Nexxt career network identifies hot sectors for job seekers

What used to be Beyond is now Nexxt.

Just last week, the King of Prussia-based career network Beyond abandoned its brand name and launched a revamped online platform, all to suggest what's Nexxt in the cause of connecting job recruiters with job seekers.

Pressing the changes is a "tight" labor-market era, with companies struggling to find quality workers, said Nexxt founder and CEO Rich Milgram. The times demand a more aggressive, multitiered approach from the service — one of the "top ten career networks in the nation" — to scour the digital hills for talent and more aggressively pitch jobs and unfamiliar employers to people who aren't even looking for a new gig.

How in-demand might you be?

Last month, on a national level, Nexxt tracked 509 job openings for every job application in "Transportation and Logistics" (most notably, truck drivers), 278 openings per applicant in "Personal and Home Services," and 241 gigs for each seeker in the "Insurance" game.

Also red hot — Healthcare and Medical (99:1 for registered nurses, physical therapists, and pharmacists); Sales and Sales Management (43:1); Merchandising, Purchasing, and Retail (33:1); Information Technology (32:1, where systems administrators and information security analysts "rule"), Travel, Hospitality, and Restaurant (28:1); and Manufacturing and Production (19:1, with machinists highest in demand). In our backyard, more than 36,000 Philadelphia-area gigs were searchable this past week at nexxt.com.

The employment brokers aren't giving up on the venerable job boards that have served the company (as Beyond) for 20-plus years, but pitting them squarely against higher-profile companies like CareerBuilder.com, Glassdoor.com, and Monster.com. The Nexxt operation hosts more than 50 customized niche career sites, some geo-focused like PhillyJobs.com. Others are pitched to affinity groups and diversity hiring with specialized outreach to veterans, women, seniors, Hispanics, African Americans, the disabled, and the LGBT community, among others.

But Nexxt's new "full service" strategy now demands the use of big data crunching, predictive algorithmic technology, and multichannel marketing, including texting, emailing, and brand marketing, to "niche target" and even "re-target" candidates, a company report detailed, A stronger push is being directed to the large — 36 percent — "passive" crop of surveyed workers who are employed but might be open to new opportunities.

In a run-up to the relaunch, Nexxt tested the waters and claimed success with several campaigns targeting in-demand professionals, such as nurses. Akin to the "cookies" clinging to online clothing and gadget shoppers, likely candidates who'd been tracked viewing a nursing job in one market would be pushed ads from a Nexxt client for a comparable opening when they visited CNN, YouTube, and other sites.

The company's focused Text2Hire strategy, launched last year, sends a personalized pitch note ("you might be a fit") to candidates combed from the 60 million-deep Nexxt database. It's resulted in a "15 percent unique user engagement rate experience," reports the company, for one health-care client enabling five hires after sending only 332 texts. A "third-party platform" allows the client to manage the conversation with would-be employees.

"Our new products and services are changing the game for recruiters and job seekers alike, creating a powerful centralized marketplace for talent," Milgram said.