Television and Radio

April 13, 2006

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Television is an effective medium for getting a message to a huge number of people, but, as a recruiting tool, network advertising has significant drawbacks:

It is expensive (the cost-per-viewer is the lowest of any medium, but the overall cost of production and airtime is high).
It is more effective at selling name recognition than specific information (detailed job information is better communicated by print).
It cannot easily be targeted to specific audiences, such as people looking for work.

With the advent of cable TV, some public access channels now offer television classifieds. These tend to be more reasonably priced than a traditional 1 1/2 minute commercial. Some job services, such as temporary agencies and state job services, are also using television as a medium. If you tend to stray from public access channels, though, in favor of a network channel, you could be looking at sky-high costs.

Radio, on the other hand, has some advantages:

It is much cheaper than television.
It can be more selective in the audience that your ad will reach.

Like television, radio's usefulness tends to be limited to those times when an employer needs to hire a large number of people in a short span of time. One nice thing about radio advertising is that many people listen in their cars, which makes them, to some degree, a captive audience. However, among tried and true recruiting methods, radio is not a top choice.