Google and Microsoft alliance to bring a new world of job matching

In an extremely rare partnership Google and Microsoft have decided to come together to create what looks like will be  the world's most sophisticated and successful job board!

Both 800 pound gorilla's have decided that the job board industry worth an estimates 6 billion dollars a year is now too good to ignore and they have jointly in an incredibly rare partnership agreement come together to form a new job board that will be based on a mixture of Microsoft's new algorithmic search engine called Kumo and Google's now already highly trafficked GoogleBase product. Open Source APIs will be offered using the new HR-XML consortium's CV distribution schemea to allow savvy job seekers to upload their CV for free and employers will have to bid to get access to candidates that match their search criteria. The new model will cleverly be a time-to-hire paradigm. The fresher the CV the higher the cost-per-click bidding starts at. So as an employer when you register the key parameters for your search e.g. Financial Accountant > Dublin district > 10+ years experience > ACCA > salary range 70 to 90k, etc - If the new database provides 8 candidates that match you can bid to see the CV the latest result being the most expensive. The idea being the latest candidates on the market are the most expensive to access. Employees can "turn on" or "turn off" their CV search at will. A set of guidelines and policies are in place to ensure that employees who have accepted a new job must "turn off" their CV before they can searching again for a new job.

The project is elegantly called called "FreeJobsForAll.com and has already been localised into 55 languages for launch. Both businesses are planning to integrate their Windows Mobile and Android platforms as well as their respective video hosting sites: YouTube and Soapbox to create a new world order in job matching and advertising. It looks like finding a job has got a lot more interesting. Happy April fools!

Zubed - GeoSpatial Jobs are here: This rocks!

This is super cool!
And, super clever!

I was waiting for Google to bring out this system as a marriage between Google Base Jobs and Google Maps but it looks like they didn't think about it, didn't see it as being a big enough priority or were simply bet to the post by Zubed.

Zubed is an online mapping system that matches employers with job seekers for permanent and contract jobs for free, for both parties. However, recruitment agencies can not use the system and are politely asked to stay away!It has a simple messaging system in place, allows advanced search and has some networking functionality set up.

Google Base and XML

5 years ago to the day I wrote an article for Monster talking about how XML would change the way we post job descriptions. At the time I worked for a Web Services Security company that encrypted XML messages. Most of the people I talked to didn't know what XML was and even today 5 years on I don't really believe much has changed in the recruitment fraternity. Google know a lot about XML and how it can change the way we bulk post our jobs. At present they accept bulk uploads in five formats, including tab-delimited and four XML formats: RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, Atom 1.0, and Atom 0.3. They even provide sample files to illustrate how your bulk upload file should be formatted. To learn more visit their Google Base where the following page goes into a little more detail.

What is even more interesting about this is you can include specific advertising attributes in your bulk upload file and then you can create a Google AdWords ad to help increase traffic to your Google Base items. This allows you create a very targeted advertising program that allows you to run highly targeted cost-per-click (CPC) regardless of your budget. Clever.

Google Base gets better

While only available in English and German interfaces Google's recruitment offering Google Base is getting much more sophisticated. It's a matter of time before it becomes a real player in the job market. Maybe when push and pull RSS technologies meet, which maybe only 2 or 3 years away, Google will be at that point to make this product into a Monster slayer.

Will Google buy Monster???

Will Google buy Monster? Yahoo bought HotJobs and are doing quite nicely out of it so why not? With deep pockets, a track record of successful acquisitions (Deja News, Applied Semantic, Blogger, Picasa) and a passion for creativity Google are well positioned to create a Monster of their own with keyword arms, toolbar legs, and API eyes and ears the likes of which TMP and Mary Shelly in their wildest dreams could never have have imagined. Have a read of this very interesting article from Will Wolff and make up your own mind. If the Cyber Sleuth was a betting man he wouldn’t bet against it!

The world of recruitment is changing and changing fast. Google realise this and have done so far a long time now. The number one force driving and stimulating the global recruitment market is the Internet. No more than in the world of technical recruitment is this evident. We all know that there is a plethora of agencies to use to find software engineers, a plenitude of internet job boards in Ireland and abroad to canvass for CVs and a preponderance of domestic and international newspapers, niche technical magazines, trade shows and fairs to cast the recruitment net on, but, there is much much more. With the advance of Teoma, DogPile, AltasVista and Google; XML, robot technology, Pod Casting, Skype, Desktop search technology and a host of new gadgets and gizmos coming to the market the way in which we recruit is about to change forever. This blog is about such issues.

In the next few weeks I will research and comment on a variety of internet recrutment issues in an attempt to stimulate debate and dig up some of the newer and often stranger techniques being used in modern day recruitment. I will highlight some of the search engines that can be used to target passive candidates on the Internet. I will explain how a 19th century mathematician called George Boole will have a massive impact on the future of recruitment. I will give examples of how to find passive candidates in the deep web, how to flip and x-ray servers to pull up CVs, and explain how using advanced search functionality in Google just might, if you're lucky, locate Org Charts from companies that you have targeted for recruiting. Along the way I will be commenting on some of the movers and shakers in the industry. I'll also be checking out some of the new technologies that are affecting the recruitment industry on a global scale, and, i will be suggesting ways to validate what people say they have done on their CV by using archives, Boolean operators and modifiers, and consulting newsgroups.

All comments are welcome. TICS.