The job problem — too much noise

February 9, 2007 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

zubkalogo.bmpThe number of new job-focused companies is overwhelming.

The latest is Zubka.com, a new European company that pays people for referring suitable job candidates for listings on its site. Here’s your chance to win $3,600 for referring a Java architect for a job in Florida.

zubka2.bmpHowever, Zubka is just the latest in a barrage of companies doing similar things (H3.com, BountyJobs, and Blue Chip Expert). The opportunity is significant because no one company dominates the multi-billion-dollar market for hooking up employees with jobs. However, the noise is terrifically loud. Very little new technology here; merely refinements of social networking strategies that are the rage.

Zubka said it has raised an undisclosed amount of money from venture capital firm Benchmark. This is predictable, because Benchmark has a long track record of investing in online marketplaces (ever since it won big by backing auction site eBay). In Zubka’s marketplace, the buyers are employers looking to pay for job referrals, and the sellers are you and me. There’s nothing else that really distinguishes this company — at least from what we can see. And with a market filled with brands like Monster, a name like Zubka is difficult to remember.

In just the last few weeks, you’ve seen Simply Hired announce a new initiative letting any site-owner create their own job boards, which will probably create hundreds of mini job marketplaces. You’ve seen Jobster revamp its site, letting employers and employees express themselves in new ways. LinkedIn lets you recommend professionals for various tasks.

There’s money pouring into all kinds of other job related ventures, many of them quite similar: Doostang, of Palo Alto, last month raised seed capital for an invite-only job site, where users let their friends see information on job leads. Blue Chip Expert is a sort of reverse job board, which lets people register their skill sets, and allows hiring managers to search for specific skills they need for project. There’s a referral incentive here too, much like Zubka. We’re told it is raising an angel round of financing.

There’s Trovix, a Mountain View, Calif. company that sells job-search software for employers, which recently raised a $13 million. SnagAJob.com raised $9 million for a site that helps people find part-time work. Whew!

Strangely, despite all this, employers tell us they’re having problems finding decent employees. There’s this impression that the recruitment process is broken. Could it possibly be that this is a classic market constraint problem, i.e. that there’s really no one out there right for your job opening?

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Paul K
    I think the problem for many employers is precisely that there are too many sites and no focus. I see three problems: (1) The terms used for job positions are not standardized, (2) There are so many job sites that it is unlikely the ideal candidate has even seen your posting, (3) there are so many postings across the country and world, that it is difficult to separate the signal from the noise, so searches likely often miss appropriate postings.

    But, I think 1 above may be a huge problem. I note in technical areas, terms like Engineer, Architect, Designer, and IT are all ambiguous, and have different meanings to different people. So, someone looking for an Architect may be looking for a building designer, a senior software or hardware designer, or a web site designer. Those just a few of many many examples of this term confusion problem. Much of this problem is caused by title inflation, helped in part by VCs and the like who are more impressed by hifalutin titles.
    Many of these problems used to get sorted out via recruiters/headhunters and University department level job boards.
  • There is a problem of too much noise in online recruitment today.

    Initially, job boards were a big step up in terms of adding transparency, efficiency and scale to the job market which had been dominated by newspaper classifieds.

    Now.. there is too much scale, too much noise. I think the pain in the online recruitment ad market is becoming more and more visible and I think that's a good thing as it'll help drive products/services to a better place.

    A big part of the solution is really just better advertising. Better advertising options, better ad vehicles -- better ways for recruiters/companies to reach their target audiences.

    I don't think it's "that there’s really no one out there right for your job opening", but more that that "right person" is not seeing your job opening in the right place.

    -eric
  • What might work reasonably well for other industries has a serious flaw in the IT industry. To find a good developer you can't let a regular recruiter do the search. They just can compare keywords, but don't know what all that really means. Instead of publishing a list of keywords it would be better for companies to post a description of their problem or project. That would allow contractors and consultants apply only for those jobs they are interested in. The signal to noise ratio would greatly improve.
  • bruce
    Hi...

    No matter how far reaching the ads, it really comes down to whether you have someone on the inside who knows how to recruit/to find the person for the job...

