In the past six months, visits to the big three online recruiters, Monster, Yahoo’s HotJobs, and CareerBuilder dropped by 23.7 percent, 18.4 percent, and 7.1 percent, respectively, Hitwise reports. The reason, BusinessWeek reports, is the rise of social networks and job sites dedicated to matching employers and job seekers in very specific pockets of the job market – sites where musicians looking for work on cruise ships, for example. To cope, The Big Three have been embarking on series of partnerships with newspaper chains – cases in point: Monster’s deal with Freedom Communications, which owns 36 newspapers and eight TV stations; also CareerBuilder.ca’s strategic partnership with portal Lycos Canada to serve up job listings to Lycos searchers.
Potential Acquirers, the story posits:
—Google is likely either buy or team up with either CareerBuilder or Monster.
—Fox Interactive Media, owner of MySpace, which has a small jobs section powered by SimplyHired.com, one of whose investors is Fox Interactive. By making more investments or acquisitions, Fox could expand that business and MySpace Jobs.
—Cable companies, increasingly looking to own content, could also join the fray. On Dec. 26, for example, Monster Worldwide added Philip Lochner, a former Time Warner executive, to its board of directors.
Related:
—Online Job Ads Outweighed Print Media In 2006 For First Time