Job Search Engines – 2009
Despite the industrial sounding terminology, Job Aggregators, or Job Search Engines (JSE) are both more sophisticated, and more straightforward than you may think. If you take Google or Yahoo to be the Primary Search Engines of the Internet, then dedicated job aggregators could be considered as Secondary Search Engines. That is to say that they will return search results of only job adverts from within a specific database. Google will search for anything at all on the internet, which relates to your search query, but if you only want to find currently advertised live vacancies, then it’s a cumbersome tool. How much more efficient it is then, for a job seeker to use a search engine that returns only live advertised vacancies in their chosen location and industry sector? The ability to effectively search through the vacancies advertised on a multitude of websites is now accepted as a vital tool to anyone actively using the internet to find a new job.
However, not all Job Search Engines are the same. A JSE which “crawls” all websites indiscriminately, or without the cooperation of a site, will find that many of the vacancies on its database are either expired, poorly categorised, or lacking in detail. This inevitably disappoints and frustrates the potential candidate. Equally, what is the use of a JSE which indexes only a small number of job sites? The whole idea is that a job seeker can search as many job boards as possible in as short a time as possible. It is essential that a JSE is working directly with all of the major sources of vacancies, and can ensure the accuracy of its database, by continually updating via direct feeds from those websites.
Recently, there have been newcomers to this sector from the USA, where the websites of employers are the primary sources. However, the first dedicated Job Search Engine in the UK, 1Job.co.uk, remains the market leader. JSE’s are now an essential source of candidate traffic to not only UK job boards, but increasingly to the websites of recruitment agencies, and employers themselves. The flexibility and cost-effective targeting, can mean that a Job Search Engine can make an immediate effect to the traffic on a recruitment website.
New sites, that can take months, and a well implemented SEO strategy, to achieve good natural search rankings, can receive an immediate presence amongst the very candidates that they are targeting, in their required industry sector and location. This means that their return on investment is much quicker, and that market awareness of a brand is established in a much shorter period. Established sites can also benefit from an injection of additional candidate traffic that will supplement their existing database, and provide fresh talent for vacancies.
The impact of immediate traffic to a site also brings into sharp focus any new development work that has been implemented. This will generate an immediate response to site improvements, eliminating, or sharply decreasing, the delay between implementation and reaction from candidates. This can save huge amounts on marketing costs, time and effort, debugging,
and of course keep a tightly scheduled business plan on-track.
In 2009, with fewer organisations able to confidently plan their marketing spend more than 6 months ahead, it will be essential to employ strategies that allow them to react quickly to the marketplace. More than ever before, we will be continually reminded that recruitment is a results-driven business. Those companies who can deliver results, and only charge for performance, will prosper. Job Search Engines in the UK provide an invaluable tool to candidates, and as such also deliver the most cost effective source of job seekers to job boards and recruiters.
