Aggregators are job search engines that trawl cyberspace for jobs, wherever they are; whether on jobboards, corporate sites or via social media. This can save the jobseeker time and hassle as they only use only one site, yet can access many jobs, some of which they would have never discovered otherwise. For example without an aggregator, a sales person might follow a few sales specific boards, local boards for the area they want to work in, plus the major generalist boards, says Simon Appleton, CEO of Workcircle. He says aggregators make that search process easy: one search, many boards.
Aggregators also make the job information available to their users in an unbiased way, believes Alex Paterson at Check4 Jobs. He says that this is where the job boards differ as they can’t offer this kind of service, as they need to keep their own interests at heart, saying: “Like any successful website, the available information has to give the user choice, that’s why aggregators are so successful.”
Paul Forster, CEO and co-founder of Indeed, Inc. explains why the vertical search or aggregation model is highly effective for both job seekers and recruiters. He says: “For job seekers, its comprehensive job search allows users to search millions of jobs from thousands of job boards and companies. For recruiters and employers, pay-for-performance pricing enables them to reach millions of targeted candidates cost effectively. Advertisers can measure the Return On Investment (ROI) from their Pay per Click (PPC) campaigns, adjust their recruitment advertising campaigns accordingly, and
internationally: his company is now a global destination in many languages, with over one billion job searches and 27 million unique visitors per month.
How Aggregators are adapting
Aggregators are still evolving. For example, at AllTheTopBananas.com, they are making changes to their site so that they can display a job board’s data using icons, in a way that will highlight to the jobseeker the important features of each job. Their MD, Dave Martin, says they are focusing heavily on refining the user experience- giving users more opportunities to search accurately and effectively for the vacancies that match their skills.
Job Search Engines (JSEs) are also embracing the opportunities offered by social media and new technology and are incorporating them into their sites, such as the use of mobile phones, and the ability to follow jobs on twitter. Stephen O Donnell, Director at 1jobs believes innovation in the mobile sector has been led by JSE’s in 2009. He claims the ‘UK Jobs’ iPhone App from his company was the most downloaded job search application in the UK, and allows candidates to access all advertised jobs on our database, without the need of a PC. He says this has proven to be invaluable for jobseekers who want to search jobs discreetly, and at a time that suits them.
Due to the recession, aggregators have also found that they are being used in a different way, due to budgetary restraints. Stephen O’Donnell comments: “We have found that job advert originators, recruitment agencies and employers, are themselves looking to take more advantage of their own websites, and utilise the established SEO of aggregator sites to deliver candidate traffic directly to them. Better and lower cost technology, means that agencies can now implement fully featured job boards with all their own job adverts. The problem of sourcing fresh targeted candidates cost effectively is resolved by the JSEs.”
In addition to this, Stephen O Donnell believes job boards have often found themselves on the receiving end of greater, but less relevant candidate volumes. He says: “This creates a problem with advertisers, who have to deal with so many speculative applications. Greater filtering, and qualifying of candidates helps, but many have identified the need for a strategic infusion of targeted candidates. And this is where JSEs can really add value.”
Aggregators as a barometer for recruiting activity
As aggregators have access to a wide range of job data, it puts them in a great position to inform the recruitment industry on the changing market, continues Dave Martin. He says: “Since the announcement that we have officially come out of recession, the market is hopeful, but growth is slow and at times unstable, especially within recruitment.” Paul Forster agrees that the organic or natural search results of a vertical job search engine like his are indicative of the job market as a whole. He says Indeed’s Industry Trends show changes in the number of jobs for major industries in the US, indicating a remarkable uptick in hiring activity over the last few months in certain sectors, boding well for the job market in 2010.
The last decade has certainly been eventful. Stephen O Donnell reminds us of the reasons for the highs and lows: “The index dropped in 2002 and 2003, as a result of the dotcom bubble bursting, and then rose steadily, as business confidence grew. Confidence in online recruiting also grew rapidly, until late 2007, when the Northern Rock crisis shook the commercial world. They say that a rising tide lifts all boats, but the dramatically falling tide of 2008 exposed traditional newspaper recruitment advertising, and all its inefficiencies. So whilst the overall volume of advertised vacancies has plummeted, the newspaper share of the market has been decimated. The most remarkable year is clearly 2008, when the index seems to fall off a cliff.
2009, whilst steadily bumping along the bottom, has at least arrested the decline. Modest falls and rises throughout the year have been seized upon as signs of either recovery or further gloom. In the year ahead, we are expecting public sector recruitment to take the brunt of the current crisis. Whilst it is the private sector that makes most use of online recruitment, we expect the Alljobs Index to remain flat for at least the first half of 2010.”
