Here are some new job related sites that are being launched…

Headhunter.com - CareerBuilder has just launched a job search site that allows users to find out how their credentials stack up to other candidates for a job. The site will offer a “job competition report” as a means to differentiate itself and help lure quality candidates who may be used to seeing market research as part of their day-to-day jobs.  Fortune magazine has a writeup on it.

PhiladelphiaJobs.net – this is my latest site for philadelphia jobs. I took it off Jobamatic and moved it to Jobtarget. Since Jobtarget sites collect job seekers and resumes I thought moving it was a better long term solution for my network. Other than phillyjobs.com there also aren’t many independent sites that target that area anyway.

MassMediaJobs.com – not a new site but it is for sale on flippa. Might be worth a look at picking up if the price is right. Wouldnt pay more than $5k for it though in my opinion.

VentuRocket - this is a marketplace where job seekers bid on their skills to compete for job opportunities and employers cherry-pick the very best talent. The price job seekers bid reflects their true proficiency for those skills. This eliminates résumé spam by filtering out unqualified candidates. VR thus enables specifically targeted search for talent and opportunity just like AdWords does for products and services.

Whitetruffle – Whitetruffle is a platform for matching and connecting curated companies with curated talent. Startups join our community, and get introduced to great engineers interested in them. “We’re the eHarmony for talent!” I hate the name of this thing and the list of eharmonies for talent is a long and undistinguished one.

The latest version of JobRoller is now available. This release (1.5) includes several bug fixes, new features, and an important Indeed integration change. Please read this entire email before performing the upgrade as not everyone may wish to do so. I use this software on Audio Jobs if you want to see it in action. Below is an email update I recently received from them.

What’s New?

The most notable changes in 1.5 have to do with the Indeed integration and a new resume (CV) subscription monetization feature.

Indeed Changes

As you know, JobRoller pulls in job listings from Indeed.com. As powerful as the Indeed integration is, their API limits the job description to only 1-2 sentences. This means jobs pulled into JobRoller are pretty bare bones and don’t provide much value. Understandably, that doesn’t work well for most of our customers so we decided to make a change.

We’ve been working directly with the Indeed team to figure out the best solution and unfortunately, they were not able to fulfill our request and increase the job description length. With that news, we felt it was best to rework how the integration was done.

What Has Changed?

Indeed jobs are no longer being pulled directly into the JobRoller database. Instead, they are dynamically displayed within your existing listings and within search results. This allows you to still monetize your site with Indeed listings and keep your JobRoller database filled with only user-submitted jobs. Existing Indeed jobs in your JobRoller database will not be affected.

We felt it was important to make these changes in 1.5 without sacrificing Indeed functionality. This change was also required by the Indeed team to better align us with their API terms of use.

What Are My Options?

If you wish to continue pulling Indeed jobs into the JobRoller database, you should not upgrade to 1.5. Honestly, we feel there is no reason to hold back since the Indeed jobs are still being displayed — just not stored in the database.

Resume Subscriptions & Radius Search

With 1.5, we’ve introduced a new way to monetize your site. There’s now an option to charge a subscription fee for browsing your resume database. This was one of the most requested features so we felt it was important to add in this release.

You can also now search the resume database with the same powerful radius search used on the job listings. The radius distance drop-down allows you to refine your search based on location. In order for this to work, a new location field has been added to the resume submission process. This captures the longitude and latitude coordinates so the radius search works correctly.

Some things from the job board industry in the news…

The Newest 3.4 Version of SmartJobBoard Software is Released

SmartJobBoard is a top software development company employing its vast potential, creative approach and strong resources in provision of up to date software for job boards. The team of its IT professionals has developed and issued the next 3.4 software version…

I like that these guys keep iterating their job board software

Coming Soon in October: Rxjobscout.com

Rx Job Scout is a newly devised job board providing the strongest tools for licensed Pharmacists and Potential Employers to connect. The company offers industry first technological advances like Facebook account authentication and LinkedIn profile …

I love the homepage of this new job board. Note that it is powered by Jobboard Mount. The only things that are missing are a stronger call out to employers for posting a job. And the sign in box at top should be labeled for employers or seekers. Its unclear as to which group should sign in.

