new bowl game request: simplyhired vs. indeed

Mon, Jan 2, 2006

I’m a curious person by nature.

Things that make me go ‘Hmm’ are usually followed by a healthy dose of work until a happy conclusion is reached (or at least until something better grabs my attention).

My latest ‘Hmm’: As I sit around waiting for the Notre Dame / Ohio State football game today, I’m curious how SimplyHired and Indeed stack up against each other when the exact same searches are done on each.

Here we go:

"sales" in "New York": SimplyHired - 33,152; Indeed - 36,355

"nursing" in "Atlanta, GA": SH - 2,404; I - 2,038

"customer service" in "Seattle, WA": SH - 5,355; I - 8,642

"marketing director" in "Houston, TX": SH - 28; I - 35

"CPA" in "Phoenix, AZ": SH - 577; I - 930

"tax attorney" in "Boston, MA": SH - 6; I - 14

"java programmer" in "Philadelphia, PA": SH - 38; I - 27

"accounting" in "Des Moines, IA" : SH - 718; I - 705

"lift operator" in "Detroit, MI": SH - 2; I - 3

"direct mail" in "Miami, FL": SH - 72; I - 129

"radiology" in "Cleveland, OH": SH - 190; I - 174

What did I learn from this?

Very little, I suppose. No happy conclusion. Neither one came out a clear winner. Indeed may have a slight advantage, however keep in mind that I didn’t go through each listing to see which had expired jobs that shouldn’t have counted, possible duplicates, and what not.

It was also unfortunate that I couldn’t include Jobster, since their search queries are significantly different.

The only lesson may be that if content truly is king, then the vertical job search space has a throne in need an occupant.

Now to the Fiesta Bowl ….

This post was written by:

Joel Cheesman - who has written 1278 posts on Cheezhead.

One of the most widely-read bloggers on emerging recruitment issues in the world. Accomplishments include being named Recruiting.com’s Best Technology Recruitment Blog and Best Recruiting Blog. Joel's been featured in Fast Company magazine, BusinessWeek Magazine, Resumes for Dummies, U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal and more. Plug into Joel via Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, iTunes, YouTube or Flickr.

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5 Comments For This Post

chris Says:
January 2nd, 2006 at 5:32 pm

Hi Joel,
I encourage you to look into the actual search results for comparison. The number of search results is one indicator, but is easy to inflate if that’s what is being measured. How? Just keep jobs longer! Indeed.com deletes all jobs over 30 days old. I believe Jobster (formerly WorkZoo) deletes jobs after 7 days.

Another issue is expired job postings. Few things are more annoying to a job searcher than clicking on a job search result only to get a “This posting has expired!” message.

Want a number to measure? Howabout number of NEW job postings ADDED each day. All the other numbers derive from this one.

Also see http://rmwilsonconsulting.typepad.com/job_search_engine_guide/2005/12/vertical_job_se.html - Robert Wilson did a pretty thorough comparison of a few job search engines.

-Chris

harmonyjones Says:
January 2nd, 2006 at 10:44 pm

another point to consider is SH will only show you 1000 jobs After that you get their “What 1000 results aren’t enough for you” message. So in reality their claims to indexing 4,441,123 jobs is just marketing dribble..

Also content is important but delivery should not be neglected. The “sales” in “new york” search took 3 times longer for results to show up on SH than on indeed

Dave McClure Says:
January 3rd, 2006 at 11:54 am

thanks joel… an ongoing contest between Simply Hired and Indeed *is* happening, although i don’t think the best way to score the game is based on just the # of jobs. most people probably make their choice based on features & functionality — where i think we’re both working fast & furious to beat the other guy.

harmonyjones: thanks, we work hard on our marketing dribble. from another perspective, if you’re searching through more than 1,000 results per query, you might want to consider refining your search using our filters or other keywords so you can improve your relevant results & speed up your job search. just a thought. then again, your comment does point out how the # of jobs is a less meaningful stat after you get thru the first 10-20 pages of listings.

