Steven Rothberg: How College Recruiter Is Successfully Transitioning Its People, Process, Product, and Customers from Duration to Performance-Based Advertising

The inexorable growth of pay-for-performance in the recruiting world has presented a challenge to job boards that have traditionally relied on duration-based job posts: what should they do? Steven and Faith Rothberg of College Recruiter are coming to the Jobg8 Summit to share their story of how they made the switch.

“We were using legacy software that just couldn’t handle PPC,” said Steven.

“We made a lot of mistakes and suffered a lot of pain making the transition. We want to show our colleagues how to avoid some of the problems in moving to PPC, so they can enjoy success more quickly.”

The conventional wisdom in the industry is that shifting to PPC means a drop in revenues. “Not true,” said Steven.

“Our revenues skyrocketed – and so did our profits! PPC has helped College Recruiter not only survive – but thrive. That’s huge.”

Steven founded the company in 1991; by 1993 he and Faith were married, and Faith was becoming increasingly involved in the business. Eventually she became the CEO. “College Recruiter is literally a mom and pop company,” Steven notes.

Moving to PPC has also allowed College Recruiter to differentiate themselves from competitors. It’s also proven popular with our ideal customers: employers who hire at scale, meaning dozens, hundreds, or even thousands. Our customers are primarily Fortune 1,000 companies and federal government agencies. We launched our job search site 23 years ago but have seen more innovation in the past two years than in the previous 21 combined. Although the site continues to offer duration-based job postings, they are no longer the key revenue driver they once were. “The switch has been good for us,” said Steven. “It allows us to serve our candidates and employers more effectively – and it has been a growth engine for the company.”

One final observation from Steven: “Although I founded College Recruiter, make no mistake: Faith is the boss at home AND at work!”

You’ll get a chance to see if he’s right – join them at the Jobg8 Summit in Denver, June 25-26.