no one likes you when you’re popular – Job Board Doctor

: google for jobs 2020Remem­ber back to the pre-pan­dem­ic days – specif­i­cal­ly, to 2017? That was the year that Google launched its Google for Jobs . It promised to do for job search what it had pre­vi­ous­ly done for shop­ping and trav­el: build a bet­ter (search) mouse­trap. Google even start­ed show­ing up at job board con­fer­ences like Jobg8, talk­ing about the ben­e­fits of inclu­sion in the Google job search box that would appear at the top of every user’s search results.

The : use the Google job ad schema, and your jobs will be includ­ed in the search box results! Inbound traf­fic will ensue! And – they always empha­sized this – it’s all free! No charge (for the imme­di­ate future, at least).

And so the Google for Jobs search box quick­ly became one of the top job ad refer­rers, send­ing traf­fic to job boards, career sites, and ATSs. Some sites – such as Indeed – refused to par­tic­i­pate. It was spec­u­lat­ed at the time that Indeed’s loss was oth­er sites’ gain – and that spec­u­la­tion seemed to be true. Most  did see traf­fic increas­es. Google also claimed that the traf­fic their search box gen­er­at­ed was high­er qual­i­ty – more accu­rate and like­ly to result in appli­ca­tions. That asser­tion also seemed to line up with .

Could it be that Google’s offer­ing was tru­ly a win-win?

Well, maybe not. Ask the Euro­peans. In 2019, a group of 23 job boards sent a let­ter to the EU’s Com­pe­ti­tion Com­mis­sion­er, claim­ing that Google for Jobs exhib­it­ed anti-com­pet­i­tive behav­ior.  Among their con­cerns was that job seek­ers were hand­ing over that could help Google bypass the job boards entire­ly. Google claimed it was mere­ly inno­vat­ing and help­ing every­one.

Then a few weeks ago, a much larg­er group of com­pa­nies once again sent a let­ter to EU Com­mis­sion­er for Com­pe­ti­tion Mar­grethe Vestager, again claim­ing that Google was pro­vid­ing pref­er­en­tial treat­ment for its own ser­vices. The let­ter remind­ed the Com­mis­sion­er that a June 2017 deci­sion con­cern­ing Google Shop­ping set a prece­dent for relat­ed Google activ­i­ties – such as Google for Jobs. (Note: Google is appeal­ing the fine issued in rela­tion to the June 2017 deci­sion).

Do you get the feel­ing that those Euro­pean job sites are not going to up on this? They see Google for Jobs as an exis­ten­tial threat to their – just as online retail­ers saw Google Shop­ping as a sim­i­lar threat.

A few thoughts:

  • Remem­ber that Google sud­den­ly dropped Hire, their SMB ATS, not the EU issued their com­pe­ti­tion deci­sion. There was spec­u­la­tion that the two were relat­ed.
  • Remem­ber that it is like­ly that the EU will – rather than decrease – their reg­u­la­tion of online giants like Google and
  • Remem­ber that traf­fic is a fleet­ing thing
  • And final­ly – remem­ber that the com­plain­ing par­ties are under the same pan­dem­ic stress as the rest of the job board indus­try – which will lend urgency to their demands

I sus­pect that we will see a strate­gic retreat – or per­haps recon­fig­ur­ing – of Google for Jobs in the EU.  That may be fol­lowed by an Indeed resur­gence in the region – which may land them in the reg­u­la­to­ry hot­seat as well.  Or we may see a third way, where Google shares the data it col­lects from job seek­ers with all job boards. Talk about a lev­el­ing effect!

What I don’t expect to see: con­tin­ued inac­tion by the EU. Yes, they’re a bureau­cra­cy. Yes, they have many oth­er prob­lems. But…beating up on the Inter­net giants is both on-task for their pri­va­cy con­cerns AND polit­i­cal­ly pop­u­lar. Throw in the pres­sure of a mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar indus­try, and it will be enough to move them to action.

What do you think?

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