WILEY Launches a new job network.

I received this email from publisher about the launch of their new job board network that is powered by Madgex. They spent a lot of money on this new endeavour and went with the most expensive job board software provider. But as a publisher, adding a job board component will certainly help their bottom line.

Now that a few weeks have passed since returning from the ERE Conference in Florida, I wanted to reach out and thank you for your interest in Wiley Job Network.

We have launched our new website and invite you to have a look and explore our full service job board for leading global employers across the sciences, technology, business, finance, healthcare and the arts.

EMPLOYERS who register on the site can:

TARGET the loyal users of one of the world’s leading research platforms — Wiley Online Library. Every day our experts access a multidisciplinary collection of:

- 4 million articles
- 10,000 books
- 1,500 acclaimed publications

ENGAGE job candidates with the Wiley Online Library Job Widget™.
Wiley Job Network automatically serves contextual and geo-targeted job ads to passive job seekers using the Wiley Online Library Job Widget™, placing them one click away from their desired job.

DELIVER your message to a highly-specialized, well-educated, global community of researchers and professionals.

- 13 million unique visitors every month
- 80 million ad impressions
- 40 million page views
- Over 65% with advanced degrees
- North America – 26% | Europe, Middle East and Africa – 39% | Asia – 36%

For more information, check out our Press Release, recently featured in EContent Magazine, KnowledgeSpeak.com and Publishing Perspectives, detailing some of the functionality of the new site.
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Job Lander is a new resume app. Its a little hard to understand how it works. But I think we’ll be seeing lots more of mobile tools like this for job seekers and employers.

The NY Times has a blog that critiques websites and I stumbled across this post about a site called DirectApproachSolutions.com that claims to be the ‘eHarmony of jobs‘.

The Times asked readers to comment on the site and they gave it scathing reviews but I wanted to chime in as well.

First of all, lets start with the domain name. Its WAYYYY TOOOOOOOOOOO LONGGGGGGGGGG!

The number one rule of picking a domain is to go as short as possible. Nmmber two is getting the words jobs or careers into it somehow. DirectApproachSolutions.com does neither. Nor does it give the visitor an indication of what the site does. Its a generic, unremarkable domain name.

Other problems I noticed:

• The browser title starts with “Job Search NYC”…if it’s a local site the homepage gives no indication of that.
• The logo is boring and generic looking.
• The homepage is text heavy and does not draw the users eye to any one area of the page.
• The premise: the online job search industry is littered with a long list of companies that claimed to be the eharmony for jobs.  Jobster, RealMatch, Climber…to name a few. The idea never really caught on with job seekers or employers.

Here’s some news about job boards that crossed my desk recently.

OneWire is a financial version of LinkedIn for Wall Street
Manhattan-based OneWire, an online financial services venture, allows both recruiters to post highly detailed job listings and job seekers to apply for positions. Founders Brin McCagg and Skiddy von Stade have raised $30 million from private investors, including MTV founder and former AOL CEO Bob Pittman, and Harrison LeFrak, vice president and chair of the LeFrak Organization, according to Crain’s New York. (full article)

My Comment: that’s a lot of money for a niche play. Hope they spend it wisely.

Indeed Launches Free Resume Search
Check out the articles below on the news and read Jeff’s commentary. He sums it up best.

http://www.ere.net/2011/09/14/indeed-makes-it-official-and-launches-resume-search/

http://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-jobs-jobs-2011-9

CareerBuilder buys German Job Site
CareerBuilder has entered into a definitive agreement under which CareerBuilder will acquire JobScout24, a major job board in Germany with more than 3.36 million users and more than 250000 jobs. (read more)

My comment: the global appetite of the major job boards is never ending. I wish I owned a global board.

Although I was late to the IAEWS congress last week I did catch the session where a recruiter from a healthcare staffing form talked about what they look for when selecting a job board. I thought I would summarize for you so you can get an idea of what to expect.

1. Recruiters dont believe your hype. Most recruiters are skeptical of job sites in general so dont oversell yourself.

2. In addition to job postings they want targeted branding and email campaigns. Give them other options to promote themselves.

3. Many of them still like to search resume databases. I dont make much on my resume db but its still a nice to have feature.

