.jobs: Who does it benefit?

It’s back!! Yes, just when I thought I wouldn’t write about it again, the .jobs proposal has returned.

If you’re not familiar with the .jobs initiative to create ‘a million’ new job sites, go here.  In a nutshell, .jobs is a top level domain (TLD) originally created to serve employers’ needs – simply buy your .jobs domain (for example, www.jobboarddoctor.jobs), then use it to consolidate your hiring needs.

Only one problem – out of millions of employers, only 15,000 took advantage of it. So EmployMedia and DirectEmployers came up with a new proposal – create sites like Atlanta.jobs, jobboardconsultants.jobs, etc. – and offer free and paid access. That wasn’t exactly part of the original charter, so they petitioned ICANN – and the fun and games began.

Steven Rothberg wrote about this, as did Eric Shannon, both more eruditely than I ever could. Take a look at their posts. Then ask yourself the same question I’ve been asking myself all along:

Who benefits?

Is it the job seekers? I’m not so sure. A million new job sites? How does that help anyone who is out there looking for work? (Now, a million new jobs – that would help!) And after all, won’t the job seekers have to be retrained into using ‘myprofessionalcategory.jobs?  You know how hard it is to retrain someone used to .com to starting using .jobs?

Well, how about the employers? Again, even though SHRM is sponsoring this, I’m not quite clear on how the new plan helps. Sure, there will be some free job posting distribution – but that’s already available through various services. Will the job seekers be there? Because if they aren’t at these .jobs sites, then why bother? And don’t forget – premium postings will cost.

Hmm. What about Employ Media and DirectEmployers? Maybe we’re getting warm. After all, if you were in charge of promoting the .jobs TLD and all you could sign up was 15,000 employers after 5 years, wouldn’t you be looking around for alternatives? If successful, the .jobs initiative could generate LOTS of money. Nothing wrong with that – but I guess that I (in my admittedly biased point of view) see plenty of alternatives that deliver better results – now.

That is, of course, why I still suspect that even if the .jobs initiative is approved by ICANN and is launched – it will fail. Think about it:

• Task 1: retrain millions of job seekers to use .jobs instead of .com
• Task 2: retrain millions of employers to dump their existing career centers for a .jobs site
• Task 3: build 1 million sites – and make them popular with employers and job seekers

Hmm….

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