Create, Manage, and Work With Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces.
Each week, Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter and Peter Zollman of the AIM Group, along with guests from the world's leading job sites, analyze news about general, niche, and aggregator job board and recruitment marketplace sites.
Another programmatic job distributor just started up, but this one's European
Aimwel was created in 2022 as an AI-powered, programmatic, recruitment advertising platform designed to deliver high-quality lead generation for employers, staffing companies, and other job advertisers across paid performance media channels such as job boards and recruitment marketplaces. Aimwel grew out of the job board business of DPG Media.
In June 2022, Dennis Van Allemeersch transitioned from his role as Director of Job Classifieds and Programmatic Recruitment for the parent company, DPG Media, and became the COO of subsidiary Aimwel.
Where to Listen
Find us in your favorite podcast app.
Steven (00:09):
Welcome to the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces podcast. I'm Stephen Rothberg, the founder of College Recruiter, job search site at College Recruiter. We believe that every student in recent grad deserves a great career.
Peter (00:23):
And I'm Peter Zalman, founding Principal of the AIM Group, the leading global business intelligence service for marketplaces and classified advertising companies. We consult with recruitment marketplaces, companies and publish aim group, recruitment intelligence, and a free weekly digest. We also host the annual Global Rebus Conference.
Steven (00:44):
This is the podcast for you to learn more about how to create, manage, and work with general niche and aggregator job boards and recruitment marketplaces. Hey, Peter. Good to be with you again today. The weather is getting cold, which means only one thing. It's ice hockey time.
Peter (01:02):
It is ice hockey time. My favorite team has started playing, and we love the solar bears in Orlando. We absolutely love 'em. They're a minor league team. The hockey is exceedingly mediocre, but the fun factor is extreme. And for 15, 16 bucks, I can buy a ticket. I can leave my house at six 15 at night and be there at seven and enjoy enjoy the game. I can even leave at six 30. It's just, I love the solar bear, so and I love the name too.
Steven (01:39):
Today's guest is Dennis Von Olier, the Chief Operating Officer of Amwell. They're new SaaS programmatic recruitment advertising platform. Say that 12 times fast, owned by D p G Media. D PPG for listeners who don't know, is one of the largest media groups in Northwestern Europe. Which for those of us in America where we hardly know where Europe is, let alone northwestern Europe, we're talking Belgium, the Netherlands countries in that area. And D p G delivers a wide variety of content. They do new sports, entertainment and job ads primarily to readers in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Dennis, welcome to the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces podcast.
(02:31): Dennis:
Thanks guys. Great to have me
Peter (02:33):
. It's good to have you. We saw you last at the rec Buzz conference, and man, that was a great time and your presentation was well received. And we enjoyed hearing about Amwell. We'll hear about it again today. So thank you for, thank you for joining us. Are you in the Netherlands, I presume, or are you in Belgium, or do you happen to be in South Africa today? I mean, it, it can be anywhere, right? <Laugh>?
Dennis (03:07):
It, it's all online. Yeah, so it doesn't matter. I mean, physically I resided in Netherlands. Yeah, so we have our our main offices in Amsterdam. Yeah, I live, I live nearby, you know it, it's around 50, 60 kilometers from, from the office for you Americans. That's, you know, that's around the corner for us in the Netherlands. That's, you know, that's a long life
Peter (03:28):
<Laugh>, but and I presume you live, if you live in Amsterdam, you live next to a canal. But no, yeah,
Dennis (03:36):
But pretty, yeah, I mean I have, I have actually water at three sides of my house, actually. Yeah.
Peter (03:42):
Let's talk about programmatic, because I think that is of great interest to our audience. Before we get to Amwell, programmatics is, is pretty solid in the US now still kind of just getting, its getting going in Europe and not much at all in Asia, Africa, et cetera. I think you're much more of an expert than I am. Fill us in on what's going on with programmatic and why it's so important and why, and how it works.
Dennis (04:21):
Oh, wow. So we have a 20 minute kind of
Peter (04:24):
Platform. Yeah. So <laugh> yeah, and I said we'll keep the questions short and the answers Joy. And here we are going crazy with the first question. Sorry. Yeah, yeah,
Dennis (04:34):
Yeah.
(04:35):
Oh, oh my God. I heard three questions in one. Okay, I'll, I'll view them one by one. Yeah. So programmatic globally, I mean, I think roughly you're right. I mean, solid of course in the States nascent in in Europe. And I slightly tend to disagree with your remark on, on, on Asia and Saudi Asia. I mean, we're seeing traction starting to come also and demand in Saudi Asia as well. Not, not so much in Southern Latin America or Africa, for the simple reason that, you know, due to the high levels of unemployment over there, there's not much need for extra sourcing. You know, if you already, I mean, like we heard in Amsterdam, if you already have, you know, an average 50 to 200 applies per job, there's not much need for programmatic. Yeah. But Asia is definitely coming. Europe is, is underway. It took a while mainly because I think, you know, the, the traditional big job boards in Europe, as we all know, have fixed pricing models, which makes the switch to programmatic a bit of a financial cumbersome exercise. But I think, you know, driven by client demand, live driven by labor shortages you know, Europe is turning as well. And also that's of course why, why we got it. Again,
Steven (05:58):
We'll be back right after this break. Welcome back to the inside job boards and recruitment marketplaces podcast. DPG Media was really focused until starting amwell or kind of going down that path to powering its own local job boards, right? Right. And then you started offering programmatic job ad distribution. You're now doing it in multiple countries, including with job boards operated by other companies through Amwell. Maybe you can help the listeners sort of better understand that journey from being, you know, running your own job boards to also doing just distribution to other job boards programmatically.
