A couple of people have mentioned to me that they thought it was a good idea for Yahoo! to divest from Seek, whilst the listed company reported bumper revenues and profit for the year ending June ‘05, coming mainly from the small and medium enterprise segment (as reported by Shortlist: password protected), in an advertising niche reportedly far from saturated.
My impression was that developments and products like vertical search or the proliferation of .jobs sites were going to turn the job boards on their heads.
My answer right now is ‘I can’t tell’: I am still getting blank stares when I mention .jobs for the first time to someone, and vertical search appears to be very much a US-centric event (unless the local players are keeping quiet for now), amongst other things.
So there I go on a spin:
If at all, how far behind the curve is the Australasian marketplace in regards to the adoption of alternative recruitment advertising and candidate sourcing vehicles?
Am I totally overstating the incremental value of these new vehicles to the job seeker?
Am I totally wrong by thinking that job boards in their current shape will be impacted by .jobs, search, better-tracked referrals, etc.?
I guess clients – job seekers and employers/recruiters alike – will vote with their feet.