This is a simple analysis of the role of IT Job Agencies and Job Boards in Australia

1. 7/19/2010 © Copyright is held by the author Russell Tibballs
A SIMPLE SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS
OF AUSTRALIAN IT AGENCIES

2. PURPOSE OF THIS ANALYSIS
7/19/2010
The purpose of this analysis is
exploratory to see what
insight a Social Network
Analysis of sites generated
© Copyright is held by the author Russell Tibballs
from seeding 100 IT Agencies
into a Webcrawler (VOSON). I
am primarily interested in
looking at relationships
between agencies in terms of
what value it gives to the IT
position seeker (job or
contractor) and the client
seeking to fill a position. The
Webcrawler came back with
over 17000 web links spread
out over agencies in several
countries. The Social Network
graph for that dataset is on
the right.

3. WHAT IS THE CURRENT THINKING ON THE VALUE OF JOB AGENCIES
AND JOB BOARDS.
A QUOTE FROM DAVID AUTOR – ‘THE ECONOMICS OF LABOUR
MARKET INTERMEDIATION’
7/20/2010
 His Research Question
 ‘Labour market intermediaries have been around in various guises for centuries,
as labour unions, craft guilds, and occupational licensing boards. But they have
also gained prominence in contemporary incarnations as temporary help
agencies, Internet job search boards, and centralised job-matching institutions
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like the ‘medical match’ that allocates physicians completing medical school to
medical residencies. The venerable history and continued re-emergence of
intermediaries in various forms raises the question: what precise economic
function do these institutions serve? And are they likely to improve labour
market operation or merely tax it?’
 His Conclusion
 ‘Despite widely heralded advances in the technology of job matching, I
anticipate that labour market intermediaries will continue to address,
ameliorate, and exploit the imperfect environment in which workers and
employers interact.’
 What David is saying – is the intermediary (job agency and job board) offers a
valuable service; however they will also milk the system for all it is worth.
 http://www.voxeu.com/index.php?q=node/2500

4. WHAT WOULD MAKE A HIGH VALUE
AGENCY FOR JOB SEEKER
7/19/2010
In theory the highest value for a individual job or
contract seeker would come from an agency that
had the highest networking characteristics for their
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industry . This would be characterised by a large
number of inward and outward links from other
agencies sites or a central role in the network
indicating access to a wider and more reliable view
of the job or contract market. This is in theory also
true to the client seeking to fill a position who is
best served by a near transparent market where
the those seeking and those hiring know well the
market characteristics and movements. At present
I do not believe this is not the case.

5. A GRAPHICAL VIEW OF THE LINKS BETWEEN
AUSTRALIAN IT EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES
7/19/2010
This graph shows the
existing network that
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exists between IT Job
Agencies using the
cleaned data.The larger
disks on this graph
represent the agencies
that have the largest
numbers of links to
other agencies.

6. CAVEATS ON THIS ANALYSIS
This data was collected by taking the top 100 links from Google when searching IT
Job Agencies and I created a seed list to pass to VOSON which went out to each of
7/19/2010
those seed sites and traversed the site searching for external links. Those external
sites are then traversed in turn looking for external sites, and so on.
This process took several days searching for links and then following those links
before I had the completed list. Due to the nature of this data collection process it
© Copyright is held by the author Russell Tibballs
cannot be considered comprehensive; however it does give an indication to the overall
networking tendency for the industry.
The method used is a variation of what is described as a Snowball survey. You find a
target and see what is linked to that and then what that is linked to, and so on for
each of the 100 selected links for job agencies from a Google search. This is neither
random selection, nor a complete population study of agents in the industry.
The data was collected in January of this year using VOSON to collect the data
which was downloaded into a excel spreadsheet where irrelevant links were
manually removed, then links were reduced to the Australian domains only. I did not
manually check each site; however I removed anything obvious. This final dataset
was fed into NodeXL for all further analysis.
Any economic analysis provided is based on my 1 ½ years of Study at ANU 25 years
ago. However, reform of any industry is usually aimed at making the market more
transparent and responsive to market needs. And usually when a market has a large
number of middlemen and intermediary markets, the industry is lacking in efficiency
and increasing the cost and burden to buyer and seller accordingly. I believe that
level of economic analysis will stand.

7. REMOVE LOW VALUE CASES
If you remove the sites with
7/19/2010
low numbers of external
links in and out , you are
left with a very small
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number of sites. In this
example I remove sites
which had less than 5
inbound external links.
I recognise many of these
sites such as Seek, Hays,
Jobsearch, and Jobserve.
However I was surprised by
employment.byron.com.au
whom I had not heard of
previously. The Department
of Immigration would be
reference site for overseas
applicants.

8. OUTBOUND LINKS
Agencies with a high level
7/19/2010
of outbound web links
indicates a model that
allows the Job/contract
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seeker to view position
vacant advertising and a
link to the associated
agent. In almost all cases
the same job will
advertised by multiple
agents although it is
sometimes difficult for the
viewer to identify that
easily. Almost all the sites
shown have links to a list
of associated agencies that
use the service.

