RefreshClassifieds

Jobrate is a new employment portal that while still in beta, totes its dynamic search as its competitive edge.

Unlike traditional job portals that are driven heavily on static job seeker input to show results, Jobrate shows potential job matches with every key word typed. As the Jobrate site tour explains, typing ‘de in n’ will give you jobs of Designer in New York and Web Designer in New York. The primary search has been set up in this fashion to speed up the job find process.

From an employer’s perspective, Jobrate offers a WYSIWYG style allowing employers to see their ad as they build it and any Webmaster looking to add content to their site will be able to do so via Jobrate’s XML Syndication Technology.

As the site is still its beta stages, employers are able to post jobs for free, but it is unclear how long this will remain a non-fee based listing portal.

In addition to the job search capability above, the site also enables job seekers to search jobs by the most viewed, most demanded and top location, via quick access links.

It is important to note however that the site does not allow for personalization features, such as ‘my account’ where job searches could be saved. Instead, they advertise the ‘email job posting’ functionality as a way for seekers to manage the listings they are interested in, as well as RSS subscriptions to relevant job listings.

Already the site has outlaid a few areas where fees could be initiated once officially launched and although they have added many features to improve the employment search functionality, their lack of personalization features could be their draw back.

Another job site has just stepped on the scene, but their primary focus does not seem to be jobs.

Beyond.com differs greatly from the already existing job sites, as it boasts of a network of 15, 000 other websites that through advertising with them, an employer can take advantage of. Their network of sites include ITWorld, America Job Central, Blue Collar Jobs, Job Nut, etc…. They have been able to create a large network because of their job board software. Beyond’s success in entrenching their software in other sites can be attributed to their revenue sharing models. They provide the content and of course, depending on the traffic the partnering site proves, a revenue sharing model conjured. The concept would work especially well for niche bloggers or sites that are industry specific. Beyond could or would aggregate job listings that match the readership profile, in turn providing a value add on the partnering site. The content share does not have to stop with job listings, as Beyond also offers editorial that can be customized.

Where Beyond is similar to CareerBuilder or even Monster is that they too allow for employers to list jobs on their Beyond.com site and seekers to find employment. Providing similar functionality to what already exists today. The site boasts of jobs in over 25 industries and over 25 million professionals in their database.

The Sun-Times News Group has just launched their free real estate site that enables Chicago users to search for homes in more than 10 counties, covering Northeastern Illinois and Northwest Indiana.

The launch of the residential site is the arrival of what is being called their ‘classified trio’. Via SearchChicago.com, browsers can look for cars, jobs and now homes. All the big elements normally found in an online classified entity.

The birth of SearchChicago.com came out of the original concept, to create a content heavy classified site that would attract both private users and commercial advertisers, and obviously allow Sun-Times to romp with the big boys, online. The smartest way for them to build the type of content necessary (fast and effectively), was to combine the classified listings in their regional publications (the Greater Chicago area), all on to one site.

“SearchChicago.com is one-stop shopping for people in Chicago and surrounding communities who are looking for necessities of life – jobs, homes and transportation,” said Cyrus F. Freidheim, Jr. , Chief Executive Officer of Sun-Times Media Group, Inc., the parent company for the Sun-Times News Group. “Users will have the advantages of our broad classifieds listings across the more than 90 newspaper titles that make up the Sun-Times News Group network and reach millions of readers each day.”

The SearchChicago Classified site has some distinguishing qualities that will allow it to differ itself from the rest. Mainly, the sites search capabilities are what stand out the most. The options and user tools to find information is extremely robust and user friendly. And just as impressive, the information served from a search, is delivered in a plethora of ways, allowing all viewer types to find items quickly.

When looking for a job, the sites advanced search allows a user to choose from 11 different criteria and at the end of the search form, the user has the option of receiving their job profiles in a long or short format view. This is extremely useful for those just wanting to browse. The newly launched homes vertical of the site, also has some interesting options to aid home buyers in making decisions. In addition to allowing browsers to search by community and home type, the site offers an interactive map search and video tours of homes. Another notable application on the homes site is their ‘School Report Card’ section. This allows browsers to review ratings of schools in a particular area they are thinking of moving to. This is key for all families with children and is usually information not found on a classified site – again promoting one stop shopping for site users.

Given that this is a fairly new venture for Sun-Times, I have excused some of the obvious fixes still required with the site. For example, while searching for autos you don’t have the option to hyper-link out to homes. If on either the auto or jobs section of the site, there is no easily navigated way to get back to the principal home page. Lastly, there is great content mix for both homes and jobs on the site, but auto results were somewhat light.

The one-stop shopping feel SearchChicago.com promotes, could be a real success for the Sun-Times News Group. However, ensuring the presence of healthy content that is easily found, will be the differentiator between success and heavy site traffic, versus being just another classified site attempt, by a group of newspapers, trying to compete against the online only elephants, in the publishing space.

One of the largest employment vertical, online partners to the print world has just announced it is cutting jobs in-house, to maintain revenue to cost ratios. The partner I am speaking of is Monster.com.

To me, this is fascinating news, as we have seen so many print publishers create advertising partnerships, with the likes of Monster, Workopolis, Career Builder, etc…. These relationships were built because the online entities, mentioned above, were supposed to be the leverage point that would allow print publishers to keep their Employer/Advertiser databases strong. Sales leaders at newspapers would create special packages, giving their customers placement in the newspaper and website, as well as provide a presence on the global network owned by their ‘well known’, online employment partner. A brilliant plan, provided you had the right sales force, to keep market penetration numbers up. Those who understood new media vantage points, recognized they were being the conduit for their clients to other media forms, as opposed to being left out of the clients purchasing strategy, completely. This downsizing announcement however, makes one think that some of the online only companies, print publishers have joined forces with, may not be much better off than they.

As Monster made clear that it will cut 15% (800 jobs) of its work force to keep investors happy, at the end of the day publishers already in bed with the elephant will need to be aware of the changes to staffing and how that may affect their business.

The challenge the reduction of staff brings to both Monster and their partnering publishers, is the question of service and reliability. Will something be lost in the shuffle? Keep in mind Monster has a relationship with approximately 59 newspapers, which means that there is a lot at stake here. Press releases indicate that the greatest reduction of staff will be here in North America, as it is here that the revenue growth has been noticeably slowed.

I hope Monster has a formidable transition plan or further reduction in North American market share may be their faith.

This is definitely a story we will be watching closely.

JobLoft has partnered with Nexopia to provide employment ads to the Nexopia.com social network. Nexopia bills themselves as Canada’s largest top socual community site. With the popularity of Facebook this might be the case anymore but the most interesting part of the strategy is the comment from the Jobloft blog:

“With the evolution of social community websites (MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, etc), we can now leverage the right demographic to fill Retail, Food Service and Hospitality positions faster”

I think this is a great example of a small startup being able to move faster than the competition. When I first saw the JobLoft demo at DemoCamp I was very impressed with how well they understood their target customer, retails advertisers, and their users. They brought together alot of fairly complex technology to create a very easy to use solution.

If JobLoft can continue to innovate and find its customers before the major media outls they will continue reap the rewards. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them continue to expand and take advantage of other social networks.