What do you get when you combine the American Thanksgiving Day holiday and three podcasters? Some bad jokes about turkey...and a few great takeaways.

What you also get is a robust discussion with guest William Tincup of WRKdefined, a new network for work-related podcasts; Peter M. Zollman of AIM Group (Marketplaces / Classifieds); and Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site.

In addition to some jokes about turkey, we discuss what works well for job boards and recruitment marketplaces that have podcasts targeting employers, candidates, or both. What content should they focus on? How many minutes long should they be? Should you also post excerpts to social platforms like TikTok?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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[00:00:13] Welcome to episode 87 of the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces podcast. I am one of your two co-hosts, Stephen Rothberg, with College Recruiter, where we believe that every student and recent grad deserves a great career and that it should be easy and inexpensive for employers to hire them.

[00:00:29] We are recording a little bit in advance here, so my advance wishes to my co-host Peter Zolman of the AIM Group for a great Thanksgiving Day.

[00:00:41] Well, thank you very much. And our name is Advanced Interactive Media Group, in fact. So there you go. You know, we do business intelligence for recruitment marketplaces and job boards all around the world.

[00:00:55] And we have a wonderful RecBuzz conference coming up in April. And we hope to see both of you there. We have with us today, our guest is William Tincup.

[00:01:08] As I read editor, analyst, advisor, comma, and host of Work Defined.

[00:01:16] You knew it was going to happen. You knew it was going to happen.

[00:01:18] The Oxford comma is one of the best things to ever happen to the English language. And I think we should just all agree on that.

[00:01:25] Says the lawyer. Anyway, we're going to talk to Mr. Tincup, who does podcasts about podcasts for job boards and recruitment marketplaces.

[00:01:38] Do they make sense? And if so, who should be podcasting? What kind of podcast should they be doing? And so forth. Got some ideas for us, Mr. Tincup. And thank you for joining us.

[00:01:48] A hundred percent. A hundred percent. The best part of this is this is episode 87. And I graduated in 1987.

[00:01:56] Nineteen or?

[00:01:57] Yeah, it could be 18. Anyhow, it was 87. That's what I remember.

[00:02:00] Oh my gosh. Make me feel old.

[00:02:03] No, no, no. I just, I saw that. I'm like, our yearbook was a bit of heaven in 87. That's the only reason I remember it because of that.

[00:02:11] So glad to be here. I think the answer, Peter, it's going to be multi-pronged. We'll get through it.

[00:02:17] But when you're creating a podcast, you're either trying to render information for people that need it, have dialogue with people that are doing some really innovative things, or you're trying to learn something.

[00:02:29] So like when I did drive through HR, I didn't know HR. So I came from the marketing world, but I needed to learn because I'd shifted my career towards recruiting in HR.

[00:02:40] And so I created a podcast to talk to HR professionals every day so that I could learn HR.

[00:02:47] So in that case, it was just, I needed to learn. I needed a real quick way to learn what's better than to talk to, you know, 1200 professionals doing the job.

[00:02:56] I think how it makes sense for job boards is candidates struggle with like what's new, how they should get a job.

[00:03:06] And so a podcast, like what we would think used to be a FAQ or a blog, this is a more interactive way to reach their audience that's looking for a job, especially if it's mobile friendly and it's bite-sized content.

[00:03:18] You know, so maybe not the 45 minute or Joe Rogan style length of podcast, maybe, you know, five minutes.

[00:03:24] I mean, y'all's is a great length of podcasts where you can get in, you can learn something and get out.

[00:03:29] So I think for candidates, it makes a lot of sense for job boards to get into the business of creating podcasts that help them.

[00:03:39] That's just information. It's not about the job board.

[00:03:42] It's just information on how to actually navigate, especially early stage careers.

[00:03:47] I think that high school and college anywhere before 30, I think people just kind of, they make their way through.

[00:03:56] But if someone would actually give them advice and say, here's the game, here's what you should be doing, here's what you should be looking at, et cetera.

[00:04:03] I think that podcast is wonderful for recruitment marketplaces and job boards.

[00:04:08] So I think one of the reasons why we try to keep our podcast to, you know, 12, 15 minute episodes is because consistently our listeners will tell us that the less that they hear of us, the happier they are.

[00:04:22] What I think William told us, Stephen, is that you, a college recruiter, should start a podcast for candidates and job seekers, early stage careers and recent graduates.

[00:04:37] Why don't you think about doing that?

