www.whataloadofrubbish.jobs
I know it’s fashionable for bloggers in our space to be well-informed subject matter experts. On the other hand, I freely admit to being 36% not-so-clever and 38% quite-possibly-clueless. The other 26% of the blogger in me is mostly interested in debunking what the other 74% of me holds true because so much of that has been shaped by subject matter experts who are more like me than they would care to admit. So, now that you know the extent to which I am perfectly qualified to comment on the dot jobs (.jobs) debate, here is my take on the year-old top-level domain: what a load of rubbish. There, I said it.
To balance this considered opinion, I should present an alternate point of view: “It’s Simple. It’s Affordable. It’s Brilliant.” At least that is what Sue Meisinger, the top SHRMer says. For anyone not in the know you could be forgiven for thinking the venerated Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) is about to diversify into a new line of cosmetic dentistry. The CEO’s sloganeering hardly fits a top-level domain for HR, now does it? Well, I say either way, Ms. Meisinger may be wearing a plastic smile with this one.
Clearly, we should leave the more foundational whys and wherefores to the real experts. You can – and should – read Shannon Seery of EXCELER8ion’s Happy Birthday Dot Jobs .jobs dot-jobs dotjobs… whatever you call it, or study Cheezhead’s comments in google (and msn) smile down on .jobs domain. For an international perspective, a nuts-and-bolts read, see Michael Specht’s posts: dot jobs is available and Fitting .JOBS Into The Marketplace and Movement in Job Search. I’m sure there are other works we should all be reading, but who knows? Researching this post has led me to conclude that in the final analysis, this is, to be sure, all hype – a wedding with no bride.
For me, the most important thing in this debate is to revisit the original intent behind the dot jobs initiative which was to enhance the candidate experience. But, again, I’m left wondering if this is possible. I couldn’t find very much online or in the archives about this either. How can this be? This is such a big deal isn’t it?
Bear with me as I take off my dunce’s cap and put my ill-fitting marketing hat on:
1. Adoption of the dot jobs domain by rank-and-file employers is one thing – if it ever happens. Getting the consumers – job seekers – to use it is another. I remember long before there was an information superhighway, in an effort to improve safety on UK roads, a public service campaign was launched with the tagline: “Clunck Click, Every Trip.” Like here in the States, thirty-five years later, how far have we come – to the point of mandating seatbelt use by law? The point is that people don’t change their behavior because some know-it-all tells them it’s good for them – even when it is. And, when job seeking is hardly a day-in day-out activity, behavior modification becomes even more unlikely.
2. Accelerated change in consumer behavior is driven by responding to what the consumer wants and asks for or by persuading them to change their behavior in return for a big fat payoff, not by what the marketer thinks they should have shoved down their throat – if we could even get to that point with the dot jobs campaign, which I seriously doubt. Come on – look at who’s marketing the dot jobs domain, and to whom. I don’t find anything in the research that suggests there was an overwhelming demand from the legions of active job seekers for a dot jobs domain or that employers are lobbying to have this thing taken care of as a recruiting imperative. So whose clever idea was this then? Whose agenda?
3. I’m sure the job boards are absolutely enamored with this brilliant idea. I imagine the top executives at Monster, CareerBuilder, and HotJobs are convening at secret locations right now busily strategizing how to protect their dot com brand equity and business model from an internet revolution, an onslaught lead by SHRM and a few compliant followers with IT departments and willing webmasters. Are the big boards readying themselves for the consequences of another land-grab for dot job domains which, unlike the dot biz domain, they will be totally excluded from? Or will they end up renting back the office space they once owned just to keep ahead of the pack? Like the yahoos at www.CareerBuilder.jobs perhaps? (Hey, is that “Return to CareerBuilder.com” link in the top right-hand corner legal?)
4. The whole concept of a top-level domain is so five-minutes-ago. The rate at which internet-for-job-search is changing will far outpace the institutional efforts to adopt the domain for any practical application. Just like air bags sold more cars on safety than seat belts ever could, search engine relevancy, tagging and pushing content will drive candidate flow to the right landing page long before my search auto complete is smart enough to know I meant www.microsoft.jobs and not www.microsoft.com.
5. No doubt I am too quick to judge. After all, a year in this business is no time at all. But you have to admit, when you google “accenture+jobs” it is curious that the sponsored link goes to a careers page which is branded – in my opinion – correctly and with the consumer’s preference and behavior in mind: http://www.careers.accenture.com/. It’s got to be easier to market that URL than http://www.accenture.jobs/, especially when the original is much clearer in its purpose than the pretender is.