    I've found that alot of people who do the actual process of bringing people in, don't really know what they're doing. The person has been put in that position, and they attempt to do it, but there is no real process in most companies to facilitate this process.

    The better way (my $0.02) would be to be able to more or less look at the relevant portion of person's past body of work, as well as to have multiple people to really talk to the candidates...

    But, for now, the process is open to serious numbers of new entrants.

    -bruce
  • I think you are a little off on the competiton to Zubka. The only competiton really is H3 and Bountyjobs. Taleo, Trovix, Go Big and Authoria aren't competitors.

    As the poster above stated....A big part of the solution is really just better advertising. Better advertising options, better ad vehicles — better ways for recruiters/companies to reach their target audiences.

    This is why I invented Push Posting 2.0

    CareerMetasearch is the world's leader in passive candidate search technology, enabling enterprise class employers and recruiters to find the best-qualified candidates, faster and more cost effectively than conventional methods. Our Push Posting 2.0 & Job Boomerang web technologies provide exceptional results for hiring managers and are currently being utilized by such companies as Freescale, Eclipsys, Microsoft, Gap and Turner Broadcasting to name a few.

    Methodology:

    Successful CEOs often point to the fact that the team with the best talent wins most frequently. In a very competitive marketplace that philosophy holds more credence than ever. The challenge for hiring companies is their inability to effectively tap into the lifeline of the industries best talent using conventional recruiting and online job tools.

    CareerMetaSearch dramatically changes the online recruiting landscape. Our unique technologies are very different from what hiring manager see when using candidate clearinghouse such as Monster or Careerbuilder. We deliver a targeted, measurable system that reaches passive candidates who may not even be looking for a change. We are able to engage and convert a minor interest into a job application. This provides hiring managers fewer but better qualified candidates. Our services target the cream of the crop executives, technology and finance individuals; positions that may come from the leading market makers or even your competition.

    Additionally the cost and time to hire one quality person has become more daunting than ever. For every open job position that is posted to conventional online jobs boards, hiring managers may receive hundreds if not thousands of unqualified or mismatched responses that waste valuable time and resources better invested elsewhere.
  • Ok, thanks Jason, I'll clarify. So on paid referrals, we got H3, BountyJobs, Zubka, Blue Chip Expert.
  • Courtney
    Let's face it, right now we do not have a perfect system designed. Many employers and prospective employees feel robotized and short changed using what's out there. People will keep jumping around and the fragmentation will continue until we get it right.
  • anon
    Lots of job sites. Lots of resumes. Continuing problem is matching resumes to jobs - keyword approach breaks down precisely because of the disconnect in the definition of terms. You should go ping a small company in seattle (www.Nervana.com)that developed semantic search tech for the pharma industry and is now deploying the tech to a variety of other verticals - online recruiting apparently is one of the early targets. Demo worth seeing -
    no hype - but fantastic and innovative tech.
  • Paul K
    Paid referral sites are just a way to get more attention in a crowded field. But, it is not that likely to improve the connection between job seekers and applicants, as far as I can see. The problem is that many of those doing the referring are no more qualified than the normal recruiters or keyword matching software. Note that most recruiters are paid by the employers, so they learn how to parse the resumes well, or they stop getting contracts. But, more companies are trying to save the money.

    Part of the problem is how companies can reasonably define what they want in a short title. Use of a tag model does not work much better than keywords, except when specialties are needed (e.g. someone who can work on a specific Oracle database release).

    Pure keyword matching does not work well, but semantic matching could work if you can figure out how to focus what matters. However, many fields (tech, science, etc) have the problem that it is difficult to focus what matters most, and many resumes list a huge number of the buzzwords, even if the person has only minor knowledge or experience.
  • peter
    What about Spotajob in the Netherlands (www.spotajob.com) and www.karmaone.org. Exactly the same concepts
  • What about www.xpertize.be in Belgium?
    The same also. Rewarded referral hiring seems to be very efficient as I see the results in Belgium!
  • Matt,

    Reading this article made me smile...

    I am impressed that you found us given that we have been operating for two months... but it is clear that you did not look at BountyJobs beyond the front page...

