Watching GetTheJob

   

OK Joel, I’m watching … but I’m not seeing what you’re seeing. 

   

For now, I’m discounting the patent issue … even if it does apply (I’m no lawyer) … it only has value if the holder has deep enough pockets to prevail in court.  An alliance of verticals would have a formidable war chest to battle over this issue.

   

I’ve also compared EmployOn’s concept-based search accuracy against the major players, and EmployOn scored in the bottom of the pack.  So I see no advantage in the EmployOn methodology as compared to the current Google-based search used by GetTheJob … more on this in a bit.

   

Placing “No time limit on how long a posting’s live” has more downside than upside.  Any savings to employers are more than offset by the higher percentage of stale listings that drive quality candidates to other sites with fresher opportunities.

   

And what’s up with sending people to employers’ descriptions for the jobs (a good thing), but only doing so after “…the look and feel of some employer sites is stripped away; all are embedded in a GTJ header).”

   

Aside from the above concerns, there are three deal-killers for me on GetTheJob:

   

1.       Integrity – when a site says “finally … a site with all the jobs”, they better have ‘all’ the jobs.  Currently GetTheJob has less than half the listings of the bigger verticals.  And if you want my trust, you better have a section on your site that identifies the key executives who stand behind the company.

   

2.       Freshness Dating – when I look at search results, I expect to see the date each job was added to the index; and, I also expect the option to filter the results to see only the ads listed within the past 24 hrs, the past week, or the past month.

   

3.       Accuracy – if you give me crap when I’m searching for carp, I’m not coming back.  The image at right (click the image for a larger view) shows the search results for ‘auto sales’ in Boston, MA … there’s not one auto sales position in the bunch.  What there is, sure isn’t ‘carp’ (e.g. Sales Exec for Stuff@Night Magazine, or a Photo Lab Assistant at Costco).

   

I’ll keep watching Joel … but at this point, I see nothing of interest in GetTheJob.

   

Comments

[Shannon Seery]

I am with you so far. We wrote about this new site a few weeks ago on EXCELER8ion as well - they just seem all 'sales' not enough real substance to me so far.

I saw some of their sales collateral as they are approaching clients agressively - they list their PPC at $.50 a click. Interesting.

[Bob Wilson]

Thanks for posting Shannon!

It's interesting to hear that they are approaching clients aggressively. I'd think they'd want to create a little buzz with press releases, and blog entries by the president, ala Jason@Jobster and Marc@TheLadders, so prospective customers could 'Google' them for validation.

At this point there's Joel's post, your's asking if anyone knows about GetTheJob, and mine which isn't exactly glowing. Not much to base a relationship on if I'm an employer.

Time will tell if they are a viable player.

Bob

[C.M. Russell]

I agree Bob, other than a nice blog, there isnt any reason to use the site.

http://secretsofthejobhunt.blogspot.com/2006/06/google-powered-job-board.html