2007 Top Sites for Job Search – JobCentral Wins Round 7

   

Round seven, the ‘Bait and Switch’ round, tests each of the remaining competitors for truthfulness in three areas:

   

1. Are they free of misleading ads?
2. Do search results consistently reflect user-specified search criteria? 
3. Can the claims each company makes about their site be supported through observation and/or independent sources?

   

By a significant margin, JobCentral has the fewest misleading ads; which really isn’t surprising since most of their ad content comes directly from major employers and State government-operated job boards.   This means that as a user, you’re much less likely to find bogus ads offering:

   

¾      High pay for low-skill part-time work;

¾      Work-from-home opportunities;

¾      Investment opportunities; and,

¾      Products and training for sale.

   

JobCentral ads also appear to be much less likely to include tag spam … a strategy where advertisers are allowed to manipulate the search process by including many keywords unrelated to their ad offering.

   

So JobCentral joins Indeed as the only two-time winners in this year’s competition.

   

   

Now the bad news for Monster – after winning round six, they were a distant last-place finisher in this round and are booted from the competition.  Ironic that an organization that seems to place an emphasis on protecting jobseekers runs a site that is rife with misleading ads, and worse, uses interstitial ads to pad their revenue, ignoring the risk to consumers of phishing and identity theft.  Before using Monster, I think you need to ask yourself if you can entrust your personal data to a company that is willing to place you at additional risk if the price is right.

   

   

Best Job Sites – Round 7 Results

    

1. JobCentral
2. Jobster
3. SimplyHired
4. Indeed
5. CareerBuilder
6. HotJobs
7. Monster

        

   

Baiting jobseekers – offering one thing, through advertising, labeling, incompetence or neglect, and then delivering something else – is a fraudulent business practice that should not be rewarded by consumers when there are better options.  So adios Monster … and on we go to round eight, the search-agent round.

   

Comments

[christian anderson]

Hey Bob,

No matter how the final rankings work out for Jobster, the work you've done is fantastic and is a great illustration of what bloggers ought to strive for.

In my view, work like you're in the process of completing will strengthen the position of blogging in recruiting.

While obviously I’m pleased with the results so far for selfish reasons, it is this kind of deliberate work that should be what we in the industry and more specifically in the recruit-o-sphere should get excited about and blog about and debate.

We at Jobster are continuously making improvements across the board and while the jury is still out on who is #1, we are already looking forward to next year to see how the improvements, tweaks, and additions we make on almost a daily basis fair against the rest.

Congrats to CareerBuilder and SimplyHired and kudos to you. Thank you for endeavoring in what I’m sure is not a small undertaking.

Christian Anderson
Jobster