I get asked on a regular basis why I haven’t plugged-in a social network or community into Cheezhead. (”The pageviews are crazy, dude!”) Granted, I dabble in Facebook, but I haven’t infiltrated the main site with user profiles to date. With Ning sites popping-up faster than Roger Clemens accusers, it’s a fair question. And one for which I don’t have a great answer.

That said, the reply I typically give has to do with a feeling that isn’t quite right. Ning seems too restrictive and clunky for my own taste, for example.

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Yahoo! HotJobs has dumped its date-order results when seeking employment in favor of a Web search-like algorithm. We covered it a few months ago. In addition to it being a regular news item, we thought it made sense to call up Yahoo!’s Kevin Krim and find out more.

Most notably, we wanted to find out how the company planned on fighting search engine spam. Similar to Web search, providing job search results via algorithm is bound to bring out old spam tactics such as invisible text, keyword stuffing and the like, which vertical search engines have a hard time fighting. In fact, a recent finding on Job Boarders.com proves spam will be an issue for any job site giving results by relevancy.

Here’s Krim on how HotJobs is fighting search engine spam:

To HotJobs’ credit, they have implemented a human-policing element to their job descriptions, similar to Craigslist’s strategy. Here’s what the spam report image looks like on HotJobs when reporting a bad posting:

Also notable is HotJobs’ desire to help employers better optimize their own job descriptions for the best possible results, which takes on new importance after finding out from out talk that only one-in-40 job postings get clicked. To that end, the company has created a must-read document for all employers entitled “R.E.A.L. Playbook.” It can be found for free at cheezhead.com/hojobs-seo-tips.

Here, Krim explains best practices for optimizing your job postings:

It was an enlightening chat, especially considering what’s going on with Yahoo! and Microsoft at the moment. Through whatever inner turmoil is going on in Mountain View, and aside from the fact that the rest of the Big Three is trying to get as big as possible in a global land-grab, HotJobs is seemingly doing its best simply to be better.

It may fundamentally be a marathon they cannot win, considering the falling cost of job postings across most niches, but I have to give them credit for fighting the good fight.

To hear the entire 30-minute interview, subscribe to our iTunes channel.

My French is pretty limited - ya’ know, croissant, fromage, bière, the basics. However, with the whole “world is flat” thing, I should probably start learning more than just English. And the growth of job sites in far-off places is a great motivator too.

CareerBuilder.ca has entered a strategic partnership with BRANCHEZ-VOUS! (that’s “You Plug” according Google translator) to power its new online job search center. Under the exclusive agreement, CareerBuilder will provide users access to job postings in Quebec and the rest of Canada. They’ll also provide workplace related articles.

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Funny, yet slightly disturbing.

Update: Apparently the R-rated nature of the video above was deemed too raunchy for public consumption and has been taken down. (For those who did see it, however, the impression it left won’t soon be forgotten.) Granted, CareerBuilder is no stranger to advertising that pushes the envelope, but they obviously outdid themselves this time.

RetirementJobs.com has expanded its team. New members are:

1. Deborah Russell, Director of Workforce Issues at AARP
2. Max Stier, President and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service in Washington, D.C.
3. Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, Ph.D., Co-Director of the Boston College Center on Aging and Work/Workplace Flexibility in Newton, MA.
4. Michael Smyer, Ph.D., Co-Director of the Boston College Center on Aging and Work/Workplace Flexibility in Newton, MA.

Says CEO Tim Driver, “It is a true privilege to be joined by such a high caliber group of people. The perspectives they bring will be critical to the continued success of RetirementJobs.com, and each of them shares our enormous passion for helping people more easily secure meaningful employment at this later career stage.”

Joining the executive team is another ex-Monster employee. Jocelyn Talbot, the former senior vice president of sales at Monster.com joins the company as vice president of sales in its new headquarters in Waltham, Mass.

Ogopogo Media, an Internet media company that acquires and develops geotargeted destination and category specific domain names, recently announced it has acquired the rights to Jobs.ca from Domed Technologies, Inc. of Montreal, Canada.

The acquisition of Jobs.ca is the largest published single domain purchase in .ca history. The new ownership plans to create a job network, which will also include JobSearch.ca and Resumes.ca.

Says Robert Montgomery, CEO and co-founder of Ogopogo, “Jobs.ca is unquestionably the most intuitive, typed-in domain name for Canadian job seekers. It gives us a huge competitive advantage to hitch our brand to the domain name that defines the industry and the marketplace. It’s short, to the point, memorable and routinely receives thousands of valuable type-in visitors each day.

“We know that the Jobs.ca domain is a logical destination for both job seekers and employers. The broad and generic appeal of Jobs.ca matches our strategy of serving the entire range of job-seekers and will play a significant role in our future online job initiatives.”

The move also marks the departure of another Monster executive. Mark Huttram, former VP of Sales and Customer Satisfaction at Monster.ca, will lead the new team.

Imagine being a job seeker joining a job site and having your profile automatically matched with employers in a social networking-type environment. You could also think of it as joining LinkedIn and automatically being connected to anyone who matches your interests.

That’s how Climber.com CEO Mike O’Brien recently explained his company’s new offering, dubbed RecruiterRockStar.

According to the site’s homepage, it even “automatically search engine optimizes your profile and jobs.” Could the company be set to dive into the growing number of SEO companies in this space? Definitely maybe.

Here’s a screenshot of a sample recruiter profile.

The site has yet to officially launch, but according to a recent Tweet by O’Brien, “What a great cap to a great week, tech team working through the weekend putting the final touches on RecruiterRockStar.”

For more information, checkout www.recruiterrockstar.com.