.jobs a gamechanger?

I'll be honest, when a recruiter sent me an article detailing out the progress of the .jobs domain, I was skeptical. The short of it is, through a massive push of industry support, the new .jobs domain will allow jobs to be easily published, for free, by any participating employer. On paper, its a clean, simple idea. In terms of adoption however...well, I honestly don't know if I've ever visited a .tv or .co site. Have you?

The article implied that if this takes of, .jobs can very well signal the beginning of the end of for-profit job sites such as Monster and Career Builder. Follow the rabbit hole a little more and you see a major hit in revenue for the job aggregators of the world, as well as Craigslist. But how will this effect recruiting?

So I dug around a bit to see how .jobs is taking shape. There seems to be two primary strategies in the use of .jobs:

One strategy is for individual corporations to brand their own jobs page and recruitment efforts by using '.jobs'. A good example can be found here: http://www.mercymiami.jobs/. Its a quick and easy way for prospective candidates to find out about the jobs your company has, rather than force them to navigate through the site to get to the good stuff.

The second method is more of an industry method described in the original article below, where you can link your jobs to the relevant industry.jobs site. For a job seeker (as well as a staffing business development rep), this is a very good option. For example, www.administrative.jobs will show you all available administrative jobs available through corporations on the network by company, job title, or state. The industry grouping also works geographically. So you can go to seattle.washington.jobs and see over 4,00 listed jobs.

What are your thoughts - how are you using .jobs? Do you think it will continue to take off?

New '.jobs' network may doom for-profits: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2014008855...

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Permalink Reply by Debbie oberbillig on February 16, 2011 at 11:51am

Allen Partners subscribed to this service when it first came out a few years ago and we could not see that it

was a game changer.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Kidd on February 16, 2011 at 12:30pm

Is company.jobs really any different than going to company.com and clicking their careers link? I really don't see that scenario as a game changer.

Websites are a lot like TV channels. Users go to the sites (channels) they like and are familiar with. If you found a job on Monster.com, the next time you are looking for a job, you'll go to Monster.com. The industry method will likely hurt the niche job boards that rely on SEO as their main way of getting traffic.

Ultimately, job boards that don't deliver results for job seekers will be hurt by .jobs. Job boards that have a strong following, provide good content and that are easy to use, are less likely to be hurt by .jobs.

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Permalink Reply by Suresh on February 17, 2011 at 7:38am

What market need are they trying to fill ? In my mind nothing new. There is a reason niche job boards have established themselves over the years and the only differentiator they are providing is a new domain extension.

If they provide a differentiated user experience, then they may have a chance. Domain extension change by itself is not a Market Need (either by employers or jobseekers).

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Permalink Reply by Jacob Rhoades on February 17, 2011 at 12:50pm

Thanks for all of the thoughts - I think that the fact that it is free for employers is going to be a big plus. The more companies that choose to post their jobs here, the more traffic they get, the fewer people posting their resumes up on boards, the less of a reason companies "need" a relationship with a job board. In my mind, its the ability for firms to network their job boards together at no cost to them, that's the big juicy apple. The fact that the article quotes an job board industry rep as calling .jobs an "economic recovery killer" shows that they are taking this very seriously.

It really doesn't matter about the user experience. People don't go to a job board because of the user experience!

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on February 18, 2011 at 4:54pm

How is .jobs any different from having a companies own jobs pulled onto indeed or simply hired? I still run into people all the time who don't know about indeed or simply hired which amazes me, but these are your average job seeker. If they aren't aware of these sites, how will .jobs get on their radar I wonder?

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Permalink Reply by Suresh on February 18, 2011 at 5:56pm

Building a brand online is a heck of a challenge..Using a new domain extension (with little to no awareness) among employers and jobseekers, its a huge uphill battle. That is exactly why there needs to be differentiation or a clear market need for a brand to stick and gain traction.

I don't see it and the market will decide eventually anyways.