Simply Hired Takes Resume Posting Vertical

I've been following the Job Board Aggregator trend for quite some time now, and have been particularly impressed with SimplyHired, especially through their partnership with LinkedIn. The ability to use the SimplyHired-LinkedIn partnership to connect with people in your network in companies that have jobs you have interest in is powerful stuff, and potentially offers great value to job seekers and employers alike.

SimplyHired has been quite aggressive in their moves of late. Their recent partnership with MySpace kind of reminds me of when companies would participate in job fairs on the beach at Spring Break. IMO, beer, bikinis and job search don't mix well, so it will be interesting to see if MySpace users (who are there for social-reasons) really see the new careers section as a viable way to find jobs. It does appear that job search results do bring up mostly entry-level, student-worker and part-time/seasonal jobs, which is certainly appropriate for the MySpace audience.

SimplyHired's most recent move however leaves me scratching my head even more. ResumePost will allow job seekers to upload their resume to multiple resume databases, including Monster, CareerBuilder, etc. Think about the implications. It will be easier than ever now for active job seekers to get their resume in front of more employers/recruiters (at least those who spend alot of time searching resume databases). The quantity of resumes in these databases should increase exponentially as a result. But, ahem, quantity does not equate to quality!

What I like most about the SimplyHired-LinkedIn partnership is that by connecting to jobs through a network, there is some level of accountability, there are endorsements, there is additional information about a candidate that a resume often does not provide. The focus is not on quantity, but rather on making quality connections. ResumePost focuses on quantity only, more resumes going into more resume databases to be found my more Recruiters. For those of us focused on quality, little value is offered here.

Maybe though, this is the mark of an entirely new trend. SimplyHired has now made it perfectly possible to move the Job Boards into 'back-office' status all together. Why go to multiple job boards to search jobs and post your resume when you can now do that all at one place? It will be interesting to see how SimplyHired markets this to the public-at-large. The MySpace link alone could generate heavy use, although I did not see a link yet to ResumePost from the MySpace Careers site.

It's been a busy summer for the new generation of online recruiting tools. If nothing else, it's exciting to see these new ideas evolve and challenge the traditional online recruiting world.