[00:04:39] So funny that you say that.

[00:04:42] Wait a minute.

[00:04:43] Because a couple of months ago we did.

[00:04:45] So I co-host this podcast, obviously.

[00:04:48] There's also one co-host, the High Volume Hiring Podcast.

[00:04:51] And then a couple months ago started one called From Dorms to Desks.

[00:04:55] And we're using Google's Notebook LM.

[00:04:58] Basically, we feed it the content, tell it what kinds of conversations we wanted to have, what kind of conclusions we wanted to reach.

[00:05:06] And then the two AI co-hosts go at it for 8, 10, 12 minutes.

[00:05:12] Perfect.

[00:05:12] All three of our podcasts are in the work-defined network along with, you know, a couple dozen others.

[00:05:19] Is it weird that I like her voice more than his voice?

[00:05:24] Like his voice is a little robotic to me.

[00:05:27] I don't know why.

[00:05:28] Yeah.

[00:05:28] Her voice is like...

[00:05:29] Interesting.

[00:05:30] It seems like it would be just a person that would be right next to me.

[00:05:33] Like just...

[00:05:34] I don't know what it is.

[00:05:35] It could also just be that you're heterosexual.

[00:05:38] 100%.

[00:05:38] And so you just favor the presence of women in whatever form they take or may not take.

[00:05:43] Hey, it's Bob Pulver, host Q Podcast.

[00:05:46] Human-centric AI, AI-driven transformation, hiring for skills and potential, dynamic workforce ecosystems, responsible innovation.

[00:05:56] These are some of the themes my expert guests and I chat about, and we certainly geek out on the details.

[00:06:01] Nothing too technical.

[00:06:02] I hope you check it out.

[00:06:04] Careful, careful there.

[00:06:05] We don't want to get any lawyers involved.

[00:06:07] I'm just saying.

[00:06:08] You know, I'm just making an observation.

[00:06:11] Could be me.

[00:06:12] So in all seriousness, you mentioned that the amount of time, and I was kind of thinking somewhat along the same lines, but I want to make sure I understand.

[00:06:21] So I think what you're saying too is that for audiences where the audience skews younger, then you generally want that content to be shorter.

[00:06:30] So duration, a five-minute, eight-minute episode is going to work better for a younger job seeker.

[00:06:37] An older HR person is going to be more likely to want 20, 30, 40 minutes.

[00:06:44] 100%.

[00:06:44] So let's see what candidates.

[00:06:46] Take that eight-minute video and cut that into eight shorts.

[00:06:49] So the content created for candidates, and again, we'll say everyone under 30, performs extremely well on YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, and TikTok.

[00:07:01] And YouTube shorts has a 59 seconds limit.

[00:07:05] Yeah.

[00:07:05] So really, you'd take an eight as best you could cut it up, and you'd cut it up, and you'd drop it into those areas, and you'd get great consumption.

[00:07:14] That's where they get their knowledge.

[00:07:15] They search TikTok.

[00:07:17] They search Instagram.

[00:07:19] They search YouTube shorts for this type of advice, this life advice, and especially career advice, et cetera.

[00:07:27] And the content driven by the job board tells the candidates what, and then we'll ask about the employers.

[00:07:38] But tell the candidates what?

[00:07:40] The game.

[00:07:41] We can't assume that their parents or school has ever given them any advice on how to play the career game at all.

[00:07:49] So it's just like personal finance, right?

[00:07:51] When it's not taught in school, typically parents teach that if they teach that, and then kids get out into the real world, and they don't know how to manage their finances.

[00:08:01] There's no difference between that and careers.

[00:08:04] So again, if we're just talking about high school, and it's between high school and kind of college or whatever they're going to do next, they don't know how to navigate that.

[00:08:13] It's not taught anywhere.

[00:08:14] So I think just giving them advice on, hey, what are you looking, what are you good at?

[00:08:19] Here's some of the jobs that are really popping right now.

[00:08:22] Like I would do that podcast with a Gen Z person.

[00:08:27] So I would actually have someone of their age talking to them and say, hey, here's the game, man.

[00:08:32] Let me tell you a little bit about what's going on.

[00:08:34] Boom, boom, boom, boom.

[00:08:35] Or if it's an engineering job board, you probably want to have an engineer, even if they're now doing something else.

[00:08:43] But if their background is in engineering, if it's about like where Peter lives in Orlando, like Orlando Jobs is a great job board.

