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job boards: everyone else is doing it, why can't I?

I’ve been sitting back watching the recent comments and video regarding Monster (and as an extension CareerBuilder and HotJobs, though they don't seem to draw the same ire) as well as the blossoming industry of niche job boards, aggregators, and bloggers hosting job listings and I’m ready to say: ENOUGH ALREADY!

What put me over the edge was reading that Jeremy has ventured into the area of job listing syndication. Intrinsically, I have no issues with Jeremy and Joel hosting their own job boards or listings of positions. In fact, this is a great way for them to derive revenue from what is ultimately a huge time suck for them; answering recruiter emails. Good for them!

The problem at hand is that none of these "solutions" address a larger problem or need for job seekers, employers or recruiters. Those that are criticizing traditional job boards aren't necessarily providing novel solutions. I would even go so far as to say that they are perpetuating problems within the industry. In fact, there are very few job sites that are trying a different route to connecting job seekers with their dream employer (maybe Jobster, The Ladders or Market10?).

And what is this root problem? Job boards are just a virtual posting ground for garbage job descriptions and mediocre resumes. They don't offer any quality control over what is posted, any interaction points between job seekers and recruiters, capitalize on technology that could be used in helping job seekers research the market, and they don't offer any matching technologies that could help job seekers self select or push hot candidates to corporations.

The most surprising part to me is that companies seem to be okay with all this and are continuing to pay skyrocketing prices to post on these sites. Even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest that many of their positions aren't even filled through job postings, but rather networking and employee referrals. For many job seekers they are also stuck evaluating the market for open positions through these means. Unfortunately neither group is demanding a more robust solution, but I do believe that the time is near when a revolt will occur and hopefully someone is building a platform to catch the mass of individuals and organizations ready to latch on to a better product.

Instead of sitting back and critiquing the competition but putting out the same old job board I'm looking for someone to try a completely new approach (maybe involving some of those social media techniques I mentioned). Man, I'd love to be on the team that makes that happen. Actually, if I had the revenue and the technical backing I'd want to build the company that tackles these problems. And while I don't think I have all the answers, I do think I have a few that would definitely beat the competition in building a better mouse trap so to speak. Who's game?

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Published Wednesday, November 15, 2006 12:18 PM by Zoe
Filed Under: Zoe's posts, Social Media

