Appcast Layoffs, Facebook Jobs, RecFest US

Happy Friday Job Board Doctor friends!

The Job Board Doctor team is wrapping up a great week in Nashville. The weather was sunny, and the content was flowing at RecFest.

What’s on my mind this week?

• Appcast layoffs

• Facebook Jobs

• RecFest takeaways

Appcast Lays Off 32

On Thursday, Appcast CEO Matt Molinari announced on LinkedIn that the programmatic company had laid off 32 employees.

Molinari’s post didn’t specify which roles were eliminated or the reasoning behind the cuts—other than referencing the need to better serve Appcast customers and prepare for the future.

A quick review of LinkedIn suggests that several former Bayard team members were among those impacted.

As I try to do, here are a few of the talented folks now back in the market and ready to join your teams:

• Abigail Stockham – Account Coordinator and Associate Account Manager

• Bobby Smith, Jr. – Account Manager and Media Strategist

• Stefanie Corum – Media Strategist and Business Ops Manager

If you’re looking for experienced media strategists or account managers, these folks may be great additions to your teams.

I also want to acknowledge Molinari’s post. As someone who has had to make hard decisions about reductions in force, I know these days are incredibly difficult.

As employees, we need leaders who can make tough business decisions—it’s critical to the health of those who remain with the company. But we also need leaders who are honest and transparent. Matt’s post sent all the right signals of a thoughtful leader making choices he knows will deeply impact lives.

It’s never perfect, and it always hurts. Thanks for being a leader who doesn’t hide behind the HR curtain and who shows some heart.

Facebook Jobs Is Back

After a two-year hiatus, Facebook is reintroducing its native job-posting feature. The announcement this week says the focus will be on local, entry-level, skilled labor, and gig jobs.

Jobs can be posted in the app only and the update doesn’t exclude “third-party partners” from posting.

There are, however, a lot of open questions:

• Will select third-party partners be able to provide a feed of jobs?
• Is this another data-collection play?
• Or an attempt to bring younger users back to the platform?

Plenty more to dig into over the next few weeks, but in the meantime, let me know your thoughts and any intel you uncover.

RecFest Takeaways

Just a few quick thoughts from RecFest US this week:

Built In delivered an excellent presentation on employer reputation building in LLMs.

The takeaway: as job boards, we need to ensure we’re enriching company profiles to help employers build trusted sources that reflect the real employee experience.

Long-form content structured for LLM ingestion is critical. SEO isn’t dead, but we must make sure our content is rich and optimized for how job and company search are evolving.

Consistency in content deployment is key—if you haven’t started, you’re already behind. And let’s be clear: it can’t be AI-generated slop. It needs to be good content, even if you use an LLM to support the writing process.

Jeff Taylor took the stage with Chad to talk Monster. Jeff, the founder and former CEO of Monster, shared behind-the-scenes stories about building the Monster Board, creating those iconic Super Bowl commercials, and the time Monster almost bought LinkedIn.

And congratulations to Shaker, celebrating 75 years in business! The marketing team, led by CMO Gina Alioto, created an exhibit that walked us through each era of Shaker’s history—with original content, equipment, and even an audio tour voiced by Joe Jr. I didn’t think Shaker could top their 2024 RecFest exhibit, but they did—and I was blown away.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why I’m holding a pair of custom Chuck Taylors in this week’s featured image. I had to share my favorite activation of the week came from the team at Vetty.

Chucks airbrushed with three things I love. A top-notch activation from CMO Michelle Meehan, who never fails to impress.

Okay, a quick one this week. It’s time to get back to the honky-tonk!

Until Next Time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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