[00:08:51] And if they have a podcast for candidates, if the host or co-hosts are both in San Francisco and have no experience in Orlando, wrong.

[00:09:01] But at least one of the people there really needs to understand that market.

[00:09:04] So let's shift over.

[00:09:05] Peter asked about the candidates.

[00:09:07] Let me let me ask you about the employers.

[00:09:08] Sure.

[00:09:09] What kind of content, if you're a job board or recruitment marketplace, what kind of content would you recommend that you provide to the employers?

[00:09:18] What's working right now in candidate attraction.

[00:09:21] So this is everything from their career, their jobs, not career site, their, you know, their career page, like what candidates are looking for.

[00:09:32] They're not up to date.

[00:09:33] Like y'all are because you're in it and you're steeped in it.

[00:09:37] But an average professional HR person, they have no idea what's working right now.

[00:09:43] So their employer brand, recruitment marketing, the messages, the way that they are putting job descriptions together.

[00:09:51] None of that is being taught to them.

[00:09:54] They're going off of what worked the last time they recruited for that job or the last one that they did.

[00:10:00] And it's still the same thing that you see that we did 20 years ago.

[00:10:05] You go into Indeed or whatever, and you copy a job description, you drop it in a word, you change it a little, and then you repost.

[00:10:14] And that's horrible.

[00:10:15] That's a horrible experience.

[00:10:16] So like someone needs to teach them what's working right now.

[00:10:21] So it's, it isn't, it isn't so much of the history of that stuff.

[00:10:26] It's really, Hey, here's, you're trying to get a hundred qualified candidates for this job.

[00:10:31] Okay.

[00:10:32] Here's what's working with this type of job.

[00:10:34] Here's the messages that are resonating.

[00:10:37] Here's the benefits that are resonating.

[00:10:40] Like it's, it's for them.

[00:10:41] It's how do I track the right people?

[00:10:43] I don't need 20,000 people to apply to the job.

[00:10:46] I need a hundred qualified people.

[00:10:48] Like I want to be able to make that and then be able to go through the filters and do all the things after that, but they need advice.

[00:10:54] So on both sides, and it's different advice.

[00:10:58] One's basically helping them with their journey.

[00:11:00] The other one's keeping them up to date with what you're seeing in the marketplace and what works on your job board.

[00:11:06] So if you've got accounting jobs in Vermont as your job board, cool.

[00:11:11] Now, you know, like, you know, what's working and what's not working.

[00:11:15] And then, so it's really just kind of regurgitating that and saying, okay, here's what's working right now.

[00:11:21] Everyone that's going for a, you know, an entry level accountant.

[00:11:25] This is actually what's working right now.

[00:11:26] This is what's getting applications.

[00:11:28] This is what's getting people to apply to your jobs.

[00:11:31] Cool.

[00:11:34] You know what you should know?

[00:11:36] You should know that you should know podcast.

[00:11:38] That's what you should know.

[00:11:40] Because then you'd be in the know on all things that are timely and topical.

[00:11:45] Subscribe to the You Should Know podcast.

[00:11:48] Thanks.

[00:11:49] And that, I presume, can be a little longer and a little more substantive than the snack food for the candidates.

[00:11:57] Yes.

[00:11:58] And just like you're thinking, step by step.

[00:12:02] Okay.

[00:12:03] Accounting, you know, you're trying to get an entry level accountant.

[00:12:06] Great.

[00:12:06] Throw out everything that you used to know.

[00:12:08] Here's the things that you should do.

[00:12:10] Step one, do this.

[00:12:11] Step two, do this.

[00:12:12] Step three, do this.

[00:12:13] And it's giving them advice.

[00:12:15] You can go that by region.

[00:12:17] You can do that by job, by level of job.

[00:12:19] Like if there's unlimited amount of content to be able to tell them what's going on so that they can then go and search and find that content.

[00:12:28] And they'll listen for longer.

[00:12:30] Peter, to your point, they'll listen to a 20 or 30 minute podcast and not even think about it.

[00:12:35] So I think we have time for one more question.

[00:12:37] And one thing that I'm hoping to find out from you, William, is if I'm working for a job or a recruitment marketplace, maybe I'm in marketing.

[00:12:45] And I want to get the resources to launch a podcast, whether it's for candidates, whether it's for employers.

[00:12:52] How do I have that conversation with my boss who is going to be probably pretty focused on return on investment?

