As just about everyone who’s looked for a job recently knows, there is a proliferation of specialty, niche job boards out there, as well a number of job sites that focus on specific geographic regions. What is happening in the process has been a “squeeze” of the “Big 3″ job boards - Monster.com, CareerBuilder and Hotjobs. Further exacerbating this problem for the chief executives at these mega job boards are sites like LinkedIn and Craigslist, which focus more on interactive features than the features of traditional job sites.

According to a recent BusinessWeek article, niche job sites controlled 64% of the online job search market in 2006, a big jump over 2004, when they controlled just 39%. Additionally, a recent HotJobs survey indicated that 40% of employees plan to look for a new job in 2007.

From BusinessWeek:

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. It didn’t help that Monster Worldwide (MNST), Monster.com’s parent, went through management changes and a stock options review, while Knight Ridder, one of the owners of CareerBuilder.com, was sold.

With the Big 3 still growing because of the very strong online jobs market, they are generally refusing to acknowledge that these whippersnapper Web 2.0 companies are eating their market share. Still, they realize that the new breed of job board, as well as the niche sites and social networking sites, could really hurt them in the future and are therefore pulling out all the stops to maintain what they have built.

Monster.com recently tripled its sales force, according to the same BusinessWeek article, and has also partnered with Freedom Communications, a company that owns 36 newspapers. Doug Klinger, president of Monster North America, notes, “We are planning to be a consolidator”.

Likewise, there is conjecture that Google, which has made headlines often in the past several years with major acquisitions, may purchase Monster.com or CareerBuilder. Google hasn’t even begun to truly focus on the online jobs market, but if they do, you can bet it will be an interesting ride.

Tags: careerbuilder, craigs list, google, hotjobs, job boards, job sites, linkedin, monster.com, social networking

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