Comments

	Josh Watts said: Check out Hidden Market (www.hiddenmarket.net). They've put together an interesting social networking application that uses the collective knowledge of a group to post and grade pieces of information. One of the best uses of the app I've seen is to use it to rate job openings and find qualified candidates. -- Josh November 15, 2006 1:57 PM
	Zoe said: Interesting - thanks for sharing! Sounds very similar to LinkedIn and such. What do you think is better or more connected about this then other platforms? Do you think that candidates / job seekers are also seeing the same benefit? November 15, 2006 2:29 PM
	Don Demsak said: Sign me up! I've got the tech talent, and some ideas, but no funding. Actually, of all the ideas I do have, none of them I'm 100% happy with, yet, and I haven't found the time to sit down and really come up with something killer that doesn't involve a boat load of people reviewing the quality of the resumes or the jobs. November 15, 2006 2:30 PM
	Josh Watts said: From using Hidden Market, I think it's main advantage over LinkedIn is that it emphasizes the quality of information, and by extension the quality of the contact, rather than merely the number of contacts. For job seekers and employers, it's much better because it helps find good opportunities for both groups instead of treating the hiring process as a numbers game. I've been a candidate, hiring manager, and a recruiter - a rare hat trick in the tech industry. As a recruiter and hiring manager, I've come to the conclusion that job boards aren't really all that helpful because only 1-2% of the applicants are qualified. Resume databases are much better; however, there is a large swath of people that don't post their resumes in the databases. These people are invisible and the only way to find them is through referrals; to be frank, these are often the best candidates. As an aside, I feel that recruiters earn their pay through reaching these invisible candidates and by maintaining a large network of people in their specialty - that's why it's worth paying a recruiter 25% of salary to find them. As a candidate, the job boards are great for finding entry-level and mid-level jobs but once you get past those positions in your career, they don't offer much. The high-level positions are rarely advertised. -- Josh November 15, 2006 3:20 PM
	Scott said: Good points - I have also been noticing more job "boards" scattered throughout the blogosphere during my travels. I would like to defend Joels site a little though. He started it as an experiment to combat the exact problems you list with most boards (crap resumes and crap listings). The board isn't trying to be novel and change the way we think about the "matching" process (although I highly agree that is what a public mass-market job board should be looking to do); he is solving the problem by being focused. Joels board isn't supposed to be for the masses - and he has even said that it if gets out of hand or he gets too many complaints about trash resumes then he is going to take it down. The checks and balances built into the board are meant to weed out the "unwanted masses" (ad posting costs are prohibitive to just anyone, the site doesn't host resumes/candidates - only postings, recruiters are NOT allowed to post, postings are strongly encouraged to include answers to questions about the companys development process, etc). The most important factor to consider, and the one that Joels site is built on, is audience. By catering to the people that read his blog he has already ensured that the audience is more serious about finding a job and actually applying for them (no resume blasts from people that can't even run a spell checker on their resume). I honestly don't know how well his board is working out. It is still up so that is something. Maybe he can weigh in with some effectiveness statistics or let us know the satisfaction level of the posting companies. November 16, 2006 8:36 AM
	Zoe said: Hey Don - I'm interested in hearing what you have to say and see if they jive with some of the ideas that I have. Would you be interested in sending me a brief mail offline? Josh - thanks for shedding some light on Hidden Market. I'll have to look into it more, but I have to say that that's how LinkedIn started out and now it has really turned into a name collectors paradise. I agree that networking is the key to finding great talent, but I think even more true is the quality of your network. Only you have the power to control that and it takes time and energy to build and maintain a strong group of connections. I am not sure there is a tool out there yet that can simulate the power of your own evaluation skills in connecting you with other people :) Scott - thanks for coming in and talking more about Joel's job board! I don't think I did it justice when I mentioned it in my post. I know that he is trying very hard to keep the quality high and some of his screening process helps as well as his dedication to keeping the listing only for the software engineering industry. While this is great, there is still the issue of scalability (and I am not trying to say that he should expand his board). He is catering to his audience, but it presents a problem to the 100s of other job seekers that don't know about him or his job listings, the companies that aren't savvy enough to pick up on the niche he has carved etc (many of you would say - that's fine, their problem and to a point I agree). So again, I don't have any real issues with his listings (in fact, I hope as many smart hiring managers find the site as possible) - what I am advocating for is a different solution that is scalable and uses some of the key technologies that are already available to us capitalizing on the ideas of social networking. November 16, 2006 11:29 AM
	Peter Ritchie said: I think there's many issues that disparate job boards perpetuate. Online job seeking/application is needlessly tedious and repetitive. Many job boards require you to manually enter your skills/education/work-history in order to apply. Doing that for every job board is extremely tedious. Another issue is discoverability. If some of the many job boards are applicable for a particular job seeker, how does she find them. Plus with the different interfaces (for posting a job, resulting postings for the same job appearing differently on many job boards) how does a job seeker know they're not applying to the same job? November 17, 2006 3:56 AM
	Henry Boehlert said: In today's Web 2.0 world, where some of the startups do not have nor need initial funding, could it be possible to open/out-source the whole job board thing, built by volunteers and using a (moderated) voting and commenting system for job descriptions and resumees, generating the world's most honest job site? While I wouldn't necessarily love to get my resume yelled at, it would surely help me to improve it. At the same time, bashing some job descriptions would light up my day :) You would need some experienced HR folks and some dev leads, who have experience with community software to drive, manage and sell it. And then you fix a price for revealing a recruiter's or applicant's email address and wait for the cloud to rain down on you. November 19, 2006 5:59 AM
	Zoe said: Yeah Peter - I couldn't agree with you more. It's a completely frustrating experience. Aggregators try to solve the discoverability issue from an employer perspective, but for job seekers where do you go to get recognized? Do you put all your eggs in one basket or do you potentially waste time and try a shotgun appraoch and go to every potential board. You could solve that problem by being more strategic, evaluating which boards are best for you and then only associating yourself to those, but man that takes a heck of an effort. Isn't technology supposed to make things easier (cliche I know)? Henry - I am sure it would be possible to do something like this, I hadn't thought of that approach...interesting. I'll definitely have to think more about that... November 20, 2006 10:54 AM
	The JobSyntax Blog said: Interesting post over on TechCrunch today regarding job boards and their place in the job seeker /... December 1, 2006 8:54 PM
	The JobSyntax Blog said: By this point, most folks know how I feel about job boards.&nbsp; In perusing my daily feeds, I noticed... December 20, 2006 2:14 PM
	The JobSyntax Blog said: You’ve heard us rant ad nauseam about our love / hate, but mostly hate, relationship with traditional... January 29, 2007 10:29 AM
	The JobSyntax Blog said: You’ve heard us rant ad nauseam about our love / hate, but mostly hate, relationship with traditional... January 29, 2007 4:43 PM