Cheezhead Recruiting News and Opinion

I ramble on a lot about Google and Yahoo!’s current and potential strategies around providing job listings to users. However, I rarely discuss Microsoft’s MSN because, frankly, there’s usually not a whole lot to talk about.

That may be changing. The software giant quietly made an interesting play in the online recruitment space this week. A move that has gone largely unnoticed.

MSN-Israel has partnered with Isreali-based firm RedMatch to provide job listings on its online portal. I have worked with RedMatch in the past, and their offering is quite intriguing and unique. Although a major player in their part of the world, they are relatively invisible in the U.S. and other non-European markets.

A deal with MSN on a greater scale than Israel would certainly change that. Therefore, be on the lookout for RedMatch.

However, the bigger question is what does Microsoft have in store for this relationship and its own play in recruitment? RedMatch is a kind of matchmaker for employer-candidate connections. Think job board meets applicant tracking solution (ATS).

That said, could Microsoft provide a corporate offering in its upcoming update of Windows, incorporating RedMatch’s technology? Might MSN offer a vertical job search solution that ties into this type of passive, automated match recruiting model?

I expected MSN to get in the game on some level, but this current deal leaves a lot of questions unanswered. However, it does represent movement on the Microsoft front to compete with whatever solutions Yahoo! and Google have coming down the pike.

There’s no question the online recruitment industry needs to keep an eye on Microsoft as much as it does Google, Yahoo! and the other search players. Expect bigger moves by the masterplanners of Redmond as this movie plays out.

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