Developed by Bill Warren, considered the father of online recruitment, and the non-profit DirectEmployers Association, it will be launched in the US next month. Warren told Recruiter the plan is to follow this with a UK launch around 90 days later.

The system is not a job board in the traditional sense but a series of interconnected web pages based on the .jobs top level domain (TLD) name.
All .jobs domains are owned by Ohio-based Employ Media with whom DirectEmployers Association has a partnership agreement. This allows it to “build-out” the .jobs domains and open them up to geographic locations and occupations.

“A jobseeker will be able to key in mechanics.jobs, or combinations like chicagonursing.jobs and go straight to any relevant jobs without having to go through a job board,” says Warren. Jobs can also be listed under employers’ names, for example, IBM.jobs. Some firms might continue to direct their .jobs domain to a corporate employment page while others link to a list of jobs.

Warren developed the Online Career Center (OCC) employment site in 1992 that eventually became Monster.com, of which he is former president. He said his intention is not to replace job boards but believes it is time to move the online recruitment model on.

“There’s a place for more than one employment source and I think that’ll be proven over time,” he said, adding that when OCC was launched, recruiting firms were concerned it would “destroy” their businesses. He believes, however, that landmark developments such as this make the industry stronger.

“The good companies get better. And if there is some fall-out, it is probably because they were pretty weak to start with.”

The .jobs TLD platform, as it will be called, is supported and funded by the DirectEmployers Association, which has around 520 members paying an annual subscription of $15,000. All employers can post for free but members will get extra benefits, including an analytics package.

Their ads will also be closely integrated with social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook. A jobseeker will be able to move their cursor onto a LinkedIn logo next to an ad to find out who in their network works at a particular company.

Many of DirectEmployers’ members are global companies so the platform will launch with international vacancies. When it formally arrives in the UK though, Warren is looking for companies to form an association to partner with as they have in the US. www.directemployers.org