Jason's got the ball

The future has not been written,” began Terminator 3. “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.” 

It took 12 years to write the script for Terminator 3, I wonder how long Jason Goldberg has been planning 'Jobster - meet your future'.  I wonder how far his vision goes?

I am impressed at them getting Reed Elsevier to invest.  Reed own Totaljobs Group who have been very good at growing their (horizontal) job board, who then cannibalise their own business, launching standalone nice sites to compete direct with any strong section of Totaljobs e.g. Retail Choice (retail), Sales Target (sales) etc.  But, TJ have not shown any great ability or desire to innovate, preferring to apply a typical advertising model.  Starting off low and then increasing prices as traffic volumes increase.  British Airways allowed the likes of Easyjet and Ryan Air to attack their market by not being prepared to change, and the low cost airlines now reduce prices as volumes increase making it increasingly difficult for BA to fightback.

Reed are however an astute investor and as ever are prepared to (maybe) cannibalise their existing job boards by investing in the success of Jobster.  Clearly the paid job listing model is under much pressure, which does not help Totaljobs et al, but Jobster utilise job volume as part of their proposition - or do they/will they?

Jobster are running a seminar next week in London, which I am attending so it will be interesting to see how they present their proposition.  I personally do endorse the need for something better than the current job board offerings although do not see them (job boards) disappearing as the likes of Jobster enter the market. 

Top footballers generally do not need to go looking for a new team - they have an agent to do this.  But at the lower levels, potential Rooney's are out there every weekend hoping to be spotted by the talent scouts (headhunters) and chosen for one of the coveted apprenticeships (jobs).  Job seekers are no different.  The superstars generally have a favourite headhunter, and the non-superstars are actively progressing their careers in order to become a superstar and on the list of one of the headhunters for a job with a top employer.

So where does Jason see Jobster working?  At the moment they aggregate jobs from various sources but as reported by Joel Cheeseman, this may be something they either have to stop, or start paying some kind of licencing fee.  Maybe unlikely but who knows - RIM, owners of the Blackberry may have some thoughts on this!!  But, do the elusive passive (superstar) job seekers look for jobs?  They may however like networking, particularly the semi-passive (future superstars) job seekers.  There is logic in having the jobs in one place although this is entering Linkedin space so Jobster will have to work hard to differentiate themselves from Monster and Linkedin.  Should Amazon have entered the grocery market?  Should they have even gone beyond books?  Can the likes of Wal Mart and Tesco keep on growing?  OK, Jobster don't yet have this problem but Amazon got big by focusing (initially) only on books.  Wal Mart and Tesco only sold groceries and got very big before expanding their products beyond food - and it took a long time to just dominate the food sector.

One of the dangers for Jobster is that if they become too clever, they end up confusing their target audience who just go back to whatever they did before.  So Jason, jobs or networking?  Can you/should you do both?  Or is that where TJ fit in - they continue to get the jobs, you maximise (job) content by having additional strategic relationships with the right niche sites where TJ don't lead (defined as must be number 1 or 2 [not my measure] in the sector) and then focus your core intellect on the networking side.

Then we have the business model.  If the paid for job listing model becomes defunct and maybe even gets turned on its head (see previous Blog - Is it the end already?) whereby 'job boards' have to buy exclusivity from employers, Jobster have to create maybe a Web 2.5 charging model (yet to be defined!).  Jason Goldberg current describes Jobster in the Retailers Guide to E-recruitment as a Web 2.0 service - i.e. the web as a platform as defined by Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media Inc, thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world, and an activist for open standards.

The Web 2.0 lesson: leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head.

Jobster does apply the above Web 2.0 attributes, and does rely on volume of users to improve the overall service but this applies more to the networking side rather than the aggregation of jobs.  Are the users there to find a contact who can help them get a job, or are they there to find a job and apply direct to it.  The ideal is the former but if the latter ends up being the majority in most cases, will the user go to somewhere easier to just search and apply for a job.  eBay works for many, but now in a lot of cases it is easier, quicker, and sometimes cheaper to just go and buy it direct - hence eBay added 'buy it now' and more recently Express, a 'standard' e-commerce platform.  OK, so maybe Jobster are ahead of the game and are offering bidding and buy-it-now from day one but would eBay have been so successful without the initial fun and excitement of the bid process - I think not.  Buy it now came when needed not before.

So what about the pricing model.  Recruitment agencies get business as they charge only for success, eBay charge small amounts to be listed but need to see sales success to generate the majority of their revenue.  Do Jobster charge 'networkers' a subscription fee as per Linkedin, allow for highly intelligent matching using sophisticated software, yet restrict access to their details using Web 2.0 algorithmic data management techniques such as 'tagging' and 'collaborative spam filtering techniques' to protect personal data from 'recruitment spammers' and feed it very accurately only to the right, well-matched people (recruiter and job seeker).  Both parties then pay an additional amount for a successful match and delivery method e.g. e-mail costs less than SMS, immediacy pays more than weekly etc.  Where does this leave the job advert - who knows.  Maybe it is redundant, maybe it's part of the matching process but in either case, it is not where the value will be.  If I am selling a product, but have no buyers, it has no real value until I have buyers.  A job is no different :>)  It has to be matched to the right people to be at it's highest value.  Maybe my RSS feeds, via my Google/Jobster reader (Web 2.0 service again) are not of jobs, but of well-matched recruiters who are looking for 'people like you' as they have jobs that match your skills.  This is only a subtle change as the job is still the 'element of closure' but it would allow direct contact between people (aka networking) rather than sending a CV or advertising a job.  Jobs and online applications would in turn use tags to match rather than current screening questions that are easy to cheat.

A Blog type structure would allow people to link to each other and help build up a stronger network that in turn can more easily be accurately indexed against search criteria or jobs.  Imagine if I could build up a self-managing, self-building (viral) database of retail store managers; the value of this would be pretty high to the retail sector.  If I then add accurate matching.......

Finally, here in the UK the mobile phone is a critical element for any Web 2.0 recruitment service.  I have recently switched off my Blackberry and my Nokia 6230 in favour of an Orange SPV C600 with Windows Mobile - and it seems to do both jobs very well!

It will be interesting to see how Jobster develops over time.  Stay tuned for more updates...

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