Holy Resume Batman, Another Jobs Site Launches
Following the latest wave of job "meta-search" sites (Indeed.com, SimplyHired, etc.), Business.com is launching Work.com after several months in beta.
Calling itself a "premium" jobs site, Work.com's twist is that employers pay only for those leads (recruits/applicants) that click through to their sites (applicants are sent directly to employer sites to apply). It changes the pricing model from flat fee to PPC/performance based.
So that might be a good thing for some employers, but the whole sector is fragmenting on both the advertiser and applicant sides: CareerBuilder, Monster, HotJobs, Indeed, SimplyHired, WorkZoo, Craigslist, Oodle, LinkedIn, Tribe.net . . . And the list keeps growing.
How many sites can I as an applicant search, and how many as an employer do I have time to fool around with? Admittedly, all these sites aren't exactly the same, of course. For example, as an employer, I don't deal directly with meta-search sites such as Oodle, Indeed or SimplyHired.
The proliferation of competitors in a sector tends to reinforce the value of brand and, paradoxically, inertia to a degree — "I'm going to stick with Craigslist 'cause that's what I know."
I don't blame them — it's a great URL — but this is crazy-making for everybody.
Does the chaos you aptly depict reopen a window of opportunity for newspapers to capitalize on a "tried-and-true" solution?
Appreciate the comment and definitely agree that in a complex/competitive market metasearch has a real chance to win 'cause it simplifies for the consumer.
But it will be a challenge for the WorkZoos, you guys, Indeed and Oodle (perhaps in a different way) to differentiate from one another and take on the established brands.
Good luck (I mean that sincerely).
hey Greg –
definitely there is activity, however i don't know if i would say it's "fragmenting", rather i'd say there are several startups trying to solve different parts of the problem.
while some folks may choose to stay with what they know as you suggest, the feedback we've been getting from our users is that they really enjoy having *one* site where they can go to see the entire market of job opportunities out there. for us at http://www.SimplyHired.com, we want to make it easier for job seekers to discover their connection to an interesting job (via our partnership with LinkedIn) as well as track the jobs they're interested in (via our JobRatings and MyJobs features).
you're correct there will be competition for the #1 spot, but i think the # of entrants is simply a reflection of the enormous potential here. employment is a huge market, and there's plenty of room for innovation and process improvement.
in any case, we think things in this space are just starting to get interesting. competition is good for our customers, and ultimately good for us as well ('that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger'). we plan to be around for awhile 😉
– dave mcclure
http://www.simplyhired.com
Certainly newspapers have trustred brands, but that's generally outstripped in the jobs space by Craigslist in the major metro markets. I do think there is an opportunity for newspapers to be competitive in this space — although newspaper-owned CareerBuilder is the #1 jobs site — at a local level.
The question, as always, is: can they execute?