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I recently caught up with Bob Wilson of the Job Search Engine Guide, and I asked him for his perspective on what jobseekers look for from electronic job search.

Jeff:  So Bob, what are the main tools and features job seekers look for from job boards and job search engines?

Bob:  Great question Jeff.  Each jobseeker is unique and has different priorities when selecting a favorite job search engine; however, in aggregate, jobseeker priorities fit within eight common characteristics – deliver on all of these and you’ll have the ultimate job search engine:

1)       Coverage (of the target job market)
When it comes to coverage, 50 jobs can be better than 5,000,000.  As a jobseeker, I want to see all of the advertised jobs that meet my criteria; and for most seekers, this means jobs falling within a local community and a specific occupational area.  This expectation helps explain the existence of 40,000+ job boards.

2)       Freshness (first view of new listings, and old listings suppressed by default)
The best jobs are often filled quickly; so it’s critical that I see new job ads as soon as they are posted.  Sites with native job ads (as opposed to aggregators like Indeed) have a slight advantage in this area.  But it’s also important that old and expired listings are promptly removed, and it isn’t uncommon for small niche sites to inflate their listings by retaining old ads.

3)       Quality (real jobs, few duplicates, accurate posting dates, complete descriptions)
Low quality is the biggest threat to online job search.  When job ads were uniformly priced at several hundred dollars, the quality of ads was pretty good.  Now that there are many options for posting free job ads, we are seeing more and more spam, duplicates, and worse, deceptive ads seeking personal information. 

4)       Search (intuitive, precise and inclusive)
Search is my passion, and I believe that emerging search technologies, such as that used by Just-Posted, can offset the decline we’re seeing in job ad quality.  Keyword search is just too easy for unscrupulous (or lazy) advertisers to ‘game’ with tag spam.  And there is this dirty little secret about keyword search – errors of omission (good jobs, matching your intent, but missing from the search results) often exceed errors of inclusion (bad jobs, matching keywords but not your intent, included in the search results).

5)       Community (see Craigslist, Jobster and theLadders)
Electronic job search is lonely business – the best sites provide support, guidance and encouragement through an active community of users. 

6)       Flexibility (broad features and multiple access methods)
Active jobseekers find benefit in real-time RSS feeds, resume tips, and search management tools along the lines of Jibber Jobber; whereas passive job seekers gain benefit from intelligent scouts that email them only when new jobs match or exceed their requirements.

7)       Respect (confidentiality, no false promises, and treated like a customer – not eyeballs)
If search is my passion, then respect is my pet peeve.  Too many job boards treat jobseekers with disrespect.  Interstitial ads on Monster, an exaggerated coverage claim on GetTheJobs, tag spam allowed on CareerBuilder, and an absence of organic search results above the fold on SimplyHired, are all examples of disrespect – to most job boards, jobseekers are merely ‘eyeballs’ to be sold. 

8)       Value (a fair return on my investment of time and money)
There’s no free lunch … this is just as true for jobseekers as it is for diners.  If we gain value from electronic job search, then we must pay.  On most sites ‘payment’ takes the form of reduced jobseeker efficiency resulting from the placement of non-organic ads.  But there are a few sites, like theLadders, that charge a monthly fee instead.  Either way, the best sites provide a high return on our investment.  

Jeff:  You say search is your passion … what are you doing to improve job search? 

Bob:  Well, the Job Search Engine Guide is my most visible attempt to raise awareness about the limitations of today’s job search experience; and of course I use the blog to reinforce the gains being made by the best job boards.  But where we’re really making progress, although quietly, is in on the technology side … we’ve developed a tool called AutoCoder that interprets job ads and categorizes these ads using standardized occupational tags and purity scores.  The benefits are many, including dramatically increased search relevance, reduced errors of omission, elimination of spam ads, plus the ability to set custom relevance thresholds – some of the same things you’re seeing with Just-Posted.  And I must say, it’s nice to find a kindred spirit!