How Changes in Net Neutrality might Influence the Recruitment Business

By Sarah Louise:

Former President Obama championed what we call the Net Neutrality rules, and the Federal Communications Commission has recently restored the internet freedom. With the latest news in the Net Neutrality story, everyone can get some information on the new reforms and how they are implemented. However, the question here remains – how will these changes influence the recruitment business?

Net Neutrality

Before we even start discussing this matter, let’s talk a little about Net Neutrality.

When a person accesses the internet, they do this by using an Internet Service Provider, otherwise known as ISP. Such providers are Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Verizon. ISPs are the path that leads to the information we need, regardless of the platform or nature of it.

So, whether a person is looking into their Facebook page, watching a YouTube video or reading on Wikipedia, they are using ISPs.

Up until this point, Net Neutrality made all these ISPs treat the traffic in the same way. This means that people can get access to anything they want at the exact same speed the ISP has promised. However, without Net Neutrality, we are looking at an open internet.

What kind of difference are we facing now?

Look at it this way. If the ISP you are using is partnered with another music and video platform that is not YouTube (inevitably the most popular platform at this point), this could be bad for the platform. In other words, you may experience a slower speed, while the one that partnered with the ISP will have blazing speed.

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How Net Neutrality Affects Recruitment

Since this is a new topic that’s just been introduced a short while ago, not many people have considered the impact of Net Neutrality on recruitment. Based on the new Net Neutrality decision, job seekers are highly affected in terms of their job search.

”You’d be surprised to hear the number of people who use the newspapers or watch TV ads to get a job – it is almost non-existent. At this point, almost all job seekers look for open job positions online.” – says Kathrin Leaton, an expert at My Math Done.

Current calculations say that the number of Americans who use the internet to find work is 79% at this point, and a third of them consider it the best resource for getting a job. However, with the overturn of Net Neutrality, job seekers no longer enjoy equal access to such resources.

What does this mean?

Limited Access for Job Seekers

It means that, when looking for work, job seekers are facing an unfair disadvantage because of the different access and speed on various sites where they look for jobs.

Surely, this does not mean that the sites that are loading slower won’t result in job applications, but the risk of applicants continuing their search because of this delay is much higher. Not every job seeker will have the time or patience to wait for a job description to load.

In addition to the bad conditions for employees, this can also have a very negative impact on the recruiters.

Difficulties for Recruiters

Online recruiting companies that do better than others can take this change into their advantage and provide the visitors with better and faster search results. When this happens, the other companies will not get the equal interest on behalf of the candidates, and most of the candidates won’t even have an idea as to what else is offered on the job market.

Understandably, some hiring managers and companies will find this extremely beneficial, while others will find it detrimental for the job positions they should fulfill.

Let’s say you have a site where you post job offers or a job board. Even if this site uses amazing SEO and marketing strategies and becomes popular among job seekers, this will not guarantee that the site will be equally fast as others. When traffic goes up, so may the rates from the ISPs that feed the site to the potential candidates. Because of the changes in Net Neutrality, the ISPs may require supplemental fees to maintain the same speed and accessibility, or improve your site’s existing speed to a better one.

If you decide not to, or cannot pay the supplemental fees, your site will load so slowly that very few job seekers will be desperate enough to spend endless time waiting for results. After all, you cannot expect them to wait forever to look into job posts they may not even like. Especially not when there will be other sites that will actually pay these fees and improve their speed.

In addition to this, ISPs may use these changes and create channels for career enhancement, by which they will actually earn from the job seekers directly while hurting the popularity of your ‘slow’ job board. They may ask job providers to pay a fee to access a speedy site and post a job and ask for a fee from the job seekers to access these job posts. It’s basically a win-win, but only for the ISPs.

If they do this, users will get access to speedy and snappy content, both video and audio, which is something they will no longer be able to find on the websites they used before. Of course, most job seekers will actually want to see these sites and the job posts and will be willing to pay the fee.

So, the job providers who pay to be on those sites or own those sites will rise above the competition, while the others will basically disappear.

In addition to this, job posting will become much more time consuming, even if you are using other platforms. If you are a target=”_blank” hiring manager, you are looking into a time-consuming activity of locating the sites that offer fast connection. Only then can you distribute the open jobs on the right platforms, where they can reach the most adequate candidates for the job.

Who Gets Hurt?

So, who gets the bad end of the loss of Net Neutrality?

Basically, everyone involved in the recruitment process. Every recruiting site and job board that spends money on the ISPs to get a fast lane, and every job seeker who pays to get access to it.

And it’s even worse for those who don’t.

Those job seekers who don’t pay will suffer spending hours looking at a single, annoyingly slow website, and the recruiters will suffer a loss of visitors because they decided not to pay.

Who Benefits?

Based on the online recruitment activity, the Net Neutrality repeal should have a big effect on this industry. Basically, the entire way of seeking talents and jobs of today will change.

Ultimately, the biggest benefit will go to staffing agencies. These agencies use online tools and resources to provide job seekers with the information they need and help the recruitment process. Still, it will all depend on how well they handle the Net Neutrality changes.

No one is fully prepared or informed on what will happen after this change, but successful staffing agencies and agents will become more popular than ever.

Without the Net Neutrality rules, job seekers and providers are most likely facing a more difficult time finding candidates and jobs. The new reforms mean non-equal access to all the information online, which will hurt both sides of the recruitment world.

Sarah Louise

Sarah has a vast knowledge of trading lawful material, commercial brand new systems, and merchandise. She uses her skills to teach and guide young businessmen and recent graduates in the career path.

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