4. They want volume pricing. Give it to them.

5. They still love niche sites. The more niche the better.

6. They like it when you syndicate their jobs to the aggregators. Although aggs tend to be less effective for higher level candidates, healthcare, engineering roles.

7. Show them you understand their recruitment needs. Be a partner not a vendor.

8. Enhanced ROI. Give them feedback on how their jobs are doing. One way to do this is through stats. Like what I’m doing with JobSpeek. Each job listing displays # of views, referrers and locations. Example: look at the bottom of this posting.

One of my favorite iphone apps is called SEO Ranking (download here). I use it to keep track of how my job boards are ranking on Google for their respective keywords. Cost is $2.99 but its well worth it and has become one of my trusted apps for running my boards.

Some recent job boards in the news…

* I discovered a new word press plug to create job board functionality.

http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/wordpress/job-board-with-gravity-forms/

* ResumeBear has created a new simplified apply process using their resume profile service.

http://resumebear.com/jobs/search

The simple and easy applying process is what separates ResumeBear from other Job Boards. Pick the Job Post, choose a Resume, customize the Cover Letter and Send; The Tracking begins.

“Now with over 250,000 Resumes accumulated from job seekers in the ResumeBear data-base, employers now have a vast selection of candidates to hire from” says Bob Warren….read full article.

* TNhospiltalJobs.com is a new “micro-niche” job board. Its a hybrid combining a locality with an industry. I think we’ll start to see more of these type boards in the coming years.

http://www.tnhospitaljobs.com/

* Monster is getting squeezed…A fragile economy and increasing competition from social networking brands such as newly-listed LinkedIn Corp, are making life tougher for online job boards Monster Worldwide Inc and Dice Holdings Inc.

Monster’s margins are being squeezed, and the company, which pioneered digital recruiting almost 20 years ago, looks out of touch, missing out on an industry rebound. Read Full Article

So you want to start a job board? Well you’ll need a good domain name. And that domain MUST be filled with your primary keyword phrase. Actually its not mandatory, but it helps greatly when it comes to crafting a good SEO strategy for your job board. If I had a choice I would always go with a keyword rich domain name so choose yours wisely.

My pal Jason Davis, former owner of RecruitingBlogs.com has one of the coolest portfolio of job and recruiting related domains for sale. Check it out below. Many of these domains rank #1 such as Graphicsjobs.com…”graphics jobs“.

If you are looking for a good domain name for the recruiting or job industry, please take a look below at some of the names I am selling now. If interested, please email me at Jason @ slouch.com

GraphicsJobs.com
StorageJobs.com
CircuitJobs.com
VideoJobs.com
SiliconvalleyJobs.com
DirectorJobs.com
SemiconductorJobs.com
BroadbandJobs.com
CommunicationsJobs.com
DSPJobs.com
JobTV.com
HardwareJobs.com
HumanCapitalJobs.com
Recruiting101.com
JobMagazine.com
JobResearch.com
JobReferrals.com
JobSpec.com
LocalRecruiting.com
RecruitingTips.com
MakePlacements.com
MemoryJobs.com
OpticalJobs.com
StockJobs.com
MPEGjobs.com
OpticalNetworkingJobs.com
ProcessJobs.com
RecruitingAds.com
RecruitingAssociations.com
RecruitingConferences.com
RecruitingBlogosphere.com
RecruitingGroups.com
Splits.net
Splits.org
RecruitingSplits.com
RecruitingWidget.com
RecruitingWidgets.com
RetainedJobs.com
SanJoseRecruiting.com
SourcingTechniques.com
TalentID.com

My last post about recruiters starting job boards got a lot of attention. One of my readers wanted me to explain further how to decide if her firm should start one and how to practically do it.

My response…

The job board itself can be as much a reflection of your current business as you want, meaning you can put your name all over it or just create an entirely new brand and not mention your current business at all. I wouldn’t be too concerned about cannibalization honestly. A job board takes 1-2 years to gain any momentum and make any real money. But if you have a good database you can leverage that to jumpstart the site’s traffic.

Ask yourself how likely would your existing clients be to post a job instead of hiring you? I suspect not very in the first year. At the very least you can just use your job board to build up your candidate database…it works both ways.