Job Search Engine Guide

2007 Top Sites for Job Search – Indeed Wins Round 1

   

Indeed takes the top spot in round one of the 2007 Top Sites for Job Search competition – not a surprise really since Indeed took overall honors in 2006.

   

In this first round of competition, fifteen of the top general job sites were tested to find jobs for ten hypothetical jobseekers in Tulsa, OK.  To score well, sites needed sufficient ad content for Tulsa, plus they needed search technology that was powerful enough to find matching jobs without returning mismatches. 

   

Surprises in the first round? 

   

Craigslist is the first site to be eliminated from further competition as a result of a last place finish.  I’ve never been a fan of Craigslist (see here, here and here for background), but going in I expected them to finish mid-pack … after all, Craigslist does have a strong following.  In the end, simplistic search technology and limited ad volume in Tulsa were Craig’s undoing.  Yes, the results would have been different if the test location had been San Francisco; but, doesn’t that make Craig’s more like a collection of regional sites as opposed to a national site?  I think so.

   

HotJobs and Monster in the bottom five … ironic that two of the big-three job boards garner so much traffic and yet performed so poorly in this round.   

   

Just-Posted, a site that almost no one has heard of (Alexa traffic rank = 1,559,714) was fifth, leveraging their next-generation search technology to muscle past many of the big guns.

   

Best Job Sites – Round 1 Results

   

1. Indeed
2. SimplyHired
3. GoogleBase
4. Jobster
5. Just-Posted
6. CareerBuilder
7. LiveExpo
8. Oodle
9. Jobs.com
10. JobCentral
11. Monster
12. HotJobs
13. GetTheJob
14. America’s Job Exchange
15. Craigslist   

   

   

So let’s head to the round 2 challenge – finding jobs for ten hypothetical jobseekers in Boston, MA.  May the best job site win.

   

2007 Top Sites for Job Search

   

Who will be first?  Which of the following fifteen sites provides the best combination of content, features, and ease-of-use for active job search?

   

To make my list of 2007 competitors, a site must provide national coverage of the job market and contain ads for most types of jobs in the economy – for simplicity, let’s refer to these competitors as general job sites.

   

As you can imagine, with 40,000+ job sites to choose from, there are many excellent niche sites that can be better choices than any of these fifteen general sites in certain cases – e.g. theLadders in the $100k+ market, and Dice in the tech market, to name only two.  However, as good as some of these niche boards are, their ad volume is often quite low, so even dedicated niche board users will often watch one or more general job sites when actively searching for a new job.

   

So which of the following general job sites is best in 2007?  That’s what we’ll find out by challenging the competitors to a series of tests, with the poorest performer in each test eliminated from further competition.  In a competition like this, it’s just as important for each competitor to have few weaknesses as it is to have strengths.  May the best site win.

   

   

First challenge – Find jobs for ten hypothetical jobseekers in Tulsa, OK.  Who wins?  Who goes home?  Stay tuned.

   

   

The Big Three

CareerBuilder

HotJobs

Monster

   

Vertical Integrators

Indeed

Oodle

SimplyHired

   

General Classifieds

Craigslist

GoogleBase

LiveExpo

   

Federally Endorsed*

America’s Job Exchange

JobCentral

Jobs.com

   

Next-Gen Search

GetTheJob

Jobster

Just-Posted

   

   

* In preparation for the shutdown of America’s Job Bank, the Department of Labor published Training and Employment Notice 27-06, which included a copy of a Federal Register Notice outlining the criteria for inclusion in a list of links of private sites providing functionality similar to AJB.   

   

Prediction – Indeed will nip at the heels of HotJobs in 2007

   

2007 is the year that vertical job search leader Indeed moves into 4^th place and threatens an asleep-at-the-switch HotJobs.

   

Here’s what we know about Indeed:

   

-          Indeed is currently 8^th in the employment category (based on Hitwise data) with a market share of 1.89%, virtually tied with America’s Job Bank (in 7^th at 1.90%, but scheduled to cease operation this summer);

    

-          Indeed saw its market share increase by 302% during 2006 (based on Hitwise data); and,

   

-          Indeed was recently recognized as the ‘Best Job Search Engine’ by job-hunt.org.

   

   

Here’s what we know about HotJobs:

   

-          HotJobs is currently 3^rd in the employment category with a market share of 5.33% (based on Hitwise data);

   

-          HotJobs saw visits drop by 18.4% during the past six months (based on Hitwise data); and,

   

-          Five years ago, prior to merging with Yahoo!, HotJobs was the number one career site (according to Media Metrix), with an 8.6% market share.

   

   

Projections for 2007:

   

-          Indeed’s market share will increase by approximately 120% … down from a 300% gain in 2006 … resulting in a year-end market share of 4.1%;

   

-          HotJobs market share will decline by 20%, resulting in a year-end market share of 4.3%;

   

-          Monster and My Monster will continue to lose share to niche and vertical sites; and,

   

-          Indeed will be preparing to bust into the ‘big three’ during early 2008; or positioning for a buyout.  Either way, 2007 will be an exciting year for Indeed.