6. So, what is all this optimization fuss about? I mean, what is it really, really about? Why can’t SEO work equally well for www.careers.accenture.com as purportedly it will do for www.accenture.jobs? There’s 74% of me that just doesn’t get it and I’m sure I’m not alone. Maybe I’ve just shot my online persona in the foot along with any chance of ever landing a job with the Think Partnership or one of their ilk, but I’m sorry – I just don’t get it. Will someone pleeze help me? I’m dyin’ on the vine here!
Anyway, as I said at the outset, and as you now realize for yourself, what do I know? I can’t tell you why this “simple”, “affordable” or “brilliant” dot jobs domain is key to an enhanced candidate experience any more than I could tell you how any of these top level domains will change the world of job search either: dot info, dot us, dot tv, dot ws, dot name, dot cc, dot de, dot jp, dot be, dot at, dot uk, dot nz, dot cn, dot tw, dot am, dot fm, dot ms, dot nu, dot tc, dot tk, or even dot vg. If you can’t connect the dots either, don’t worry. I know a man who can – you go daddy!
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11 Comments, Comment or Ping
Colin Kingsbury
I will agree with you on 5/6. But there is a technical reason for why #6 could (and should) be true.
Right now it is generally agreed that a link from a .edu domain is far more valuable in search engine terms because access to create .edu domains is extremely restricted. The odds that a piece of content on a .edu site are genuine human input and not SEO-spam are far better than the same piece of content appearing on a dot-com.
Likewise, in theory to get a .jobs domain you need to be approved by a human, so in theory the content quality should be higher. As a search engineer, you would take this into account and score content on a dot-jobs site higher.
Jul 10th, 2006
Recruitomatic
Colin, thanks for commenting and I appreciate the ah-ha! moment but now you raise more questions:
1. Should your rationale be enough to persuade us – on balance – that this dot jobs domain isn’t still dead on arrival? Will Acme Corporation who may only have 10 or 20 reqs. a year want to go through all the initial hoop-la of getting a dot jobs domain?
2. If they don’t, are you suggesting their access to possible candidates is going to be further restricted because they may not appear as highly placed on the search engines?
3. Are you assuming a) search engines will overtake job boards as the preferred first stop for job seekers, and b) googling “mechanical+engineer+manager+jobs” will favor employers using a dot jobs domain over the most relevant results?
4. You say “in theory”. What will happen in practice?
I like to think if I’m still confused someone else out there is too.
Amitai.
Jul 10th, 2006
Shannon Seery
Hi Ami
I have a couple of thoughts on your additional questions. I think that there are a lot of “what ifs” – which is exactly why the domain hasn’t reached critical mass yet.
1 & 2 & 3 – Yes – Acme would want to register despite their low number of reqs even though I don’t think that the ACMEs of the world will be the ones to push for general adopotion of the tld. IF the search engines increasingly recognize .jobs (like Colin explained for .edu) – then anyone with a dotjobs will have a greater chance of ranking higher with search engines and being found by the job seekers that are using them to find jobs. The registration of the name and the technical tweaks are relatively easy and certainly cheaper than the newspaper ads that ACME is no doubt running.
But the other component here (and the more critical one in my view) is not based on how favorable a tdl may or may not be to search engines. Search is by NO means the only way that job seekers look for jobs. .jobs needs to be marketed to and adopted by the jobseekers before it will ever become THE way to find job opportunities on a web site. SHRM supported this initiative for employers – I want to know who is going to do the major marketing to change the behavior of job seekers. It won’t all happen through search.
Shannon
Jul 10th, 2006
Recruitomatic
Shannon, I see now. How easy was that? Thanks.
Jul 10th, 2006
Michael Specht
A great follow up post to the different commentary. Shannon is right on the money with “.jobs needs to be marketed to and adopted by the jobseekers before it will ever become THE way to find job opportunities on a web site. SHRM supported this initiative for employers – I want to know who is going to do the major marketing to change the behavior of job seekers. It won’t all happen through search.”
If this does not happen then dot jobs is just a money making process for SHRM.
Jul 10th, 2006
Recruitomatic
Like I said in the post, you guys are the experts. I salute you, and Colin too. It seems we are now all in agereement then: without a concerted effort to educate job seekers and change their behaviors, the dot jobs domain could well be a load of….well, no sense in laboring the point.