9. AGENCIES WITH A HIGH NUMBER OF
INBOUND LINKS
7/19/2010
These agencies have
a high number of
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incoming links from
other sites. This
suggests that the
industry sees value
in linking to them.
This may be because
they are seen as
providing an
effective market
place for service
seekers.

10. A LITTLE BIT OF DETAIL The Top 10 Betweenness
7/19/2010
 One measure of how well these Centrality
sites are fulfilling this function
would be their ‘closeness’; ie what hays.com.au
proportion of other sites can be jobsearch.gov.au
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reached in one step from the market employment.byron.com.au
(Seek, Jobserve, etc). In each case it seek.com.au
approached 0.001 or in simple terms careersonline.com.au
the self proclaimed markets only mycareer.com.au
link to less than 1% of possible sites. jobsjobsjobs.com.au
Seek however does have a jobserve.com.au
‘betweenness centrality’ of peoplebank.com.au
68200.153 , which indicates the site ipa.com.au
has many ties giving position
seekers and position fillers In this analysis, these sites appear to
reasonable value and is quite provide the job seeker access to more
central to this marketplace. This is of the market.
good for seek, however Hays came
out with ‘betweenness centrality’ of
102588.576.

11. MORE DETAIL CONTINUED The Top 10 Eigenvector
Closeness
7/19/2010
 Another measure of value to
the network is Eigenvector employment.byron.com.a
Closeness that identifies the u
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hays.com.au
most central actors in the jobsearch.gov.au
network. careersonline.com.au
 In this case seek.com.au
employment.byron.com.au jobserve.com.au
jobsjobsjobs.com.au
takes 1st position and swaps peoplebank.com.au
with Hays which moves to 2nd, mycareer.com.au
and IPA drops out (to diversiti.com.au
eleventh) and diverisiti rises
In this analysis, these sites appear to
from 11th position to 10th provide the job seeker access to more
position on the chart. of the market

12. MORE DETAIL CONTINUED
7/19/2010
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The Sub Graph for The Sub Graph for The Sub Graph for
Hays employment.byron.com.a Seek
u

13. MORE DETAIL CONTINUED
At the other end of the spectrum these agencies only have single inward links,
7/19/2010
indicating very low value within the market. It should be noted that both these
sites are rated as having the lowest eigenvector and betweenness values out of
over 550 sites. These sites are probably not getting a lot of attention or effort put
into them and probably offer little to the position/job seeker or the client seeking
© Copyright is held by the author Russell Tibballs
to fill a position.

14. MORE DETAIL CONTINUED
These 3 sites which came in at 219, 220, and 221st in the eigenvector
7/19/2010
analysis show the more normal means that agencies arange there
business model. Note site is the red dot in each sub graph. In each
case the site is linked to high value sites that have many inward
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links.
fentonconsult.com.au locher.com.au townsvilleonline.com.au

15. WHAT DOES THIS SHOW ABOUT THE
EXISTING MODELS OF BUSINESS
There is no single predominant marketplace for IT Contractors or Job Seekers
(and all other job placement marketplaces in Australia). There are a number of
7/19/2010
central sites that the seeker can use to find jobs of interest and link to the agent
advertising the job to apply. The dominant model is the small site with links to
and from larger sites such as Jobserve, Seek, Hays etc. The 3 examples on the
previous slide demonstrate this approach. Many of these sites would specialize in
© Copyright is held by the author Russell Tibballs
a particular form of resources; ie Microsoft, IT Project Management, Testing, etc.
This reinforces my current view of the market. It is set up for the convenience of
the Job Agencies not the Job/Contract Seeker. This model limits the users view of
the total market and the prices being paid. It requires the applicant to reveal all
and the Agency to reveal a little as it can get away with.
This is not a very transparent market for the job/contract applicant. An efficient
market in economic terms is transparent where both sides know the prices offered
and accepted. In this market, neither side is truly aware of the prices, only the
middle man who is dealing with the particular transaction does knows the price
and demand. Worse for the applicant, the agents description of the position and
the skills required for the position are often confused or miss interpreted leaving
the applicant at the mercy of those with the least knowledge of the actual
requirement.

16. A SHORT DISCUSSION OF THE
CONSEQUENCES OF THIS MODEL.
7/19/2010
A transparent market would have problems for agencies as
the individual contractors and target clients would see and be
able to evaluate value in a crowded market. It is also difficult
to see why larger clients use this method of recruitment as it
© Copyright is held by the author Russell Tibballs
raises the cost of employment anywhere between 10% and
40%. I believe that this model applies to the job placement
industry in general and the issues are the same.
It can be claimed that Seek and other similar sites are there to
fulfill the need of the marketplace. However there are some
striking drawbacks that make this difficult. First of all this
market is designed to give the agencies the advantage, ie it
favors the middleman. Second the same job is often put
forward by multiple agencies and often with very dissimilar
descriptions. Thirdly the contractor or job applicant has no
idea if they have actually been put forward. They are told they
are being put forward however there is no transparency, they
have no idea of what the final rate is or whether the agent has
just collected resumes and gone on holidays. It is not unknown
for agencies to advertise positions that don’t exist for the sole
purpose of adding more resumes to their port folios.