   

Indeed and JobCentral Recognized by Job-Hunt.org

   

Two of my favorite job boards have been recognized by Job-Hunt.org as ‘best performers’ for jobseekers during 2006.

   

Indeed.com was selected as Best Job Search Engine

   

and,

   

JobCentral was selected as Best General Job Site

   

Congratulations Indeed and JobCentral – the recognition is well deserved!

   

New Monster Home Page – Same Old Monster

   

Effective today, Monster has a new look; and to my eye, it’s a winner … a much improved visual design.

   

But a new coat of paint doesn’t make a silk purse out of an old dog – hmmm, perhaps I’ve been reading too much Dilbert.

   

First, the search box real estate seems overwhelmed by the branding and sales real estate.

   

Second, Monster retains archaic drop-down boxes for ‘Categories’ and ‘Job Location’.  That’s really lame.  The industry standard these days is one or two search boxes for keywords and location; with the underlying application interpreting the user input and providing filters for subsequent refinement. 

   

Third, interstitial ads still separate users from the content they seek … imagine if Google forced us to view full-page ads before returning search results?  Would Google still be number one?  I’d bet against it.

   

And finally, the search results are terrible.  The screen capture at right shows the search results for Auto Sales in Boston, MA … supposedly in relevance order.   I say supposedly because not a single result is relevant.

   

The same search on Indeed.com returns four relevant jobs in the top five ads … that’s relevance that users can see.

   

Sorry Monster, I like your new duds, but your act is wearing thin.  With your resources, you could be the best in the business.  Why do you settle for less? 

   

Remember, today’s the day.

   

Three Roads Diverged in a Virtual Woods

   

One less traveled. 

   

What has made all the difference?

   

The Ultimate Job Search Engine

   

Are you looking for (or trying to build) the ultimate job search engine? Jeff Tokarz, founder of Just-Posted, asked me to describe the key features that jobseekers look for in job boards and job search engines.

   

Check out the post on Jeff’s blog and let me know if I missed anything that is important to you.

   

And Jeff, thanks for asking!

   

Bob  :-)

   

I’m Liking Just-Posted and Jeff Tokarz

   

Relevance … specifically job search relevance … and the lack thereof on most commercial job boards … is one of the reasons I blog.  The technology exists to return more relevant job search results, yet the market does not seem to care.  Why?

   

Perhaps the market doesn’t care about relevance because:

   

-          better search reduces page-views per user, and sites are measured by traffic metrics rather than customer outcomes;

   

-          advertising dollars are inversely related to market efficiency – the less efficient the search process, the more advertisers are willing to spend to be heard above the noise;

   

-          the most profitable player in the market … Monster … does not deliver superior search results; or perhaps,

   

-          market participants … jobseekers, employers and recruiters … don’t care about search relevance.

   

I’m not willing to concede that market participants don’t care about search relevance.  I’m convinced that if a job board delivers broad coverage and superior search at a fair price, market participants will migrate to this site and away from less efficient players.  Not surprising then that I’m liking Just-Posted and Jeff Tokarz. 

   

The Just-Posted site combines broad market coverage (using spidering technology ala Simply Hired and Indeed) with substantially higher search relevance … my initial tests indicate a 70% improvement in accuracy as compared to the industry average.  And Jeff is one of the few other voices in the industry who consistently advocates for improved relevance.

   

If you too care about job search relevance, keep an eye on Just-Posted and Jeff Tokarz.

   

Jobster Commits to Improved Search

   

Late last week Jobster rolled out changes to their search engine – you can read about the changes here. 

   

By far the most important change is illustrated at right – Jobster wants your help to improve the search experience.

   

This is huge for a couple of reasons:

   

First, most job search engines take the position (publicly) that search is good enough.  So it’s refreshing to see a market leader ask for user feedback.

   

Second, despite rapid innovation in the recruitment space, search technology has remained essentially unchanged for the past ten years – we still enter a couple of keywords, we still hope that employers are using the same words, and we still sift through volumes of marginally related results – or worse, we stare at some variant of the message ‘no jobs match your search criteria.’ 

   

The problem is simply this – keyword-based search is a poor proxy for intention-based search.  If I search for a ‘computer programmer’ job, I’d also like to see ads for ‘application developers’ and ‘software developers’ – in fact, I want to see all jobs that focus on my intention – application development.  Today’s keyword search technology doesn’t come close. 

   

So even though the vertical search engines (e.g. Indeed, Jobster and Simply Hired) have dramatically simplified the job hunt by rounding up ads previously hidden on thousands of low-traffic sites, much of the gain in jobseeker efficiency is lost through ineffective search.  And of course, when jobseekers have trouble finding the best-fit ads, employers don’t see the best-fit candidates – all parties lose.

   

Recruiting 2006 at the Javits Center

   

The weather this morning in NYC is nasty … heavy rain, blowing sideways, made waiting for a cab a memorable experience … but the Recruiting 2006 conference and expo is off to a great start. 

   

Interesting to note that within an hour of arriving I’ve seen reps from Indeed, Simply Hired and Jobster; but no Monster, CareerBuilder or HotJobs sightings so far.