobs a week in all categories from top execs to unskilled labouring jobs.

One of the advantages of Web advertising is its cheapness, according to Purdie. "Employers can offer pages of information about a job, in contrast to the limits of a display ad or classified in a newspaper."

Another unexpected advantage is the iceberg effect, she said. "While we were researching and developing the database, we found that five jobs were not advertised in newspapers for every one that was. With Web advertising, it doesn't cost the recruiters any more to list every job available."

Purdie emphasises that the site's success will be due to RNR's "sophisticated direct marketing" to draw people to the site. "Just as the world won't beat a path to your door if you invent the world's best mousetrap, so people won't come to the site if they don't know about it," she said.

RNR developed Optus' original marketing database, and more recently Cathay Pacific's direct marketing program for 28 countries.

With the RCSA's site, job seekers will be able to use many criteria - location, salary range, hours worked, qualifications. Once the criteria are entered, the suitable jobs are "brought" to the applicant and he or she can apply immediately.

Recruiters have direct access to the jobs they've posted, and can change the jobs' descriptions and conditions if the responses are inappropriate. * * * LOCAL accounting software success story, MYOB (Mind Your Own Business), has been busy hiring new suits after founder Craig Winkler's elevation to CEO of MYOB Worldwide.

Rob Evers has taken up Winkler's old chair as general manger, while Dean Lupton is now customer relations manager and Adam Wesley is product development manager.

MYOB's history is a nice lesson in reverse takeovers. In 1991, local founders Winkler and Brad Shofer secured the customisation rights from MYOB in the US.

Five years later they won the worldwide rights, and now the privately owned company has its headquarters in Blackburn, Victoria, and employs 115 people.

Rob Evers has been employed to "take the company to its next stage of growth", he says. This is being fuelled by Y2K, GST and mooted tax reforms.

Evers comes to the company with a strong advantage: he trained as an accountant and then made strategic moves into marketing. Most recently, he was marketing manager for National Mutual.

Financial services and accounting services are different but similar, he said. "With financial services, you're selling intangible advice whereas software is tangible. However, both are solutions."

Evers's appointment was "a meeting of minds". "I knew the company and they knew me. We'd talked earlier but the time wasn't right," he said. "Recently, I'd finished my MBA and I was beginning to feel that National Mutual wasn't offering me everything I wanted."

MYOB's four number- crunching offerings (accounting, business management, point-of-sale and payroll) are used by more than 350,000 businesses here and overseas (the US, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and South Africa).

When not preparing MYOB for its next phase, Evers participates in fun runs, and spends as much time as possible with his family. "I try to keep a balance," he says.

* If you have information or hot tips for this column, contact Philippa Yelland on (02) 9698 1760, fax (02) 9698 1762, mobile 0413 398 191 or e-mail word.wright@usa.net