Dennis (06:47):
I mean, the journey was, I mean, it was not a, a, a, a a, a premeditated one. I would, I would have to say we first developed a programmatic software for our own job boards because we were facing strategic challenges as a job board ourselves, you know, we were being disintermediated we had an outdated business model with fixed fixed pricing. So we kind of came to the conclusion that in, in order to, as a job board to survive we needed programmatic capabilities programmatic capabilities, which would enable us to also switch to more performance-based pricing business models and which would enable us to also source more qualified candidates. It was kind of a switch strategically from being, you know, platform to being network network centric. And I think that also ties to Peter's earlier question, you know, what, what kind of benefits does it bring? In essence is around, you know, effectiveness and efficiency of, of sourcing. If I would, if I would summarize it in, in one, in one sentence,
Peter (08:08):
That, that makes sense. Efficiency of sourcing is something everybody's interested in. A lot of job boards work with multiple providers for backfill and job distribution. What about programmatic? If somebody's working with App cast or Pando Logic job at X Jovi o can they also work with amwell or is it a kind of pick your, pick your programmatic sort of thing? We
Dennis (08:38):
Do see that. I mean, independent of, independent of amol we do see that job boards or for ex, I mean, you know, I would argue any large volume a recruiting company, whether you're a job board or a staffing company I mean, usually is not married to one or the other programmatic platform. You know, they tend to switch and however, if you have chosen one, you tend to stick with a certain platform for at least, you know, two to three years. You know, because the barriers are switching are quite are quite large. And you tend not to work together with multiple programmatic, at least that's not what we've encountered with multiple programmatic platforms. At the same time, however what we do see, and, and that's one of the reasons I think one of five I would argue to to, to consider for a job board.
(09:39):
What we do see is that the current set of programmatic platforms or recruitment marketing platforms tend to be broader, I would argue, a Monon players. Yeah. So we do see players having to work together with different types of suppliers if they want to cover the full specter of media channels. And I think that's something that we, we try to solve for is to have, you know, a properly integrated one-stop shop for all media channels, not only aggregators, but also programmatic display. I mean, that's our core d n a as a media company but also for example social, you know, and those are all separate specialisms.
Steven (10:24):
The job boards that are doing programmatic already probably understand that, that they at times are sitting on one side of the desk, they're a publisher, they're receiving jobs and getting them in front of their users that other times they're what we at college recruiter would call a customer where they're receiving jobs from an aim well, or an app cast, or Pando Logic. And, and we, at college Recruiter, we, we do both of those with, with, you know, with aim, well, for example, we're receiving a fee. Right. are, are you saying, Dennis, that job boards should, when they're buying traffic, that they should be sending their jobs to app cast to am well to some of the other players? Or are you referring to them on as, as publishers where they're receiving jobs from multiple sources or both?
Dennis (11:22):
So, at, at amel we do it one, one way. I mean, like, we work together indeed with, with, with you, Stephen. And so at amel we facilitate one way, so we facilitate job boards, you know, our large staffing companies, and to send on their content to to a media network to buy traffic or, you know, we optimize by on, on apply starts, on applies. So that's, that's the way we do it. And we tend to see that, you know, for, as I said, from a a job work perspective instead of, you know, having to work with several suppliers, you know, it might make sense only to have to work with one. Yeah. also because, you know, as, as a job board, as you know, you know, you want to have a kind of single view on, you know, on your job performance from what channels they're coming from, and you want to able also for that single job, they have a tool that enables you to, to, to kind of influence the performance of that single job. Yeah. And if you're working for every channel with a separate supplier, you know, that's going to make your life quite, quite hard.
Peter (12:29):
Dennis, you mentioned social media and job boards participating in that in some way. Do a lot of job boards you work with and recruitment marketplaces, really we call 'em because it's much more than just a job board, but do a lot of the ones you work with in a, a lot of the job boards you're seeing work in social media and video with their employers and even their job seekers?
