Generalist Vs. Niche Job Boards/JobThread

There's a big battle brewing in the World of online Classifieds.

Who is winning the war between Generalist and Niche Online Job Boards?

In a word, Niche.


Niche sites controlled about 64% of the online job-search market in
2006, up from 39% in 2004, according to Gordon Borrell, chief executive officer
of consultancy Borrell Associates. The rivalry will only accelerate this
year, as demand for online recruitment surges. A recent HotJobs.com survey
indicates 40% of workers plan to look for a different job in 2007. Much of
that searching will happen online.


The Big Three have the most to lose. In the past six months, visits
to Monster, HotJobs, and CareerBuilder dropped by 23.7%, 18.4%, and 7.1%,
respectively, according to Hitwise. "The generalist site is falling away
to that very strong niche," says Borrell.



Who's gaining from the Niche Victory?
New York-based JobThread and
other fast-growing startups with "job board in a box" products/services. 
JobThread dominates the market with thousands of customers, including major
Web publishers such as Gawker, PaidContent.org, Gizmodo, and others.  JobThread
has a growing number of competitors.  In just the past two weeks, two other
companies Edgeio and SimplyHired jumped into the market with "Job-A-Matic"
and "Marketplaces". 


Eric Yoon, founder and CEO of NY-based JobThread, predicts that 2007
will be the "Year of the Niche Job Board Network".   Many associations and
groups of industry-related companies are pooling their job boards into centralized
sites.