Cheezhead Recruiting News and Opinion

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The similarities between nature and business are pretty astound-
ing.

It might even be fair to say, "Everything I learned about business suc-
cess, I learned from Mother Nature."

If you want to speculate on the origin, evolution and potential extinction of job sites, it probably pays to look to the natural world around us.

In the beginning …

The first of the job sites to gain favor in the land of online recruitment were those dedicated to technology.

It made perfect sense.

Techies were the first online, so by default they were the first to search for employment opportunities there.

Employers looking to hire tech pros did themselves a favor by posting jobs on the Net. The listings got in front of the right people and said companies were perceived as the savviest of employers and thus the most appealing.

Through the ups and downs of the market, which included one hell of an asteroid in 2000, tech job sites proved themselves to be the cockroaches of the ecosystem – surviving in spite of everything thrown at them.

However, where once species survive and thrive, they must also evolve or perish.

Typically, extinction is at the hands of a species smarter, more adaptive, stronger, etc. than those who came before. You know the story. Reliving high school biology isn’t necessary.

When looking at the growth of Craigslist, the vertical job search engines, and potentially the crashing of Google’s comet onto the planet, one must ask,"Who will be the first to vanish?"

It makes sense that the most technically savvy of the population will gravitate toward the latest and sexiest offerings of Google, Yahoo! and other potential leaders in the job search space.

Likewise, it makes sense that the employers in search of such talent will move their resources to these new mediums. It will be the leading edge companies who will learn the ins and outs of posting jobs onto these mediums via XML feeds and the like.

So will the job sites that started it all be the first to go? I think so.

Monster and CareerBuilder have incredible resources to fight for their lives. Local newspaper sites and non-tech niche sites will have a harder time staying competitive, but can rely on stalwarts like health care and personal relationships to stay afloat. All will see attrition, but the degrees are impossible to predict.

No doubt the tech job sites have a long history and track record, which should come with a big, valuable user database.  For their sakes, I hope they use it wisely. Some will certainly evolve and live on.

However, much like watching the polar ice caps melt and believing it’s a sign of something bigger, more ominous, I’m going to keep a close eye on the Dice’s of our world for a peek into the future of the industry as a whole.

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