    Had you taken the time to look, my guess is that your jaw would have dropped, you wouldnt have written this article about Zubka...and you wouldn't have mentioned that their is no innovative technology out there...

    But then again, that is why we dont show anything beyond the front page...

    Jeremy Lappin
    CEO BountyJobs
  • Jane S.
    There's still a lot of work to be done on the search side in terms of finding relevant new positions directly from employers. Social networking doesn't seem that applicable to the job hunting model. There's some interesting work on the search side being done by Recruit.net in Hong Kong and Eluta.ca in Canada.
  • I'm most interested to see where the niche players who are trying to provide services to affiliates fall out.

    I would agree that search needs to get a lot better first and more intelligent selection capabilities need to be built to facilitate HR/HC professional using the systems. Right now its gotten to a point where people are pulling back from the more innovative search solutions and (based upon the positions that come into my inbox) are using entry level people to send out inquiries to anyone who can spell UNIX despite actual interest or job responsibilities in recent history.

    I'm staying tuned to this one.

    Jeff N
    jeffn@startupattitude.com
    http://www.startupattitude.com
  • Matt Griffith
    You can find candidates anywhere but as many people have said in the comments, the hardest part (at least for our org) is connecting with and evaluating who is good and who isn't. For instance, you bring in a software architect and you will struggle through actually evaluating them unless you are one yourself.

    You should check out HireVue - they offer very neat way to connect candidates with managers through recorded video interviews and it seems they are gaining a lot of big companies as customers through what I have heard. We have used them ourselves in our small operation and been very impressed. HireVue makes it easy for me or my managers to log in to watch interviews from anywhere we are, anytime and give feedback to decide who we want to bring in for face to face interviews. I believe they are looking to raise capital.
  • Juju (www.job-search-engine.com) is a competitor to Indeed, SimplyHired, and Jobster. We'd be the first to admit that we haven't differentiated ourselves well to date, nor addressed most of the large problems that exist in the market, but we've got some exciting innovations coming soon. Not marketing partnerships, not trivial me too feature enhancements, but real technology and a truly different approach to fundamental problems that we hope will change your perspective on the space.
  • This is my 10th year running a job board and my experience is that the online recruiting game is not about technology. Talk to someone knowledgeable at Monster and they'll tell you most recruiters aren't interested in technology. We've got some great features in our service that I always use when recruiting internally, but only a minority of our customers actually use them.

    This is a marketing business and we're running media companies. That's why most of the VC backed companies will evaporate given a couple of years. The real problem is that recruiting is hard work nowadays. But it isn't a technology problem, so we don't need 99% of these new ventures.
  • Aren't recruiters only part of the picture? What about job seekers? Do the tools currently available make job search simple and highly productive? Research suggests that the answer is no. If technology can change that, then all constituents benefit.
  • S
    Thanks to everyone all over the world for introducing me to various technologies. Now I will start the demos....
  • There is way to much noise, which is why we built climer.com.

    Try climber.com, it's like dating for jobs.

    Unlike anything in the job space, we work with organiations to find their model employees, or the ones they wish they could replicate. Then we put them through an online evalualation (takes about 20 mins) and then we play cupid. Matching their best candidatest against the passive candidates in our database. Oh by the way, we are adding 1K to 5K people per day. Check our alexa rank...

    Organizations get a short list of candidates who have the best chance of succeeding, and candidates get recruited by organizations who are aligned with their work values and meet their pre-defined criteria; ie: salary, travel etc.

    Chees,
    Mike

    Cheers,
    Mike
  • Raj Singh
    All these comments from people promoting their own little solutions (and companies) re-iterates the gist of the article.

    Way too much noise.....
  • I keep a list of venture backed job boards here: http://internetinc.com/Job-boards-with-vc-funding

    and also posted about the noise you here:
    http://internetinc.com/Too-Many-Job-Ventures
  • In response to Mike Anders, there are some companies looking to help the job seeker. Take a look at Razume (http://www.razume.com). You post a resume and people in the community can do a resume review to help the job seeker improve his resume but also his understanding of the terms used in the industry.