Not Your Father's Job Search Tool

Boston.com posted an article Monday showing the rapid market shift away from now-traditional players in Internet job-hunting: Monster, HotJobs, and Career Builder. The article begins with an interesting anecdote between a father giving some advice to his newly-graduated son–except this father used to run Monster.

Earlier this year, when Hans Gieskes’ son graduated from Connecticut College, Gieskes suggested that he post his resume on Monster.com, and start job hunting. Gieskes the Younger had a different idea. ‘’He said, ‘Dad, I’m using SimplyHired,’ because it gives him all the Monster listings, the listing from HotJobs, and all the other sites in one single search,” Gieskes recalls.

It was a surprising answer, since Gieskes was for a brief period the president of Maynard-based Monster. But now that Internet job hunting is more than 10 years old, the established leaders — companies like Monster, Yahoo’s HotJobs division, and CareerBuilder, a joint venture of several newspaper companies — may be showing a few flecks of gray, as a generation of scrappy young sites elbow in. SimplyHired, headquartered in Silicon Valley, is one new player, pulling together job postings from across the Web. [full article]

As technologies are rapidly driving down the transaction costs in recruiting, I am keeping my eyes and ears wide open to the newest and most-valuable ways to close the gap between companies and excellent, talented people. Above all, I welcome the change that is coming, though many in the industry may fear it.

I’ve been stumping for quite some time now that the next recruiting boom is upon us, and while I won’t be so bold to say I am hanging ten on this wave, I am definetly in the current, and driving hard to keep delivering actionable, measurable results to my clients in the form of excellent people and excellent professional service.

Of course, my focus is how to best-serve my clients, and how to help people best manage their careers. An admitted idealist, I honestly believe my work adds value to each community I work in, and I know I help employees and owners sleep better at night when the right people are doing the right work!

Above all the virtual technologies available, I am most-intrigued at how incredibly valuable a five-minute handshake-and-a-chat can be. In fact, it’s virtually priceless to me.