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0in 0in 0pt”>Yahoo! announced today that its job service, HotJobs would be crawling company Web sites for =
job listings and adding those listings to its ?index? of jobs. One the surf=
ace, this seems silly ? why would they want to cannibalize the service?s ma=
in source of revenues, paid jobs?
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>I spoke with =
Dan Finnigan, who runs HotJobs, about their plans. He said that the #1 goal=
for HotJobs and Yahoo! is to provide a comprehensive job search experience=
.. They were noticing that consumers were starting to conduct job-related se=
arches on the general Yahoo! search pages, and advertisers were buying up j=
ob-related keywords. According to Dan, Yahoo!?s long term plan is to have a=
nother tab appear on search.yahoo.com for ?Jobs?, in much the same way vert=
ical search engines already exist for shopping and local searches. Job list=
ings would also appear in general search results.
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>The twist is =
that HotJobs plans to put the paid listings first in the search results, an=
d first in the integrated search listings. As anyone knows from general sea=
rch results, it?s rare that people will venture beyond the first few pages =
of a search results. Here?s an example of a search for ?RSS? in San Francisco ? =
when I did this search, there were a total of 41 jobs, with 31 of them feat=
ured listings. Those ten ?scrapped? listings came from just two companies ?=
Juniper and Ask Jeeves ? but I fully expect to see a more comprehensive li=
st.
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>The ?free? li=
stings will benefit jobseekers who are looking for very specific jobs or jo=
bs in locations that don?t have a lot of online recruitment listings (here?=
s another exa=
mple). The secret to Yahoo?s revenue preservation is that if a company =
has problems filling a position, they will feel the need to pay for placeme=
nt in the featured listings ? as well as access to resume database.
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>So Yahoo! rea=
lly doesn?t have much to lose in terms of revenues ? and they also have a g=
reat deal to gain as they are third place player to Monster and CareerBuild=
er. Also, I think Yahoo! sees the writing on the wall with meta-job search =
engines like Indeed.com, Simply Hired, and WorkZoo that were scraping all of the major job search engi=
nes. And Google isn?t far behind ? although they have made no announcements=
, I fully expect Google to unveil a comprehensive classifieds search engine=
within the next few months.
It’s inevitable that job listing prices w=
ill feel pressure, yet Yahoo! has alternative ways to monetize job listings=
throughout its network.=20
Can Monster and CareerBuilder follow in Yahoo!’s footsteps? It’s unlikel=
y as they both lack the greater context of a general portal and search site=
— they aren’t in as good a position to make up any shortfall in revenues =
that will inevitably result.=20
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>The problem w=
ith Yahoo!?s approach is that it?s crawling company job sites and building =
a great index ? but it simply means more jobs for candidates to apply to an=
d get no reply.
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>Enter Jobster. I first spoke with Jobster in Mar=
ch and was impressed by their business model, which is combination of appli=
cant tracking system and social networking. Recruiters can send out an emai=
l to their contacts notifying them about a job opening, and those contacts =
in turn can either apply for the job or forward it on to other people. The =
beauty of Jobster is that it turbo-charges one of the top ways people find =
jobs ? referrals. One sure way to make sure that you get an interview is to=
have someone walk your resume (OK, it?s really done via email) to the hiri=
ng manager. While I don?t expect Jobster to beat the job boards in terms of=
quantity of jobs or number of job seekers, I do expect that candidate qual=
ity and the candidate experience will be extremely high.
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>Now it turns =
out that Jobster=
is buying WorkZoo, which it announced today as well. I spoke with Jobs=
ter CEO Jason Goldberg on Monday, and he described their vision of how Work=
Zoo will allow users to expand their search beyond their network of jobs on=
Jobster proper and see ?every? job. WorkZoo has its cut out for them ? in =
previous testing, they lagged significantly in their parsing ability compar=
ed to Indeed.com and Simply Hired. But this combination of Jobster and Work=
Zoo makes sense as a combined service ? it?s also is similar to the partner=
ship that currently exists between professional social networking service LinkedIn and Simple Hired. <strong style=3D”mso-bidi-font-weight:=
normal”>
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>I expect that=
Yahoo! will eventually loop its social networking service into HotJobs and=
enable a similar type of service to Jobster, especially since it also has =
an applicant tracking service for small and medium sized businesses. But on=
e thing it should do is to be truly comprehensive and scrap jobs from its c=
ompetitors, Monster, CareerBuilder, and other newspaper sites. Otherwise, t=
hey leave the door open for Google, Indeed.com, and Simply Hired.
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>Indeed.com an=
d Simply Hired will have a hard time fighting off giants like Yahoo! and Go=
ogle and are ripe acquisition targets. MSN will likely take a look at Indee=
d.com and Simply Hired, as will Google, but they are likely to pass and bui=
ld their own crawlers as Yahoo! did that will integrate better into their c=
ore search algorithms. The most likely buyers for these sites include IAC/InterActive Corp, which also owns Ask Jeeves and social networking site ZeroDegrees, as well as newspapers cha=
ins who are not CareerBuilder affiliates (like MediaNews Group or Belo=
) who are struggling for relevance in the online recruitment space. Monster may dust off some of the technology it has lying around from its F=
lipdog acquisition, but it’s likely dated. CareerBuilder and its newspaper =
partners are still coming to terms with the cannibalization of print classi=
fieds — it will have a hard time understanding that even online recruitmen=
t revenue is coming under assualt.=20
<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>The result=
: Look for the emergence of what I call “social classifieds”, where the abi=
lity to connect people to each other will be the hallmark of success. In a =
world where listings are a commodity and easily crawled, the true different=
iation will be the quality of the experience. It is for this reason that Jo=
bster’s model will ring true, and why Yahoo! 360 and MSN Spaces will be cor=
e to the success of their respective classified strategies. Google may have=
the best technology around, but it’s Achilles? heel will be its lack of a =
robust social network.=20
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>Humorous asid=
e:
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<p class=3D”MsoPlainText” style=3D”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>What I didn?t=
realize (thanks to my technology blackout) was that the Yahoo! Job=
Search service had already been quietly launched the previous week, and in=
fact, had been written about in Yahoo?s own search blog. So throughout Monday afterno=
on, I kept getting phone calls from reporters and industry colleagues who w=
ere sniffing around for some sort of ?big breaking classifieds? news. I was=
told by Yahoo! that the news was embargoed until Tuesday morning, which I =
steadfastly insisted on honoring. It was only later after business hours th=
at I embarrassingly discovered that everyone already knew about it and that=
Yahoo! was just formally announcing it. Lesson learned ? read the RSS feed=
s asap after vacation!
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