Yahoo! Sells Hotjobs to Monster

I'm sure many heard the news today of the long-rumored sale of Yahoo's HotJobs property to Monster. My first impression of the story was to imagine two stranded travelers stuck in the wild who turn to cannibalism. I've never been a fan of the job board model. If social networks haven't yet killed them off, they have certainly turned them into a back alley resource.

Why? Mainly because job boards are a holdover from the days of classified ads in newspapers. The really cool thing about job boards in 1999 was that, hey, you can write as much copy to describe your job as possible! Neat, huh? Unfortunately, that has led to job description bloat, creep, and rot.

When social networks arrived on the scene, they supplied the one element most important to anyone who really wants to join an organization--the opportunity to connect. Why would I want to submit a copy of my resume into a faceless portal when I can actually learn the names and a little background about the people I might find myself working with?

Okay, I'll admit that Monster still has LinkedIn beat when it comes to unique monthly visitors:



However, with this downturn, you didn't see anybody clamoring to be more skilled at using job boards. It was all about LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook and learning how to promote your personal brand.

I suspect that it is with a certain degree of arrogance that Monster can look at the unique monthly visitor statistics and see long term stability in what they offer. However, while it may not be LinkedIn that topples the dominance of the job boards decisively, it will very likely be a social networking application that does the deed.



What do you think?

Online Privacy is a Real Issue for Job Seekers

A friend passed along this link to me today of a Microsoft survey about how online reputation can impact job seekers:

A full 70-percent of surveyed HR workers in the U.S. admitted to rejecting a job applicant because of his or her Internet behavior. Meanwhile, about 60-percent of surfers admit to being concerned that their online behavior may affect their professional or personal lives.

On the upside, "86-percent of U.S. HR workers said that a good online reputation can have a positive impact on a job candidate's chances," the article goes on to say.

How do you get a good online reputation? By building trust and not continually referring to yourself.

Are you managing your online reputation thoughtfully?

Instapaper for Lightning Fast Online Resume Sourcing?

This morning I came across mention of a nifty, fast tool for clipping online articles that you can read later at your leisure. The tool, called Instapaper, is free and easy to sign up for and works beautifully when you see something interesting but don't have the time right away to review it in detail.

Perfect for collecting online resumes and contact information, right? It's even better than that.

If you're on a sourcing expedition for new contacts and you're in a hurry, this clipping tool is a real asset in your arsenal. (If you're a job seeker, it's pretty cool, too, since you can use it to quickly clip job openings on boards or elsewhere that look interesting and return to them later.)

Getting Started

Sign up for an account. All you need is a valid email address and you're set to go. Then drag the "Read Later" button up to youlbr toolbar.

Any time you are on a web page and see an interesting article, just click the button and it will quickly and automatically be sent over to the Instapaper site for later reading.

Once it's there, you can opt to read it in its original HTML format or in plain text. It also looks like you can pull up any of the materials there on your Amazon Kindle.

Now, I suppose you can make the same argument for any web clipping tool. I've used and use both Microsoft OneNote and Evernote and they are both wonderful apps. However, for speed and simplicity when I just want to clip something and go--this is the speed demon I was looking for.

I have a feeling that I'll be getting a lot of use out of this tool. Have you used it? How do you like it? Got an alternative tool? Let's hear about it in Comments.