So the world of job boards as been quiet for the last year or so - but some interesting things have happened in last few weeks - they are
1. Stepstone (Totaljobs in UK) have bought SAON Group - which means that the major domestic products they now own are Myjobgroup and Irishjobs.ie
2. Jobsite are centralising most of their verticals such as justengineers, inretail, incatering under/into the jobsite brand
3. Totaljobs Group closing SalesTarget
4. Totaljobs, Jobsite and Monster all seem to taking stock of their marketing and pushing more targeted messages rather than the blunderbus of TV advertising
So what does it mean -
I think its a really clear indication of a very mature market
- there is concentration of ownership to maximise profit
- there is concentration of focus on core profitable products rather than verticals that probably turn a profi but not a significant one for multinational media businesses
- concentration of marketing onto more measurable targeted forms rather than just brand, brand, brand and given the user's inability to distinguish between them - an eminently sensible move.
and finally it seems that Stepstone are massively committed to being the dominant global player (or challenging Monster for that position) and the Totaljobs acquisition was the start of something not the end game.
