Founded in 2004 as the little Job search engine that could, Seattle-based Jobster has relaunched with a new interface, vision (lightly) and more importantly features: a tighter grasp of tagging and social networking. Their new concept includes a more friendlier and inside approach to job-searching. Rather than the HR-contacts and the 'requirement' lists the others give, Jobster has I think nailed this market with some fantastic capabilities.
Their new interface, first of all, is excellent. Sure I didn't mind the old one, but to me I think it connects well to their concept (friendlier approach to job-searching) and certainly brings out the Web 2.0 within them. Tagging is one of the things I feel is important to having seen them embrace. Every employee or employer gets a personal profile where they have the ability to tag themselves (writer, author, blogger, columnist as an example) and also to have others tag you (and vice-versa). Their new system also includes some rich social networking capabilities including the ability to add people as 'Favs' (if you admire them and their work, or you know them) which then in return goes into their 'Fans' section.
First of all, I firmly believe that the concept of social networking and taxonomy is needed in the job-hunting space. On that basis, Jobster have done an excellent job of mixing and matching the two together. It's prominent from their site that these new additions and changes, and their vision of giving a friendlier approach to job-searching go together. Secondly, that said, I think you should expect to see a rise in more companies in this space embracing such technologies.
On the other hand, Jobster is doing better than ever. They've been able to gain over 120,000 employers and more significantly over 15% of the Fortune 100 companies as their customers. They've so far gained $30 million in funding from Trinity Ventures, Mayfield Fund, and Ignition Partners. I haven't been too familiar with Jobster before the past few months, but what strikes me is that Jobster themselves have over 120 employees throughout the U.S. – a significant number for a startup to employ.
