JustJobs Launches Just Because

Posted on ERE Exchange:  by John Zappe Jun 2, 2009, 4:42 am ET

 
Just because, Eric Shannon is launching JustJobs today.

It's a jobs search engine in the vein of an Indeed and SimplyHired,
though Shannon will insist, with some justification, that it's not just
another clone. Instead, if you notice similarities to Craigslist, that
would please him.

"I've been a fan for many years," says the founder and president of LatPro. "It's simple."

JustJobs isn't as comprehensive as the other aggregators. It works
with partners who provide direct feeds or who request that their jobs
be scraped (captured) directly from their site. In either case the
sites partner with JustJobs, which won't unilaterally send automated
programs online to search out and collect job listings.

"It's all partner focused," Shannon tells us. And it's all free. The
site will make money by participating in Google's AdSense, an
advertising program that pays site operators a small portion of the
per-click fee it charges advertisers. AdSense revenue is beer and pizza
money, unless the site has millions and millions of pageviews. Even
then, the revenue is supplemental.

Shannon, though, isn't in it for the money. "I've been looking for a
way to provide more value for more people," he says. This project, he
says, is a way to build traffic for niche boards, while providing job
seekers an easy way to find geographically focused jobs that are
unlikely to show up on a major job board.

Like Craigslist (well, sort of like Craigslist), JustJobs lists
several major cities and geographical regions. Click into one and the
address becomes JobsinKansascity.org or IndependenceJobs.org. Each locale gets its own URL.

Other sites have taken the same approach. The Beyond.com
network has 15,000 job sites including geographic and industry focused.
While it can be a useful approach, the big question we had was: "Does
the world really need another job search engine?"

Shannon is investing his own money in the project - a labor of love
this year, he agreed, but one with business options, he says, when the
economy rebounds, as it eventually will. "One of the advantages I have
is my time horizon is 10 years, 15, maybe 20 years. I have time on my
side," he explains.

Because he doesn't have to satisfy investors, he can take his time
to build traffic and the business. He did that with LatPro and later
with DiversityJobs.
Taking that approach with JustJobs, Shannon told us, "I expect that in
five years we will be in the top five (of the aggregators); maybe three
years."

But with Indeed and SimplyHired doing a good enough job to have
propelled themselves into the top ranks of job boards already, why
launch another one?

"It's a very philosophical question," he mused, saying a simple
answer wasn't really possible. Monday morning Shannon emailed us to say
the launch was a go for this morning, and to say he had thought about
the question over the weekend.

"Thought more about your question ‘why does the world need another
job search engine?' and I think a good answer is that as long as the
search engine results are cram(med) full of job search predators, my
job is not fin