17. HOW COULD THIS MODEL BE IMPROVED
7/19/2010
 Possible answers from the recruiting side.
 A market with industry certified only applicants.
This would assume a market where the only
applicants are endorsed by a professional body
like the ACS, Microsoft, etc.
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 Improve the existing markets so that it is easier to
see the entrants and costs being applied.
 Possibly both.
 Possible answers from the applicant side
 Greater transparency to allow the applicant to see
what the rates are for particular skills and roles,
and what the margins are.
 Greater transparency to allow the applicant know
which exactly role they have applied for. Many
recruiters(the end employer) provide job/position
identifiers; this should be standard in all job ads.
 More contractors/applicants should consider ACS
or industry certification so it is easier for the
industry to see the level of qualification.
 These change

18. WHAT IS LIKELY TO HAPPEN
7/19/2010
Very little or no change is likely as the marketplace appears to be
happy to continue on its merry way. IT Contractors are by nature
very individualist having often left continuous employment to
© Copyright is held by the author Russell Tibballs
allow themselves greater latitude in their approach to work and
employment. They want to go their own way and are not really
interested in pooling their shared strength to change the
marketplace, and equally there is little incentive for agencies to
change this. The shear number of agencies to the numbers IT
contractors indicates the level of profit is high enough to attract
an unusual high number of players into this group. The only
group with a large amount to gain and possibly the incentive are
the larger employers such as the various public agencies, and
larger corporates. This group could potentially could make
significant saving by forcing efficiencies on the agencies, and only
then would I foresee any change to existing practices.

19. A POSSIBLE ROLE FOR THE ACS
7/19/2010
 For IT position seekers
and potential
employers, considerable
advantage could be
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gained by pushing for
the use of a single
marketplace where
there was greater
transparency that was
operated in their
interests. If this market
place was operated by a ACS.org.au
group such as the ACS At present the ACS site rates at
there would be greater 48th position of importance as
credence to job measured by betweenness and
qualification and the 49th position for eigenvector
ability of the those in centrality. It is a site of
the industry to gain a importance, however it has a
clearer view of the long way go before grabbing 1st
prices to both sides. place. However, does the ACS
believe it is in their charter to
pursue this?

20. A SLIGHT DETOUR ON QUALIFICATIONS
7/19/2010
If you go back 25 years the number of different skill sets available in the
industry was substantially less confusing. I don’t know that there were
less technical environments or a lower number of tools and complexity. I
think employers were more inclined to employee someone with the
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academic qualifications and accept that they would have the ability to do
the job given a little time. Vendors have since seized on, and created a
market for certified professionals that appears to have superseded
university and TAFE qualifications, and has narrowed the application of
existing skill sets.
If employers want the number of IT graduates from universities to
increase the value of that qualification needs to increase. Why spend
$24,000 to $30,000 and 3-4 years of your life getting an IT qualification
when you can go to India and spend $4000 and 3 weeks or less of your
life getting a guaranteed vendor Certification, all the while staying in a
4 Star hotel and when you finish you quite possibly get work as easily as
the graduate. An Accounting Graduate with CPA qualifications does a
lot better than the IT Graduate with ACS qualifications. Can employers
expect this level of qualification if they don’t recognise its value by
rewarding this level of achievement.

21. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU THINK I
HAVE GOT THIS ALL WRONG
7/19/2010
 Although the data was collected sometime ago,
this slideshow was put together over the weekend
to try to encourage some discussion on this
© Copyright is held by the author Russell Tibballs
subject. Like almost all subjects there isn’t a
wrong opinion, however I prefer that there is
some evidence provided when any discussion
starts to base an assertions or analysis on. I am
happy to go over my methodology with anyone
interested.
 Remember this is not a full population study or
even based on a random sample; so the results
need to be treated with care.

22. WHAT CAN SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS
BE USED FOR.
7/19/2010
I have been studying Research of the Internet for a
Masters course at ADSRI ANU. A component of this
was Social Network Analysis, which in turn can be
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studied as part of the Master course Research of the
Internet. Social Network Analysis can be used for
analysing relationships between entities, whether they
individuals, groups, and organisations. Things that we
have used it for in these studies include email, Flickr,
Facebook, Twitter, Weblinks, Blog, and voting cliques
for the Eurovision song contest, also I have applied this
to immigration movements and and data analysis. This
is something I enjoy, so if you have something you
would like me to look at, let me know and we can
discuss it.