Yahoo Turns Up The Heat On HotJobs With Free Listings

from the free-at-last dept

Yahoo! is not afraid to look profitable business models in the face and then give them away for free. Last month, in an attempt to revitalize a lagging auctions site, Yahoo! Auctions dropped all fees from its auctions. Today, Yahoo! HotJobs announced that it will scrape job listings from employer web sites and list them for free. This is the first time one of the leading job sites (the others being Monster and CareerBuilder) will feature free listings in its service. The paid inclusion model has always been a difficult model to sustain, since if listers decide not to pay, it directly affects the quality of the user experience. It will be very interesting to see if HotJobs can continue to offer some level of "premium" service to its paid listers to prevent them from dropping down to the free level. Yahoo! understands that user experience is key, and in the search game, be it auctions or jobs, comprehensiveness is key. Some may view this move as desperation, but providing a better user experience better and taking business away from competitors with a more complete offering doesn't seem so desperate, does it?
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    nonuser, 12 Jul 2005 @ 7:42pm

    quality will be poor

    When I was looking for work I found the lowest quality of job listings were the ones posted directly on company web sites. It doesn't cost them anything to run them and their managers get to kick the tires. When the company's prospects start souring and all the open reqs are pulled, they'll often "forget" to take down those web site posts, probably to make outsiders think things are going just swell.
    I found the highest quality to be those on monster.com, because they charge the most! The employers on that site are generally serious about hiring.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      mhh5, 13 Jul 2005 @ 12:08am

      Re: quality will be poor

      hmm. Yahoo isn't just mixing it all together, though. You can filter out all the "scraped" job listings...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    soy, 13 Jul 2005 @ 4:21am

    time

    i see it still needs to sink in IT FREEEEE
    and thats a GOOD thing ! as for the mixing give them some time

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2005 @ 5:21am

    Already got it: indeed.com

    The website indeed.com is already doing this, and with great success. I set up a search, and have it delivered with RSS (I'm actively looking for a new job.) Their listings are very complete, and the search is google-like (hmm, wonder who they want to be bought by...)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    joe recruiter, 6 Apr 2006 @ 11:52am

    "Free"= lower quality. Its simple really.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.