Almost a decade after its launch, BountyJobs has became a leading broker of executive search job orders, handling nearly $60 million worth of fees last year and earning recruiters an average of $22,113 for every placement.
Yet, even after signing up some 50,000 recruiters, BountyJobs still evokes strong feelings within the industry. The biggest objections today are pretty much the same as they were back in 2006: the BountyJobs marketplace turns job searches into a commodity business cheapening fees and minimizing the importance of the agency-client relationship.
However, fee percentages haven’t been much affected, hovering just above 20%, according to BountyJobs data. And the requirement that agencies work only within the marketplace with client developed there hasn’t been much of a deterrent. In fact, so popular has the site become with agencies that BountyJobs is limiting the number and niche of newcomers.
Today, the only way an agency can join BountyJobs is by having a specialty in short supply on the site or by being on an employer’s preferred vendor list, explained CEO Mike Hard and COO Jerry Aubin.
Just in the last month BountyJobs overhauled its agency search services to make it easier for niche firms to find reqs in their specialty and to provide all firms more visibility into open jobs and more data about employers so they can make better decisions about whether to accept or seek a search.
In a recent demo of the new interface, Hard said the enhanced site search and notification features were all developed from agency requests. All the improvements, he said, are “things to help them find the right jobs, the right employers.”
Three key enhancements were made to the agency service:
Acceptance of what Hard and Aubin called a “refresh” of the agency side of BountyJobs has been strong. BountyJobs’ numbers show that in the first five days after introduction of the new features and services, more than 3,100 agencies conducted 36,000 customized searches.
