Google Base – Threat or Opportunity?

Google recently announced the release of Google Base, an on-line classified advertising system that allows employers, job boards, and other organizations to post job openings. The release has been quite the topic of conversation in the recruitment world. See, for example, Google Enters Job Listings Fray | workforce.com.
While some of the highest traffic job boards view the entry by Google into recruitment advertising as a threat and have refused to cooperate, Careerbuilder, CollegeRecruiter.com and others view Google’s move as an opportunity. Within weeks and certainly months, expect many and perhaps most premium job boards to follow our lead by crossposting some or all of their jobs to Google because doing so is good for the candidate, good for the employer, and therefore good for the job board.

Over time, perhaps months and perhaps a year or two, a significant number of candidates will begin their on-line job search at Google, much as many do now when they’re searching for other information. When they do, they will soon find the largest number of job postings in any one place. But rather than posting their resume at Google, they will be directed to the employer’s site or to the job board on which the posting appears. This direction of traffic from Google to sites such as CollegeRecruiter.com represents as huge opportunity for us because it helps to level the playing field between the few job boards which have the financial resources to buy Superbowl advertising for millions of dollars and the other 99.99 percent of job boards which provide excellent value to the candidates and employers, but which do not have that kind of money.
If CollegeRecruiter.com crossposts 10,000 jobs to Google Base and so does another job board (any other job board), then we should receive the same amount of traffic from Google as does the other job board regardless of the Superbowl advertising conducted by that other job board. So rather than spending a ton of resources of advertising, we’re able to focus those resources of delivering better and better value to the candidates and employers using our site. We’ll be able to provide better content, better service, and therefore a better experience.
Will Google Base chip away and perhaps even accelerate the loss of revenue from job postings? Absolutely. But to boards such as CollegeRecruiter.com, the loss of such a secondary revenue stream is more than offset by the increases in the revenue streams that will result from increased traffic. While I expect to lose some job posting revenues from employers with straightforward hiring needs (i.e., one entry level candidate without any required specialized skills), I am excited about the increase in business that we should see from employers with difficult hiring needs. With more traffic, we’ll have even more resumes in our database. If we have more of the right candidates and can deliver those candidates effectively and efficiently, then we will increase both or revenues and net income.