Yahoo! Looks for a New Job - Job Hunting with Web Results
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Searching the web for job posting is great news for job hunters. When hunting online, I spent hours moving between job boards like Monster.com and individual corporate sites, applying everywhere I could think of and returning every couple days to see new postings. An omnipresent search tool takes a lot of the work out of hunting and staying updated on postings. Companies who list jobs on their corporate sites may also find this a pleasant change. It will draw more applicants than otherwise, and spending money on much needed search engine optimization could replace the need for sponsored placement ads.
In this search, Yahoo separates their sponsored listings from the web ones. As you would expect, the links which people have paid to post come first in the results page. The “Job Results from the Web” appears after all of the HotJobs posts, which can be on the first page or the 50th page depending on how many there are. There is no fast way to skip to the web results, but those paying for prime advertising space probably would be upset if there was.
After taking a look at the site, this new feature seems to be a beta. It’s not yet as developed as competitors, and there are a few bells and whistles missing. Lets take a look at the actual job postings for an example. First, here is a result from a HotJobs paid listing, and then one retrieved from the web:
HotJobs Paid Listing
Web Results Listing
Right away, you can notice a few differences. The spider that finds these jobs must not be fully developed yet as there are two major shortcomings here. First, there is obviously no description of any kind, so users will be clicking blindly for the most part. Second, the hiring company was often “Unspecified” during my searches, but after clicking on the posting there was an obvious hiring company. In the “unspecified” case above, the company was Clear Channel. Some lesser shortcomings are visible too. There is no way to save a job found on the web, but HotJobs can be saved. And unlike the paid listing where you can choose if the link opens in the original window or a popup, web results can only pop up.
These may be minor complaints, but a much larger problem at the moment is that Yahoo!’s index of web jobs is fairly limited compared to other job searches. During my experimentation, no links came up from Monster.com or Careerbuilder. Considering that these sites have giant job databases and appear prevalently on other search engines, Yahoo! must be intentionally avoiding adding leading competitors to their index. Corporate sites, small job boards, and government sites are all fair game for the search though.
For those who are job hunting, there are a few other search engines that do not have HotJobs’ current shortcomings. Chances are, this early stage of Yahoo!’s job search won’t last long. They will keep improving their search, taking hints from these other sites.
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