Job aggregators. Just a few short years ago the emergence of these sites onto the recruiting scene was superseded by so much ire that one might have thought they were evil robots invading from outer space. The mere thought of a company bold enough to scrape postings without permission from job boards or corporate career sites was enough to infuriate any hardworking sales rep, and rightfully so. How could these posting pirates get away with (and make a living from) purloining other people’s content?
But after the initial public hangings, a shift occurred that made many rethink their opinions. Job boards and companies faced two main options: they could set up a text file on their site prohibiting the crawling of certain pages, or they could make the aggregators work for them. Some sites like Craiglist blocked them, while other sites chose to set up a structured feed with the job sources, thus beginning a commercial relationship.
Soon these job search engines snuck their way into job seeker lexicon and began receiving praise for their one-stop-shop convenience and ease of use. I’m not saying that everyone loves these recruiting tools – their critics remain numerous and loud. But a lot of the backlash did subside to make way for a symbiotic partnership.
Despite the question of copyright infringement, problems with expired or miscategorized postings, and an outspoken group of critics, sites like Indeed, Simply Hired, TopUSAJobs, and Workhound have remained true to their promise: that they would change the way recruiters recruit and job seekers seek, making search cheaper, faster, less complicated, and better-targeted.
Currently there are several dozen job aggregators functioning in the U.S. and abroad (for a full list check out Eric Shannon’s catalog). Of this set, some are permission-based, and some scrape as many jobs as possible without getting approval. Although once considered the enemy, job boards and corporate sites are now cooperating with aggregators to take advantage of the upsurge in traffic that such a partnership can afford. Recruitment agencies and employers are implementing cost-effective targeting and SEO strategies to achieve solid search rankings. Campaigns on aggregators have demonstrated that getting your brand or your postings out there to the right candidates has never been quicker or easier.
Most recently the aggregators have capitalized on the recession by promoting the cost-effectiveness of their sites vs. Google AdWords or posting on job boards. With so many companies scrutinizing their online marketing spend, it just makes sense to test-drive the pay-per-click methods that aggregators charge to get quality candidates.
Like them or not, these job search engines are here to stay. But what’s in store for them (and for their users) in the future?
One topic of interest that I’ve read about recently is how the aggregators are exploring ways they can be useful to the newspaper industry. In the AIM Group’s Recruitment Advertising 2009 report, Paul Forster, CEO of Indeed, said that newspapers can and will benefit on multiple levels by using aggregators to drive traffic to a newspaper’s job site. The New York Times, which holds a minority stake in Indeed, recently launched a beta news aggregation feature that AIM predicts may eventually serve as a springboard into other forms of aggregation. In addition, some newspapers may even consider adopting the pay-per-click model that the aggregators embrace.
Richard Clarke, Director at Red Advertising, said in an article in ONREC’s magazine that changes in the sector are imminent and that building a job site off of Adsense or by gaming Google is an ephemeral and limited strategy.
“Some aggregators are riding the Adsense gravy train for all its worth with heavily search engine-optimized websites, but that is likely to be short-lived,” Clarke said. “There is little value in a job board taking in lots of candidate traffic unless it’s of the right quality that converts, adds real value to their business, and delivers to a high return on their marketing investment.”
Other research I read suggested that free aggregators will disappear because of the reasons listed above and could be nudged out by quality aggregators that focus on delivering structured data to the user while remaining flexible in their business models. Rethinking the user experience may also become paramount as more and more job seekers step into the market. Some aggregators may implement candidate profiles or other tools to develop a long-term relationship with their users much like job boards as opposed to a search-only interface.
One thing is clear: new job boards and career sites emerge in abundance every day. As long as these players are present, the aggregators will keep up their collections. Whether these engines spread globally or remain niche-focused, and how they handle the growing divide between available jobs and available job seekers, could be what separates the collectors from the organizers of real value.
Popularity: unranked [?]
May 28th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
As someone who has been in the biz a long time, I think the aggregators do their thing; but from the jobseeker experience they get the fire hose treatment from the big boards and they get the fire hose times 10 from the aggregators. A big part of recruiting technology in the future will be matching high level, quality candidates to appropriate positions lessening the volume on both sides. There have been companies that have gone terribly wrong in the logic matching game, but someone will eventually get it right and when they do that will be the next kingpin in the ‘career site’ space.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:35 am
“Some aggregators are riding the Adsense gravy train for all its worth with heavily search engine-optimized websites, but that is likely to be short-lived,” Clarke said.