Dennis (13:01):
Yeah. Good. Good question. Actually, almost all of them do some form of or facilitate some form of social recruitment marketing, either, you know, for themselves, but usually indeed for, for their advertisers. And you know, some of them actually employ quite a large number of social marketers to do so. But I think it, it, it, it, it goes to my point that every channel has its own specialism take social, for example for example, next week meta is, is kind of, you know, sunsetting their special ad audiences which impact social recruitment heavily. So, you know, as a, I mean, a, you should know that, and, and b then you should also have kind of strategies and knowledge in place to kind of circumvent that that change. Otherwise, your social recruitment is going down to drain. And so it's really hard to find a partner who has the knowledge of all those channels and can also combine all those channels into one. And that's something I think, you know, one of the, one of, actually one of the couple of things that are missing from a job board perspective, if you're looking at, you know, proper job board strategy, execution, I would argue,
Peter (14:26):
Let's talk about recruitment in general. Recession in Europe, either there or coming soon, probably there by now, recession in the United States, although it's the most bizarre recession, I think ever in the United States. We keep adding new jobs and the unemployment rate hits record low even with a lot of tech layoffs. How will recruitment marketplaces come through this recession? Is it gonna have a significant negative impact, just a minor negative impact or a positive impact?
Dennis (15:07):
Luckily, recruitment marketplaces have, have weathered through several recessions in the past as well. Yeah. So they'll they'll remain there. On the other hand, if you look at I think it can go both ways. You know, I mean, a recession is never good yet because, you know, budget, I mean, you know, there will be higher freezes. There will be budget cuts, which can, which will impact top boards as well, how it will pan out given the fact certainly in, in American and Europe, that there's still huge labor shortages and how those two will balance out. I think that's, that's anybody's guess. So if I would make a guess at the moment, I would say a minor negative impact, Dennis,
Steven (15:50):
The minute or two that we have remaining. Quick, quick question for you. If I'm a job board and I'm already working with one of the programmatic vendors to distribute my jobs, or perhaps I'm exploring working with one for the first time, what would be the reason that I would work with amwell in to send my jobs out to other job boards, et cetera instead of one of your competitors? Like, what are your competitive ad advantages?
Dennis (16:20):
Yeah, good, good, good question. I think there's a five. So one I mentioned already, yeah, being able, I mean, being able to act as a kind of one-stop shop for for media. And number two, from an architecture point of view we've built up our platform so that, you know, we can, and we automate or we launch campaigns, marketing campaigns for every single job. Meaning that, you know, we're able to combat the, the Pareto distribution problem and being able to steer job performance for every single job. I think number three would be that we're able for job boards to support multiple use cases to one platform, not only your base on campaigns, but also your much needed B2B product innovation, you know, launching media upsell products, were advertisers getting into performance-based pricing. All those three use cases we can support to one on the same platform.
(17:16):
I think the fourth reason would be that we do all of the above in a fully automated way. Yeah, you know, it's, it, it says cost. It's perfectly scalable. You don't need mark tiers to, you know, to tweak the bells and whistles on a programmatic platform. And last but not least you know, we don't limit ourselves at, at media distribution itself, but also cover the data garbage in as data garbage outer principle, meaning that we're able to help job boards also with, you know, job taxonomy, classification service side tracking and measuring correct channel performance, you know, filtering out bots deeded duplications and what have you not. Yeah. So I think five five in my view, at least five five. Good reasons, Steve.
Peter (18:02):
So we want to thank you for joining us today, and we want to ask you if people want to get in touch, what's the best way and spell Amwell, because any logical person spelling it would spell it A I m W E L l and they won't get you there. So as you tell us where to find you spell it, right?
Dennis (18:25):
Yeah, it's the correct, it's the correct spelling, but with one L Peter. So that's the easy one to find me personally, Dennis Juan LinkedIn. I think that's the, that's the easiest
Steven (18:36):
One. And for the listeners, it's Dennis, and then v a n a l l e m e e r s c h. Dennis, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing.
Dennis (18:51):
Thanks for having me, guys. And good luck with the, with the other pop balls that are coming up.
Steven (18:56):
Cheers.
Peter (18:59):
Inside job boards and recruitment marketplaces is a co-production of Evergreen Podcasts College Recruiter and the AIM Group.
Steven (19:07):
Please subscribe for free on your favorite app. Review it five stars are always nice, and recommend it to a couple of people you know who wanna learn more about job boards and recruitment marketplaces.
Peter (19:19):
Special thanks to our producer and engineer, Ian Douglas. I'm your host Peters Ulman of the AIM Group, the leading global consultancy in the field of marketplaces and classified advertising. Find out more about our reports on recruitment marketplaces, job boards and classifieds, including our new recruitment marketplaces annual at aim group.com/reports.
Steven (19:44):
I'm your host, Stephen Rothberg of job search site College recruiter. Each year we help more than 12 million candidates find great new jobs. Our customers are primarily Fortune 1000 companies, government agencies, and other employers who hire at scale and advertise their jobs with us. You can reach me at [email protected].
Hide TranscriptRecent Episodes
View AllWe're migrating the podcast to video live stream in April 2023
Inside Job Boards and Recruitment MarketplacesDoes the Indeed Whisperer think you're properly data-driven?
Inside Job Boards and Recruitment MarketplacesThe impact of Russia's invasion on Ukraine-based Relocate.me
Inside Job Boards and Recruitment MarketplacesShould employers be upset by Indeed's shift to pay per application?
Inside Job Boards and Recruitment MarketplacesHear More From Us!
Subscribe Today and get the newest Evergreen content delivered straight to your inbox!