Ah yes, good ole Recruitment Ad Agencies. Where have they gone? I worked for three of them: Shaker, Bernard Hodes and for 1 week...Davis Advertising (Philly)...oh my. What is their role these days in online talent acquisition? Some of these firms are a mix between a technology firm (ATS solution provider) and a creative shop. What though do they really excel at? Some say branding. Some say ad-taking.

As we continue to migrate away from database recruiting (i.e. resume databases, traditional job boards, etc), the usefulness for Recruitment Ad Agencies continues to remain in question. For many companies, they outsource projects to RAAs for specific projects (e.g. collateral, career page design, e-cards, etc). For some, they rely on ad agencies to manage their messaging and place (yeah you guessed it) print ads in their local markets! Its almost 2007, folks.

So, what is their real value proposition though? Since the dot com bust, the agencies have been gutted of most of their talent. I know of at least 5 people that have gone on to finish their masters degrees / start their own firms and break away from their old employers. Layoffs, decreasing revenues, shaky business plans and poor vision / management have essentially reduced RAAs to a mere shell of what they once were.

The account management staff at most of these companies are inexperienced and disengaged from the strategic hiring agendas of their clients. While fees continue to rise at these firms, the ability to deliver compelling employment brands, innovative sourcing methods and performance-based campaigns remains in doubt.

Very few can truly deliver talent pipelines. Companies continue to sink more money into these RAA media plans with little regard for ROI. Has anyone seen a recent RFP from one of these firms? I have. Wow! Thats all I can say. Is this 1997 or 2007? I can't tell. The level of sophistication of these plans is quite laughable.

Without getting into too much detail, here's a simple exercise for you. Find an RFP from any Interactive Agency (not Recruitment-related). Say for instance, Avenue A/Razorfish, Digitas, or Reprise Media. Might be a little difficult but get your hands on one. Compare this document to a RAA RFP. You will giggle out loud. The metrics, strategic direction and performance-based models of these leading IA's completely blows away the RAAs. Not only for PPC, but also for SEM, blogs, email, etc.

So what's the conclusion? So-called "Recruitment Advertising" is a remnant of a passing generation. The bar has been raised for talent sourcing that you must possess a precise mapping of your lead costs (in terms of candidates and sorted by requisition), a strong editorial/content response rate (segmented by specific media: PPC, SEM, etc), quality of hire (i.e. how long did the hire stay on board?), solid decision tracking (what key decisions did the people you recently hired make and how did they impact your company in the last 3 years in terms of dollars and cents? do you need to hire better decision makers?), movement tracking (tracking your top peformers is critical and you should track how often, how high and for what reason people are moving inside and outside your organization), and effective delivery method (i.e. mobile, broadband, etc).

CFO Magazine recently did a study and indeed pointed out that "the old HR measures, such as head count, the cost of compensation and benefits, time to fill, and turnover, no longer cut it in this new world of accountability."

In sum, none of this is being addressed in the RFPs of RAAs these days. Its all about creative and account management. Are they really useful or wasteful? How about laughable?