chris: i agree the metrics are difficult to compare if we choose different periods to measure listings. that said, differences aside we still feel like we have a slight edge in the ‘most jobs’ category — as does the blog you cite by bob wilson (see his post ‘Simply Hired finds the most jobs’). however, while having more jobs is a relevant stat if we’re comparing sites where one has 4M and another has 500K, it’s a less compelling differentiator when both are reasonably close such as ours are (in most cases it’s probably

Jason Goldberg Says:
January 3rd, 2006 at 7:08 pm

well gosh …

i guess 200+ paying employers doesn’t make you top tier any more :(

here’s to a fun 2006.

-jason goldberg
jobster
http://www.jobster.com
http://www.jobster.blogs.com

Dave McClure Says:
January 4th, 2006 at 12:10 pm

hey jason -

you guys are certainly top tier, but different primary customer… for SimplyHired and Indeed, it’s candidate-first. might have been the same for WorkZoo pre-acquisition, but these days i’d have to say the Jobster biz model is employer-first, correct?

not to say you can’t serve both audiences, but i think the products & services look different depending on which one is primary.

(still top-tier, tho ;)

chris Says:
January 2nd, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Hi Joel,
I encourage you to look into the actual search results for comparison. The number of search results is one indicator, but is easy to inflate if that’s what is being measured. How? Just keep jobs longer! Indeed.com deletes all jobs over 30 days old. I believe Jobster (formerly WorkZoo) deletes jobs after 7 days.

Another issue is expired job postings. Few things are more annoying to a job searcher than clicking on a job search result only to get a “This posting has expired!” message.

Want a number to measure? Howabout number of NEW job postings ADDED each day. All the other numbers derive from this one.

Also see http://rmwilsonconsulting.typepad.com/job_search_engine_guide/2005/12/vertical_job_se.html - Robert Wilson did a pretty thorough comparison of a few job search engines.

-Chris
harmonyjones Says:
January 2nd, 2006 at 10:44 pm
another point to consider is SH will only show you 1000 jobs After that you get their “What 1000 results aren’t enough for you” message. So in reality their claims to indexing 4,441,123 jobs is just marketing dribble..

Also content is important but delivery should not be neglected. The “sales” in “new york” search took 3 times longer for results to show up on SH than on indeed
Dave McClure Says:
January 3rd, 2006 at 11:54 am
thanks joel… an ongoing contest between Simply Hired and Indeed *is* happening, although i don’t think the best way to score the game is based on just the # of jobs. most people probably make their choice based on features & functionality — where i think we’re both working fast & furious to beat the other guy.

harmonyjones: thanks, we work hard on our marketing dribble. from another perspective, if you’re searching through more than 1,000 results per query, you might want to consider refining your search using our filters or other keywords so you can improve your relevant results & speed up your job search. just a thought. then again, your comment does point out how the # of jobs is a less meaningful stat after you get thru the first 10-20 pages of listings.

chris: i agree the metrics are difficult to compare if we choose different periods to measure listings. that said, differences aside we still feel like we have a slight edge in the ‘most jobs’ category — as does the blog you cite by bob wilson (see his post ‘Simply Hired finds the most jobs’). however, while having more jobs is a relevant stat if we’re comparing sites where one has 4M and another has 500K, it’s a less compelling differentiator when both are reasonably close such as ours are (in most cases it’s probably
Jason Goldberg Says:
January 3rd, 2006 at 7:08 pm
well gosh …

i guess 200+ paying employers doesn’t make you top tier any more :(

here’s to a fun 2006.

-jason goldberg
jobster
http://www.jobster.com
http://www.jobster.blogs.com
Dave McClure Says:
January 4th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
hey jason -

you guys are certainly top tier, but different primary customer… for SimplyHired and Indeed, it’s candidate-first. might have been the same for WorkZoo pre-acquisition, but these days i’d have to say the Jobster biz model is employer-first, correct?

not to say you can’t serve both audiences, but i think the products & services look different depending on which one is primary.

(still top-tier, tho ;)

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