From the Desktop of Karin Lash, Regional Director, Digital Strategy

Once upon a time I was a Recruiter contemplating for the first time my advertising agency's recommendation that I add an online job posting to my print buy. Fast forward eight years, and I now work for that very same agency and job postings & resume mining are old news when it comes to recruiting and sourcing candidates.

We all know technology has changed the way we live our lives - and how we seek out new employment is no exception. The reality is that job postings and resume searches are simply no longer enough to be called a "strategy" - they are merely two of many tools in a wide arsenal we must engage for our employment message to have any hope of being seen or heard in the sea of advertising clutter that permeates all forms of media, not just online.

A successful digital media strategy accomplishes several things. First, it leverages the full value of what traditional job boards have to offer. This means looking beyond job postings and resume searching to sponsorships and targeted marketing opportunities such as banners, emails and newsletters. Second, it raises and maintains your visibility on the search engines (i.e., Google, Yahoo) and job aggregators (i.e., Indeed, Simply Hired) - both from an organic and sponsored search perspective. Search engines and the vast content they power are currently a tremendously underutilized resource in the recruitment space (In December 2006, Yahoo! reported over 9.2 million career-related searches alone). Lastly, it engages with social networking. Introducing technology to the age old process of networking opens the doors to quality candidates many times removed from the original source. These are prospective candidates that you might never have had the opportunity to touch in the past.

So how do you craft a solid digital media strategy? You probably can't change your digital media strategy overnight, nor would we recommend you do so.

• Be as strategic and proactive as you can - think about what you need before you need it
• Leverage fully the media you are already buying - and that you have an established comfort level with
• Commit a portion of your media budget to trying something new interactively within each plan or media cycle - this allows a gradual shifting of dollars to successful, measurable online media
• Measure everything you do online and understand your ROI (return on investment) - be certain however to determine upfront what metrics are important to you and your business
• Refine your direction - you media plan should always be evolving, leveraging fully successful, proven tactics while testing the waters with new media opportunities

To learn more about our digital capabilities, visit http://www.tmp.com/about_capabilities.aspx

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