Thanks for your comments – Amitai.
Jul 10th, 2006
Colin Kingsbury
In terms of consumers, .jobs solves a problem that isn’t broken. Most companies in possession of a clue now have a careers link on every page in an easy-to-find location. So whoop-de-doo there.
However, to the extent that search and aggregation are becoming bigger factors, the value of better ranking is not to be dismissed. From that perspective, it doesn’t matter if -people- know about the TLD, it only matters that the Googlebot does.
Jul 12th, 2006
Recruitomatic
Colin:
On the first point: agreed.
On the second: I don’t if anyone else is getting a better picture as to how this all could work out for the better, but I believe I am now. I just have to come up with a good reason as to why I remain unconvinced.
Thanks again.
Amitai
Jul 12th, 2006
Ray Fassett
If I am a recruiter for ACME Corp and I run newspaper ads, I want to tell my audience to “apply now” by going straight to http://www.acme.jobs.
If ACME Corp has an employee referral program, I would want all my employees trained to say: “It’s easy to apply, just go to http://www.acme.jobs.”
.jobs is about a direct navigational route to content that is 1) being actively promoted by the employer and 2) being sought by a target audience. The DNS is the Internet protocol for users to navigate to content on the World Wide Web (www). More simply put, the DNS is a utility. http://www.acme.jobs is about a destination that contains jobs content at ACME Corp. If I am a job seeker, whether active or passive, http://www.acme.com tells me, in no uncertain terms, that I am Not going to the jobs content of ACME Corp.
http://www.acme.com is a URL. http://www.acme.jobs is a URL. Both are part of the global DNS protocol. Both direct users to a destination that contains content. One destination contains jobs content and the other does not. The difference is very black and white and, quite honestly, doesn’t get any more complicated than this as a utility. If there is to be greater relevancy by search engines to .jobs domain names as some experts are already saying is evolving, then this will be the reason why.
Acme Corp is the party ensuring http://www.acme.jobs contains jobs content on an ongoing basis. We simply enable ACME Corp to acquire http://www.acme.jobs and then make sure it functions as a URL on the World Wide Web every time it is called upon to answer from anywhere in the world. Search engines are beginning to show trust in how we are enabling employers to acquire their domain name in .jobs. Our methods take steps to ensure that .jobs domain names contain jobs related content after becoming active and then called upon by users of the Internet. For search engines, it becomes a user trust factor and a core mission of the .jobs utility. Restrictive methods that take steps to ensure content objectives cut against sheer volume objectives. For the .jobs utility, volume should not be equated to adoption. As the licensed operator, it is a decision we have made and believe in more today than ever.
We are pleased with year 1 results, in some ways surpassing initial assumptions and/or business expectations. There’s no question we face challenges, no surprise there. It’s a big world and we have high expectations in what we are doing in cooperation with those that have, on their own, evaluated the .jobs utility and taken an early adopter position going to market in a manner they feel serves their own best interests and recruitment strategies.
Like any licensed utility, .jobs is here to stay. It is part of the core infrastructure of the Internet, no different that .com, .net, .org, and .edu. One URL method informs users to navigate to home page related content (certainly a useful utility for many purposes) and .jobs informs users to navigate to jobs related content. That’s the utility of .jobs, in the most simplest of terms, that has been made equitably available to all employer organizations the world over.
I would like to thank Amitai and the other commentators for having this discussion about .jobs. I hope my comments have contributed in a positive fashion. I also encourage anyone to feel free to contact me directly at rayATgoto.jobs.
Sincerely,
Ray Fassett
.jobs
216-426-1500 ext 129 (United States)
Jul 13th, 2006
Recruitomatic
Ray:
I am very grateful – and humbled – that you took the time to reply in such detail, and for balancing my post with such a comprehensive answer. For me, your explainations are just what I was looking for. Sincerely, thank you!
Amitai.
Jul 13th, 2006
careers
I can perhaps see the logic behind the .jobs TLD, however how is this going to communicated to the typical end user? Currently most surfers seeking a job vacancy will use a “branded” career site (ie Monster) or they will use a search engine and type in a query something like “IT jobs in London”, in other words nobody knows about the .jobs TLD and this idea will completely escape them – unless Google for instance displays a message in serps “did you mean to search for ITlondon.jobs”!
Aug 2nd, 2006
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