I’ve really been slurpin’ up the vertical job search engines for awhile now. But maybe it’s time for a little reality check.
My adoration is for good reason, of course. Sites like WorkZoo, SimplyHired and Indeed have given online recruitment a well-deserved shake-up – so much so that even Yahoo! HotJobs recognizes the potential and has jumped in.
That said, let’s look at some negatives:
- Outdated content. Too many job listings lead users to expired jobs. Not good. Spiders need to improve.
- Addicted to Monster. The verticals rely way too much on job boards for their content. They need to start combing the streets for more direct corporate dealers to satisfy their fix.
- Give me more. SimplyHired touts 4 million-plus job postings. (I think even they might admit that’s a bit inflated.) Labor studies show there are probably millions more being missed because they don’t reside on job sites.
- Spam threat. Unlike job boards, who serve results based on date order, verticals serve results based on relevancy by default. Because the verticals aren’t as evolved as Google, they are wide open for "black hat" SEO tactics. Think keyword stuffing, invisible text, excessive use of <H> tags, etc. Once companies start figuring out how to outrank their competition for competitive jobs via optimization tactics – both good-guy and bad-guy – the verticals will have a tough time keeping spam in check.
- Money. Let’s face it. This is the bottom line. Mega sites like Google and Yahoo! have figured out how to create money-making machines with free search results because of pay-per-click advertising. It remains to be seen if the verticals can create a similar revenue model, or come up with something groundbreaking. These aren’t mom-and-pop solutions. They have investors behind them who want returns. If acquisition doesn’t occur, the hammer to generate dollars should be intense.
I’m still a big fan, mind you. The trend has grown out of necessity for what job seekers want: A one-stop shop for job content.
Vertical job search will continue to benefit those in search for a job. The niche players will evolve and grow in popularity. Yahoo!’s technology will get better and its impact more visible. Google could (should) put its hat in and really rattle some cages.
Sound business models are rarely immune to significant challenges. Vertical job search is no different. It’ll be fun to see how each engine adapts to these challenges.
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September 9th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
Hey Joel – nice post – I agree that job seekers need a lot more from job search engines than listings from job boards. That is why Indeed is indexing all jobs from over 1,500 unique sources, including the corporate websites of over 80% of the Fortune 500. Indeed is adding over 130,000 new jobs per day which is considerably more than any other job search engine. And we’ll certainly give you more… as we are adding new sources of jobs every day.
Paul
http://www.indeed.com
September 10th, 2005 at 4:52 am
All fair points. However, all 3 job search engines you mention have been in existence for hardly a year… there’s lots more to come.
Improving & diversifying our job crawls and indexing is obviously an ongoing & primary effort. However, in addition to having millions of jobs and thousands of data sources and fresh/recent data, we’re pretty sure most people want a great user experience that goes much further than where we’re at today.
So while i may agree with your observations, i don’t necessarily agree these are the *most* important areas to be focused on.
Sometimes people look at search as the hammer for every nail. Search is a useful tool, however content & applications count for a lot too.
another way to say that: sometimes a pretty face is a lot more interesting than a thousand words.
(keep watching joel… the game has only just begun ;)
- dave mc
Watch
September 19th, 2005 at 1:24 am
When it comes to one-stop shop, the one stop that counts most for job hunters are actual job offers!
It has been said that the “journey is better than the inn.” Cervantes, however, isn’t my mortgage lender nor landlord.
Just like investors want to see some kind of numeric return, so do job hunters. What’ll really turn on candidates is to see actual numbers and statistics published that say how many positions were filled through ads on the different job boards and search engines, vertical, horizontal or diagonal.
Speaking of getting horizontal, it’s still amazing to note that in this age where everybody allegedly has more access to everybody through blogs, emails, cell phones, etc. the way many still land their positions is through the “hidden job market.” I’ve heard estimates range from 60% to 85% of jobs still get filled that way. Can job search engines pierce that? Job hunters, especially enthusiastic motivated ones who are also Internet savvy would like to know.