By Dan Lindley
Technology provider Adicio has launched a regional jobs network in New Hampshire – the third regional jobs network it’s powered in the past two years on its Careers platform.
Daily newspapers participating in Adicio’s New Hampshire Network include the Nashua Telegraph, Portsmouth Herald, Concord Monitor, Foster’s Daily Democrat, the Citizen of Laconia, Rochester Times, Milford Cabinet, Hampton Union and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript. Jobs on any of those newspapers’ sites can be posted on the new statewide network for an additional fee. Setting a price is up to each newspaper, according to Tony Lee, Adicio’s chief alliance officer, although most are charging $99 for the upsell.
The Granite State traditionally has enjoyed a low unemployment rate, according to Lee, and the network should provide added value to advertisers and job-seekers. Studies that Adicio’s done have shown that although many job-seekers are reluctant to move a long way from home to take a new position, many will consider moving a comparatively short distance.
“The basic premise,” Lee said, “is that in any given market, our research has shown that 15 to 20 percent of job hunters are willing to move nationally for the right job, while 50 to 60 percent are willing to move regionally, that is, within a day’s drive of family and friends.”
“We know some job-seekers and employers prefer to focus their searches locally and want to work and hire close to home,” said Ernesto Burden, vice president of digital media for The Telegraph. “That’s one of the great values of our local job-search tools, as opposed to the more generic national job boards. But even if a job-seeker isn’t looking for a long commute, moving an hour or two away within New Hampshire for the perfect position can still allow a job-seeker to maintain ties to the state and stay close to family and friends.”
The network, launched in beta a couple of weeks ago, “is getting some good traction already,” Lee said. Adicio also has a national network and two other regional networks – a Southeast Regional Network that includes 25 Adicio clients in 11 states, and a Southwest Regional Network that has 13 sites in six states. Its national network carries job listings to job-seekers across the United States and Canada from more than 250 local and national newspaper, magazine, trade association and broadcast media job sites.
It’s too early to say how the statewide network has affected page views or sales, Burden said. He added that he has “high hopes it will be a great addition to what we’re doing now, but it won’t take away from our focus on serving the local reader.” A number of other statewide job boards already exist, powered by dot-coms or by the state of New Hampshire. Only a handful draw a significant amount of traffic, Burden said.
Though it’s too early to tell about traffic or ad sales, the new regional network has helped in several ways, Burden added. First, it brought newspapers under different ownership together to study the proposal, work together and exchange ideas. It will benefit readers by giving them more job options “in logical places.” And it will beef up the recruitment ads on participating newspapers’ Web sites.
“The technology is there,” Burden said. “The key element now is to execute on sales and marketing, and that will tell the story.”
Adicio’s other regional job networks have increased page views of the jobs database by an average of 18 percent, Lee said.
