Job Matching Sites Not Very Good At Matching

flickr: wilhei55 EHarmony.com for job seekers isn't quite up to par yet, the Wall Street Journal reports. The paper tested four job-matching siteswhere users fill in questionnaires and have jobs recommended for them based on their answersand was less than impressed. The WSJ asked two laid-off professionals, an IT guy and a marketing pro who wanted to freelance or work part-time. At Bintro.com, which is in beta: "It took one tester 30 minutes and the other 45 minutes to fill out Bintro's questionnaire and retrieve results. Both job seekers griped about having to type out answers to all of the questions rather than getting to choose from a menu of options. But they liked being able to create multiple searches, or 'broadcasts,' to highlight different skills." And for all that work? The IT pro got no job recommendations and the marketer got just two, neither of which she was interested in.Jobfox.com: Testers "would have preferred more options for questions that offered a menu of answers, plus more space for responding to questions that required typed-out answers." The IT guy got 35 jobs sent his way for his trouble, which sounds great except that he wasn't qualified for some and others were farther away than he indicated he'd move. The marketer was sent two jobs but were below her experience level and not part-time. Jobfox's CEO responded to the IT guy's issue: Jobfox will send out recommendations if the employer doesn't care that it's not a match. So a guy looking for a job in Chicago, he says, could see an ad from an employer in New York if the employer has said they'll pay relocation expenses.Trovix's questionnaire only took 10 minutes to fill out, and neither tester received any recommendations that were worthwhile. "The IT pro says he retrieved several ads for engineering jobs, for example, and the marketing pro got ones for entry-level positions," the WSJ says.CareerBuilder showed both testers over 100 jobs, and both found the results "disappointing." Y'all have probably had similar experiences with CareerBuilder, so that's all we'll say about that. (Though the WSJ reports that CareerBuilder's chief marketing officer says the site also takes into account the jobs a user actually applies to when calculating its results. So basically, the questionnaire is a waste of time?)

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Job Matching Sites Not Very Good At Matching

Rachel Kaufman

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Rachel Kaufman