JobX, Search More Find Less!
January 20, 2008 by Geoff Jennings
I received an email from Jobx.com.au containing a bold statement regarding their job search functionality.
Search less, find more
Our search is faster, more efficient and is more likely to deliver what you are looking for than any other career site in Australia. Yes it’s a big claim, but we stand by it wholeheartedly.
I was excited by that statement and road tested it by checking out the search results from Jobx and then comparing the results with those from the major job sites. My results were as follows:
I typed in the keyword, “Account Manager” and chose location anywhere;
- Jobx – No1 result: Recruitment Consultant. Search results here
- MyCareer - No1 result:Business Development Manager, Key Account Manager. Search results here
- Seek – No1 result: Account Manager – Direct Marketing – 100k Search results here
- CareerOne – No1 result: Account Manager / Online Account Manager Search results here
Notice something disappointing?
While all the other jobsites came up with jobs directly related to my keyword search, Jobx’s results gave me a role for recruitment consultant as its premier listing. The Jobx role does not have the word ‘account manager’, my keyword search, in either its title or its short description. What of Jobx’s claim that it is more likely to deliver what I’m looking for than any other site in Australia? It seems that the other sites gave me what I was looking for…
Now, if you’ve got time and you do manage to get to the fortieth page of jobx’s search results , you will see that the final listing is for an account manager, but it’s dated September 18, 2007 – four months old and still listed.
C’mon, Jobx. Jobseekers want tight search results from current jobs.
Interesting comments and certainly worth more discussion. JobX has largely created its own negative sentiment about its search , in that it has made a number of (unrealistic) claims without any real backup.
The quality of their search, as you have correctly pointed out here, is just one of the many issues that JobX now faces. The layout of their results is also subject of much negative discussion. It almost seems all JobX has done is implement an out of the box search technology and applied it without any real understanding of what jobhunters want or like.
For those that may not be aware JobX has made a number of claims, some we are still waiting to see happen. Here is a snippet of the dangerous territory (comments) that JobX has made:
Seriously, seriously better search! – I think they have not understood what it takes to have a good search. Your article points out one of the many things wrong with their search. I would have to hand the better search mantle to either SEEK or MyCareer.
And how can we forget this one;
More eyeballs than SEEK! – Still waiting on this. There is no doubt that JobX is launched, no matter what they say (the Beta has been removed from their website).
So what about 2008? I think JobX has a lot achieve and prove this year, and with them offering 2 job ads for the price of one you cannot help wondering if things are getting a little desperate over there?
But let’s not get carried away here with just JobX and its claims, we should keep in mind that search is an extremely complicated subject and technology. Monetisation of Search can be a challenge for any classified type business. Just ask the boys at Google.
What about Jobs Jobs Jobs claiming that they will beat Mycareer and be 1/3 the size of Seek within twelve months. Well that date is only a few months away and they are not polling that well in the traffic numbers.
December 07 market share: (Hitwise Australia)
1 http://www.seek.com.au 23.91%
2 http://www.mycareer.com.au 7.51%
3 http://www.careerone.com.au 7.11%
14 http://www.jobsjobsjobs.com.au 0.69%
33 http://www.jobx.com.au 0.33%
Week ending 12/01/08 (Hitwise Australia)
1 http://www.seek.com.au 26.00%
2 http://www.mycareer.com.au 8.09%
3 http://www.careerone.com.au 7.49%
19 http://www.jobsjobsjobs.com.au 0.57%
40 http://www.jobx.com.au 0.25%
Both Jobx and JJJ have lost ground in early Jan 08, let’s see if they can live up their bold claims and pull some magic out of the hat.
Great stats Geoff thank you. Can I just point out that Hitwise is not generally considered that accurate. Its statistics are void of any Telstra ISP data which happens to be a healthy majority of traffic in Australia. With that said, it does not surprise me that the new guys are struggling to gain on the more established players. SEEK, Mycareer and Careerone have all been hitting the TV recently. After all it is peak season for them. I have yet to see JobsJobsJobs or JobX on TV. I could have missed it.
Hitwise is about the best indicator there is I’m afraid given the non-participation of JJJ in the industry standard Neilsen.
Even if you were to assume that Telstra’s inclusion into Hitwise would double the reported traffic to some of the lower ranked sites, we’re still not even talking of a shadow of impact to the three top ranked sites.
If Telstra is excluded from Hitwise figures, they’re excluded from all the sites figures – not just those of the bottom ranked sites.
One would expect the ‘missing’ Telstra traffic to SEEK, MyCareer and CareerOne to be much greater than the ‘missing’ traffic to JJJ or X, and therefore their market percentages would be even smaller.
Perhaps this is why certain job boards are refusing to participate in the Neilsen NetRatings measurement which is the industry standard.
Hate to be the odd one out, but there are actually a couple of benefits to jobx’s search.
The search starts broad but can be refined so that your end result is very precise.
When advertisers post a job they are given the opportunity to add a number of tags to the job covering all aspects of the role.
For example a Media role may be available that requires Advertising and PR knowledge. It can then be placed under all three categories, Media, PR and advertising.
As a result the advertiser’s job can be viewed by a larger cross section of candidates and the job seekers are offered a wider variety of roles.
If a candidate wants to refine the search all they need to do is click on the categories on the navigation bar down the left hide side of the screen.
Therefore when “Account Manager” was searched for, “Recruitment Consultant” came up, as this is what it was tagged as by the advertiser.
You can then refine the search with one easy click, by Profession, Role, Industry, Salary, ect.
This technology is a new and different to the way other job boards design their searches, but in my view it is more thorough.
Thanks for your thoughts Simone.
I agree that the search facility is a good one and does offer some benefits.
But…
If you look at it from the user’s perspective, they probably don’t want to have to do so much refinement of their search straight up.
Maybe a solution is to make the initial search relevant to the keyword for the first couple of pages and then allow for a broader search later in the results. If users wish to once they are more familiar, they can then refine the search from the beginning.