Every Tuesday on AltSearchEngines we invite two search engines to discuss a topic that they are experts about.  Tonight we are very pleased to hear from Maneck Mohan of Recruit.net and Lucas Mast of SimplyHired.  I asked them a few questions about Jobs.

1)  It looks to me as though most, if not all, Job Search engines are racing to provide the greatest number of job openings “on the planet.”  Is that the real name of the game?  the site which links to the most millions of job listings “wins?”

 For Simply Hired, it is about bringing the greatest number of jobs to those who come to our site (www.simplyhired.com) or sites that we power, including MySpace Jobs, Vault, job search on LinkedIn, and more than 2,500 other blogs and websites.  It is incredibly important that we search every place imaginable to bring our users all available jobs, whether you are looking for a job as an accountant in Los Angeles or as a tattoo artist in Topeka.  If we can bring job seekers relevant content that they will not find elsewhere in one place, we would consider that a “win”. 

The number of jobs is important, but from our perspective the ultimate objective is not solely a vast quantity of jobs but rather in delivering a good user experience and thereby ensuring your visitors keep coming back.

Some of the factors that go into this include:

- Easy to use filters that can break down millions of jobs by company name, date of posting, category, city, etc.

- “De-Duplication” which is what we call our process of ensuring that jobs are not repeated, cross posted and duplicated across our search results.

- Authentication – which involves ensuring that the jobs are real, that the posting source is credible and not just “job spam” which is becoming more frequent with the global proliferation of free classified sites..

So ultimately it’s about the quality of jobs, speed, and relevancy (and not just the number of jobs!)

2) Helping job seekers find job openings is one thing, helping employers find good candidates is another. What are your plans for the latter?

 While most people know Simply Hired for job search, we have also developed a recruitment advertising network for employers that allows them to reach out to prospective employees through 2,500+ websites and blogs that collectively reach more than 80 million visitors monthly.  This includes large social and professional networks like MySpace and LinkedIn, the Fox Television Staion group, gaming sites like IGN.com, Vault, professional associations like The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), major blogs like Venture Beat and Guy Kawasaki, and sites aimed at IT professionals like CNET’s TechRepublic and HTMLCenter.

In February we launched Job-a-matic (www.jobamatic.com) which allows bloggers and web publishers the ability to put a job board on their blog/site for free.  They are able to make money both in accepting job listings, as well as when readers click on the sponsored jobs that are relevant to their content.  This allows employers the ability to reach not only active job seekers, but the ever-elusive passive job seeker.

To put Job-a-matic in context, I run a blog called SneakerBlogger (www.sneakerblogger.com), which is about (not surprisingly), sneakers.  On my job board, the open positions are all from major sneaker manufacturers—Nike, Adidas, Puma, New Balance, Reebok.  My readers have an interest in sneakers, so it is natural that they would be interested in open jobs at companies related to the topic I cover.  In turn, employers can be assured that those who apply to jobs via my site will have an interest and a passion in working for their company.   

We have an advertising product called ADNET
(http://www.recruit.net/advertise) which serves as a platform for employers to maximize their visibility on Recruit.net and to deliver highly targeted
messages to job seekers. Employers can promote their job listings or services based on numerous factors including keywords, cities, countries, and languages.

We also offer employers a Resume Search product, which enables companies to search for candidates directly from our online database comprised of thousands of job seekers.

3) How do you feel about Monster.com?  Are they your “Google?”  To me it seems so full of obnoxious ads and offers that I would be reluctant to use it.

 I think each company in the job board/job search/recruitment space bring different things to the table.  Big players like Monster and CareerBuilder often benefit from companies like Simply Hired, as we drive candidates to sites that have the original listing, which creates a win-win opportunity for both sides.  We see Simply Hired as a great resource, especially when you are starting your job search, given that we currently have almost 7 million listings–more than 15X the number of jobs available on the largest job boards.   

Monster does not fall into our categorization of a “Job search engine.” Monster allows job seekers to search their proprietary database of job
postings, as opposed to the ability to search for job postings from across the web. This is an entirely different proposition from what we offer. In terms of what they do, we feel Monster provides an excellent product with an impressive global foot print.

4) I’d like to have a Job Board on AltSearchEngines so that my readers who are interested in search engine related jobs can come to my site instead of going to 100 search engines’ sites.  Am I wasting my time?  Should they just go to a Job Search engine instead?

 What we have found with Job-a-matic (www.jobamatic.com) is that niche job boards or widgets on sites like yours allow you to provide relevant content to your readers, while allowing your readers to either actively or passively search for jobs on a site that they trust for content and community.  It is only natural that they would trust you as a source for job-related information.  Our service is free and is very easy to install, and as a side benefit you can make nice incremental revenue.  We now have more than 2500 bloggers and web publishers using Job-a-matic, ranging from small personal sites to established blogs like GigaOm and Web Analytics Demystified that are seeing real revenue from paid listings. 

Niche job boards are highly effective and spawning like wild fire across the web and blogsphere. We power numerous sites such as Tech Jobs for CNET ASIA http://www.zdnetasia.com/techjobs/ and Jobs for ZDNET India
http://jobs.zdnetindia.com

A job board on AltSearchEngines is a great idea, in addition to providing a consolidated search service to your users you also create an interesting proposition to employers & advertisers in being able to tap into and reach “passive” job seekers such as the readers of AltSearchEngines who may be interested in search engine related jobs but who would not actively visit a job board to search for them.  Another easier option to is to use a “plug and play” solution like job widgets which we offer here: http://www.recruit.net/tools.html

5) Many of the Alternative Search Engines that we cover have “Job” tabs.  Are you interested in partnering with other “Alts” in this way?

 We are always on the lookout for new partners, with the size of our network growing literally every day.  Given our mission of building the largest online job database and making the job search process simple and effective for job seekers, working with “Alts” is a natural fit. 

We offer suitable partners a (PPC) pay-per-click revenue share for traffic. We’ve found that job syndication and the distribution of contextually relevant job content to partner sites always results in high CTR’s which means a Win-Win for all parties.

6) In two years, 2009 will be almost over, where would you like to be by 2010?

 Given that we are still technically a start-up, predicting two years out is like throwing at a dartboard blindfolded after being spun around several times.  With that caveat, our core focus is on providing tools and resources for the job seeker, allowing them to find their dream job in simple and painless manner.  Expansion into international markets (we currently run job search for MySpace UK) would be a natural next step, as well as continued expansion of our network of partners and advertisers to reach the widest audience possible.

Job content is rapidly moving online to the internet from traditional offline sources like newspapers. The USA is far ahead of the rest of world in this regard, latest numbers show that 80% of Fortune 500 companies now only accept online job applications whereas comparatively for the Asia 500 this number is still below 25%

So the number of jobs being posted online will continue to rapidly increase around the world. (We feel the bulk of this will be in numerous niche job sites and across hundreds of direct employer corporate web sites that will integrate tightly into their applicant tracking and ERP systems.) More jobs online is a good thing as it reinforces the Recruit.net value proposition to
our users. In 2010 we will be doing what we do now, namely living up to our tag line of “job search starts here” and providing job seekers with a dedicated, trusted, starting point from where they can reach millions of jobs from thousands of companies across the world.

Thank you gentlemen, very much.  Readers, if you have a question or comment, please post it now and we will ask Maneck and Lucas to respond as time permits.