Yahoo HotJobs to Include Free Job Listings

HotJobs is using Yahoo’s web crawling technology to find job openings on company’s Web sites and place them into its own database, incorporating free listings for employers. The newspaper notes that, until now, the three leading job sites – HotJobs, Monster, and CareerBuilder – have required payment from employers, providing the sites’ income.

Some analysts think the free listings will hurt the paid business, but the San Jose newspaper said that HotJobs General Manager Daniel Finnigan believes that by listing more jobs, HotJobs better serves users, and if more users come, employers are helped and are more likely to pay for other services.

Forrester analyst Charlene Li said she thinks the ability to charge for job listings is going to decline over time, according to the Mercury News. The newspaper reports that many start-up sites, including Indeed and Mountain View’s Simply Hired, already have similar Web-searching technology to scoop employers’ jobs onto their sites.

But, the Mercury News says that Finnigan believes employers will continue to pay because of the other services the leading sites offer that start-ups don’t. The newspaper listed some of those other services which include:

• paid listings separate from free listings and higher on the results page
• the ability for employers to add, edit, or delete postings whenever they want
• services such as employee prescreening programs, resume’ matching features, and training program listings.