Job searching, a new way

BuzzMachine mentioned something interesting earlier this week about the future of classifieds and now that I've finally taken a look, Indeed is a big change for job listings.

At the top level, they're a job search engine (you can search by job type or location) but they also offer tools like the Jobroll (they've also got a a blog and use it to show off their own jobroll), an API and search RSS feeds that will appeal to job seekers. The one thing that's missing is an easy way to add your jobs to their listings. I assume they've done this to limit the amount of junk they wind up with and they do have a manual process in place.

The JobTrends page is an interesting combination of aggregated data and DIY Maps. I was a little surprised when the click action zoomed (that part I expected) and then jumped into city search, but it makes sense.

A comment on Jeff's story pointed out This Disruption Will Be Syndicated which led me to the Feedster job search. The search looks familiar but the results are full of junk (including the blog worlds latest plaque, poker related comment and trackback spam).

Does this spell doom for Dice, Monster, HotJobs and maybe even CraigsList? Not immediately, but there are going to be implications. If job search aggregation gets big enough and it becomes easy to join the fray, why deal with the costs associated with the middle men?

Finally, the subject of specialized (vertical) search was discussed and Tom Evslin argues that it doesn't make any sense (more here). Long term, I'm not sure I disagree with Tom, but as the Feedster search showed me, specialized search can allow us to work around a lot of issues that the general engines can't deal with today.