Hmmm… I wouldn’t want to be on the record with that one!
LatPro has been forced to evolve, not just by aggregators, but by many forces. For example, we now run job fairs in large cities across the country and this is the type of evolution I expect to see much more of from other job boards as a result of increased competition from too many directions to keep track of.
– Eric
May 29th, 2009 at 10:44 am
When will we every realize that there is absolutely no technology that will ever temper significant human interaction. Technology will never be able to replace good ole’ fashion hard work and hustle. Technology certainly makes the job of the aforementioned easier and more efficient, but it will never replace it. And those who lean on it shouldn’t be in the business anyway…as many who did during the boom are realizing now.
Although the aggregators certainly have their place the user experience is horrible. Matching technology…video resumes…I can’t imagine anyone will ever get this right to the point that it becomes a primary recruiting tool for anyone. Someone is going to figure out that the “job board” is not a dirty phrase and is simply a means to advertise an opening…back to basics. Enough with career advise, resume writing, etc. Leave that up to specialists. Fact is the gainfully employed (dare I make a blanket statement, but still as a population are the most sought after candidates) are not using these tools…because they are working and don’t have the time.
Give me a simple, robust job board where I can [advertise...not a bad word] and linkedin where I can source passive talent, and I’m making placements.
May 29th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Forget about job boards, aggregators, and company career sites. These days, a job seeker needs to get in front of hiring managers and avoid the time-wasting, ego-sapping “Apply Now” buttons. I’ve written extensively at my site about this situation, and it seems the recruiting and staffing “experts” are finally listening. These folks are now chiming in on the complete uselessness of job seekers blindly applying for jobs in the hope that someone–or anyone–will see their resume and respond.
May 29th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I’m curious…if not job boards, aggregators, company career sites (and I’m guessing 3rd party recruiters) what is the point of entry for a job seeker to get in front of hiring managers?
May 29th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Vanessa, sometimes a little bit of analysis and commentary is required from the writer.
Did you give any thought as to why newspapers would benefit on multiple levels by using aggregators to drive traffic to a newspaper’s job site? Why newspapers in specific, the same is true of all job sites in general.
Why are newspaper’s job site special in this case Vanessa?
May 29th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
“There is little value in a job board taking in lots of candidate traffic unless it’s of the right quality that converts, adds real value to their business, and delivers to a high return on their marketing investment.”
Short lived? Is the traffic to a job board different from the traffic to an aggregator? Is there any real meaning to this statement?
May 29th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Oh wait, yes, the traffic coming from an aggregator to a job board IS different from the traffic finding a job board independently.
The job seeker coming from an aggregator is already interested in the job on the job board, because it was able to find it and choose it over the other results it found from a broader array of sources.
NO BRAINER
May 30th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
“Hmmm… I wouldn’t want to be on the record with that one!”
Evidently Eric I am now!
To put this into further perspective, the comment I made relates to aggregation within the UK market. Here in the UK we simply don’t enjoy the same level of job seeker search volume potential that you have stateside hence free aggregation isn’t as lucrative / Viable.
A free listing aggregation site in the UK can only ever be a lifestyle business unless it can sell premium adspace positioning to compliment its listings and I will explain why:-
Problem 1 – A free aggregation site in the UK, even if it optimizes the back end out of it, it can only gain a traffic reach of a certain level. Of that reach only a percentage of those visitors will click on adwords. This percentage is eroded further as ad streams may include adverts that are promoted because the advertiser needs traffic from Google, yet are not so desirable to be clicked on. A good example could be say “Army Careers” bidding on “Engineering Jobs”. Your average engineer looking for an engineering role may not click on it because they have no interest in joining the army, so it may have a low click conversion yet if the advert was for a general engineering site it may attract higher click conversion rates – Problem 1, the free aggregator has little control over ad selection hence lower control of conversion rates.
Problem 2 – As adwords becomes more and more expensive, advertisers with high click conversion rates may restrict ads to Google only rather than the network because they only have so much budget to spend, hence compounding problem 1, more of the lower click conversion adverts are more likely to feature.