[00:12:59] Yeah.

[00:12:59] How do you define that for them?

[00:13:01] It's like owning a bar.

[00:13:02] Two-sided marketplace is essentially owning a Dick's Last Resort.

[00:13:07] If you get women to show up to your bar, you'll get men to show up to your bar.

[00:13:11] Hmm.

[00:13:12] So even though we say it's a chicken and egg or you got to balance it out, that's not true.

[00:13:17] You need women.

[00:13:18] So in this case, women being a substitute for candidates.

[00:13:22] So the first thing you do is to make the case for, hey, we just need more candidate flow.

[00:13:27] We get more candidate flow, we'll get clients.

[00:13:31] We just need candidates.

[00:13:32] If you get women to a bar, men will follow.

[00:13:36] Like women can drink free, men you can charge for.

[00:13:39] Like that's just, that game hadn't changed in 60 years.

[00:13:42] It's the same game.

[00:13:44] So the same game in job boards.

[00:13:46] If you get candidates, you will get clients because all you have to do is say, hey, listen, we've got X number of clients that are jogging every day.

[00:13:55] And then all of a sudden, okay, sounds good.

[00:13:57] So the business case that I would make to my boss at the job board would be like, I want to do a candidate centric podcast.

[00:14:07] I want to cut it up into shorts.

[00:14:08] I want to put it where they are.

[00:14:10] They don't need to go to our website.

[00:14:11] They don't need to go to Spotify.

[00:14:12] That's cool if they do.

[00:14:13] But I want it to go to TikTok where they are already.

[00:14:17] And I want to place content for them, get to know us, call to action, come to our job board, fill out whatever they're going to fill out and drive up candidate flow.

[00:14:28] You drive up candidate flow.

[00:14:29] Your current customers already get, they get more quality applications.

[00:14:33] And now you can sell that, repackage that to new clients.

[00:14:37] So that's how I'd make the justification to my boss is I would say, we need more candidates.

[00:14:43] How are we going to get more candidates?

[00:14:45] We need to go where they are.

[00:14:47] The sense of community, the three of us have grown up in this idea that community exists in this place.

[00:14:53] And that's no longer the truth.

[00:14:55] Community is where they are.

[00:14:57] And if they're on TikTok, if they're on Instagram, if they're on YouTube shorts, that's the community.

[00:15:04] We need to put our content where they are, not try to get them back to a website and go to our place, go to resources and have podcast.

[00:15:10] That's old school.

[00:15:11] We need to go where they are and put content that they care about where they are.

[00:15:15] Mr. Seaman, you want to wrap up?

[00:15:18] Been a pleasure, William.

[00:15:19] Awesome.

[00:15:20] Awesome working with you, Ryan Leary, the rest of the crew at Work Defined.

[00:15:24] And yeah, a lot of what you said is kind of music to my ears.

[00:15:30] Been a pleasure.

[00:15:31] Absolutely.

[00:15:32] Happy American Thanksgiving.

[00:15:34] May your turkey be properly cooked.

[00:15:37] Not either under, which could be a bigger problem, nor over like one of my grandmothers used to specialize in.

[00:15:46] Have you all noticed that people in the Northeast have a different version of Thanksgiving than people in the South or even in the West?

[00:15:52] I don't know if you all traveled enough to know that.

[00:15:54] I grew up in Texas, obviously, and we had chili for Thanksgiving.

[00:15:59] Oh.

[00:16:00] We didn't have turkey.

[00:16:01] We didn't dress.

[00:16:02] So when I visit friends and they have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, they roll out all this stuff.

[00:16:09] I'm like, what is all this?

[00:16:11] Where are the Fritos?

[00:16:13] Here in Minnesota, we have a lot of wild turkeys and it's quite possible there'll be one less in a couple of weeks.

[00:16:19] So.

[00:16:21] Fantastic.

[00:16:22] Great to see you again.

[00:16:24] Thank you, William.

[00:16:25] Thank you, Stephen.

[00:16:26] And for those of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving or celebrated it a few days ago, happy Thanksgiving.

[00:16:32] And may you have wonderful holidays and a fantastic 2025.

[00:16:40] Awesome.

[00:16:41] That's scary.

[00:16:42] Bye.

[00:16:42] Oh, it's.

[00:16:43] Yeah.

[00:16:45] Not ready.

[00:16:46] Cheers, guys.

[00:16:47] Bye.