Future and thoughts of job aggregators?

[addz123]

Hi,

I'm curious on people's views on job aggregators, whether they're good or bad. For arguments sake let's assume it has very good user experience/functionality like this: http://www.jobisjob.co.uk/

It seems the pros are you can find more jobs, which is good especially if you have stricter requirements. For example, it might save time searching on a job aggregator for a particular role/location/salary then manually searching on 3-4 different job sites.

However, the downside seems to be that aggregator is a bit impersonal and a stumbling block - you have to leave the site in order to apply for jobs, and saving jobs/email alerts or signing up seems irrelevant when it's not up to the aggregator when the actual job expires.

All these big job aggregators have "sign in and save" preferences, but I don't see the point of that featured on an aggregator. In order to view the full details on the job, you'd need go to the actual job site or application page, before saving. So you're basically "saving" a third-party click to another site before even viewing the full job description.

However, I see the advantage of uploading your CV to a job aggregator is that aggregators will work with recruitment agencies (just like a regular job board) to get your CV seen in front of potential employers, so obviously that's a clean feature.

What are other people's thoughts? Also, most job aggregators allow you to post jobs for free (since they make money from ads), which I personally think is where the job industry is going. I don't see why recruiters will be paying £200+/month to post jobs on well known boards such as Monster.co.uk when they can post for free on aggregators with bigger traffic and reach.

 

[rawkinrich]

Market is saturated. Local is the future.

 

[viceroy]

Local is definitely the future, thing is, these days, both partners work and it's a big ask for a job move and trying to convince ones' partner to do the same. Aggregators are generally poor in terms of seo and user experience...
On another note, how can there be 1.15mil jobs available with 2.33mil still looking?

 

[scottmccloud]

Because many of the jobs don't actually exist. They're posted on job sites so recruitment agencies have a ready supply of candidates when an actual vacancy does come in. I used to work in recruitment and it's a shocking practice but the vast majority of agencies do it.

 

[bonusmedia]

In my time we paid for the big name boards and the specialists because they got better results. You don't necessarily want a wider reach - you want to target quality candidates. For example, if you're recruiting engineers, Jobsite has a great pool. In IT, cwjobs.co.uk is very good.

Recruitment agencies will always have a place at the top end (true headhunting) and with hard to find, specialist candidates. For generalist recruiting, massive 15 or even 20% fees can't last.

For many vacancies the real challenge is filtering the unsuitable candidates. HR will justify using agencies because it cuts their workload, but the actual work involved in posting an ad and selecting a shortlist is a lot less than it used to be so isn't worth the fees any more - software is taking over.

Krooter.co.uk seem to be advertising heavily recently, they have an impressive offering. They provide the expertise on where to post, how to write the ad, they handle the multiposting, automate a lot of the filtering, and pass on the bulk discounts from the job boards, but all via the web app instead of using human recruiters.

I suspect a lot of companies will end up using this sort of service rather than traditional agencies.

 

[addz123]

Thanks for the feedback. I really think someone (*cough me*) will come along and re-invent the job board industry with 99p jobs instead of charging £300/month for job postings.

It's insane how recruiters can charge £200-£300/month to post a job when nearly all of the process can be fully automated and there are such low variable costs.

 

[rawkinrich]

Buy my jobs domains. Winner!

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk

 

[Stas]

I quite like indeed.co.uk, it shows you new jobs for your keywords since last visit etc. And I think it shows jobs from business career pages too. Good for researching the job market. Browsing manually for relevant jobs on all the sites would not be fun

 

[burguera]

I have used indeed.com and I think it does a good job. It lets me have a perspective of the job market around the jobs I am interested on.

jc

 

[Epic New Media]

Saturated market - move along!