Problem 3 – In order for the aggregation site to increase its traction of the right candidates it has to invest in marketing, this being expensive. Having secured quality candidates from marketing the last thing it will want to do is send them onto adwords as it would be making a loss unless its supporting own paid content i.e. it costs more to buy in the right traffic than would be received back from a share of adwords revenue. Its only viable sending traffic that way currently because its free in the first place, i.e selling traffic back to google that google sends it for free.
Problem 4 – Google is not here to provide free traffic, the traffic it sends a site is a bonus and it’s not guaranteed. Sure, all job sites are going to optimise their sites the best they can, who wouldn’t, but traffic from Google can only be part of the bigger marketing picture and one turn of the dial against MFA (made for adsence) sites at Google HQ and its goodnight Vienna so sites have to do other forms of marketing to protect their position – hence can’t avoid a marketing overhead
Problem 5 – To sell premium adspace / clicks, the traffic quality has to be good with a high conversion for those advertisers hence a more global marketing policy has to be introduced to secure the right mix of candidates, hence a high cost factor to the site.
Problem 6 – A free aggregation site can only remain in business as long as the traffic to it, is predominantly free, hence it’s solely reliant on being propped up by Google which isn’t a good idea. As for arbitrage the margin would be small in the early years until the site is established enough to have a natural following (this would have taken many years and capital spent on marketing with google and elsewhere to be noticed anyway in the first place.)
In the UK one of the market leading generalist jobs boards is total jobs with a reach of about 2.2 million job seekers a month. To get this level it has to invest significant sums into marketing each month. For an aggregator to reach this kind of level in the UK it would have to do the same, hence it’s earning potential solely as a made for adsence site would be limited. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that the slice of the free search traffic pie in the UK isn’t big enough.
Finally, to sum up the UK market will change in my opinion because free aggregation in order to be viable outside of a lifestyle business would have to attract paying clients. To attract paying clients it has to deliver quality and it do that has to invest in marketing. I’m not calling the demise of aggregation here, far from it, we are in the business, what I’m commenting is that the landscape will change towards a paying model imo because free has limitations against the backdrop of quality marketing spend required to attract the right candidates that advertisers need.
Rich
May 30th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Eric…briallant. You are certainly blazing a new trail with your “job fairs in large cities” concept. I can’t believe this hasn’t been done before. AND its not just the job fair part of the concept that really sets it apart…its the large city component. That piece should not be overlooked.
I never thought that if you could actually pull off the impossible task of getting this new job fair concept off the ground…that it should start in larger cities w/ all those people. If I was smart enough to conceptualize this…I totally would’ve started in smaller, rural markets, but I think you’re on to something w/ this larger city thing.
I would say good luck, but w/ your handle on Web 2.0 you don’t need luck.
June 1st, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Eric – I don’t know how “briallant” you are but I do think you have a good idea with the job fairs. It also appears you can spell English words better them some others here. You have ideas to share, a real profile, spelling skills and a good attitude. As we know too well, some commenter’s are just miserable and have nothing to share…and it makes me so happy to know that they are miserable and have nothing to share!
June 1st, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Rich, thanks for elaborating. I hear your point about the size of the UK market. Yes, there are lots of thorny problems with the Google/AdSense model. But, after all is said and done, don’t knock the lifestyle business! The guy with the traffic will always have more options than the one without…
Thanks Rafael for defending my brilliance.
-Eric
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:35 am
CLP – how do job seekers get in front of hiring managers?? Easy…they are all on Google! Check this out: I ran a few Google searches based on companies that are hiring and came up with a mother lode of names & contact info. http://undergroundjobnetwork.com/?p=1361
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Classic…calling out spelling on a blog. Nice diversion. So, you are all aware that job fairs have been around pretty much since inceptions of jobs. Monster, HJ, and CB all had them…and dropped them for the most part, because they are nothing new and aren’t high margin.
Since I can’t spell brilliant it makes it really hard to read the Wall Street Journal, but I made it through the paper the other day and found this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124346897475360551.html. This is visionary…not the idea of job fairs in big cities. That would be considered on par w/ starting a newspaper w/out a website in these days and times.
And if you want spelling advice, stop by RealMatch. Its exit 19 off the Jersey turnpike…then take a right at the Dunkin’ Donuts.