Innovation, Evolution & Acquisitions

For the past few months there has been a buzz around the recruiting world about “the next big step” and how some of the players in the industry would be making moves.

Talk about moves- Jobster made it’s name in the social networking arena, Yahoo Jobs went vertical, YorZ and HeadlessHunter appeared, SimplyHired made some technical advancements, and I think that Google leaked a rumor or two about some career competition. There are also a list of other giants such as Monster.com and MSN Career who have dedicated career motivations- are they waiting to play a secret card? The playing field is being redefined and new players are coming from the shadows.

In what I feel is the first of many- some players in this race are going to be absorbed, some will be destroyed, and some will redefine who they are. Recently Jobster was the first company to challenge the marketplace and set some benchmarks for forward thinking evolution when they went public. Now they are the first to integrate another company with the acquisition of WorkZoo.

As compared to other online markets- the key to keeping a market happy is to provide a rich number of tools that provide value added services and benefit to the client. Companies that are constantly reviewing new technology, reviewing how things work, and are willing to toss away ideology from six months ago are going to be the ones who eventually end up on top.

While Jobster may only have been public for a few months now, they are showing that they are going to embrace technology and evolve into something new. In five years Monster.com remained fairly constant, in five months Jobster is continuing to define itself.

With this move Jobster is clearly stepping into the job seeker aspect of recruiting as well as including value added services to the employer side they launched from.

Isn’t evolution great?