A Short History of Job Boards, Part 1
Word has come to me that just about last of my HotJobs crew is departing from HotJobs, and it has me feeling nostalgic. Online Recruitment, which swept onto the scene in a flurry in the middle of the last decade, has grown up in some ways, remains stunted in others, and yet still has all the promise of a newborn prodigy in my eyes.
Now that Jeff Taylor has split from Monster, we really have all of the Founders of the industry gone.
Of course, there are the fixtures -- stalwart Tony Lee, irasicble John Sumser, wise Peter Weddle, Bill "Wow" Warren -- but the folks who rocketed the industry to a commanding position among HR departments, job-seekers, and headhunters, and who helped to reshape modern employment practices, have strutted and fret their hour upon the stage, and shuffled off their portal's coil... Richard Johnson is retiring in parts unknown, Jeff Taylor's got Eons to expound on his frenetic ideas, and Robert Montgomery is comfortably re-retired as Chairman over at CareerBuilder.
And as our little industry grows up, it is perhaps worth considering where we came from and how we got here. We used to have sharp fellas like Perry Boyle to explain the world to us, but now we're left to our own devices.
So I'll be be posting from time to time on the history of the Online Recruitment business -- your topics, questions, and kvetches are welcome at blog AT cenedella DOT com.
