A Short History of Job Boards, Part 3
Josh Akers at DirectEmployers sends along a paper written by Daniel Marschall that includes this deep background on the history of internet job applications, of which I was previously unaware....
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The first phase, stretching from 1969 through approximately 1994, started with the founding of ARPANET. This was before the World Wide Web gained a critical mass of users. Internet use was restricted to a cadre of academics, researchers and government officials in a few centers across the country. Early Net users, especially after the invention of e-mail in 1972, experimented with the new communication technology for job search purposes. In May 1976, for example, Raymond Panko of Menlo Park, California, consulted his ARPANET colleagues about job opportunities by placing "An Electronic Want Ad" on the MsgGroup (Message Services Group), an electronic discussion group that Hafner and Lyon (1996) suggest was the first virtual community. Panko explained:
As often happens in this business, my part of SRI is suffering some lean times, and I will probably be looking for a job around July 1. If you a potential job opening or could point me in a promising direction, I would be grateful…. My paper on the outlook for computer message services, which many of you have read, indicates my current behavioral and economic interests…. My primary career goal is to understand and if possible improve human communication/collaboration. (Excerpt from Panko, 1976)
Exactly this sort of collaboration, however, turned out to be a controversial use of system resources. ARPANET was a government owned and operated system, guided by an ethic of public service, exchange of research findings, and productive experimentation (mixed with caution about how certain uses of the system would be perceived by the public). A few years later, an ARPANET official notified the MsgGroup community that the system was being used in an unfair manner:
There are two kinds of message that have been frowned upon on the network. These are advertising of particular products and advertising for or by job applicants…. There are many companies in the U.S. and abroad that would like to have access to the Arpanet. Naturally, all of them cannot have this access. Consequently if the ones that do have access can advertise their products to a very select market and others cannot, this is really an unfair advantage. Likewise, if job applicants can be selected amongst some of the best trained around, or if the applicants themselves can advertise to a very select group of prospective employers, this is an unfair advantage to other prospective employees or employers who are not on the net. (Excerpt from Feinler, 1978)
Feinler's missive sparked rapid rejoinders from others in the network who agreed with her about problems with advertising products but were more concerned about the negative effects of censorship. Could exchanging job information be really that unfair? One of her colleagues responded:
The amount of harm done by any of the cited 'unfair' things the net has been used for is clearly very small. And if they have found any people any jobs, clearly they have done good. If I had a job to offer, I would offer it to my friends first. Is this 'evil?' Must I advertise in a paper in every city in the US … all in the name of fairness? … So I state unashamedly that I am in favor of seeing jobs offered via whatever. (Excerpt from Stallman, 1978)
This exchange indicates that job hunting was considered by some to be a viable use of e-mail communication and listserv discussions from the early days of the Internet. Career and job-related information also circulated through computer Bulletin Board System (BBS) channels, a worldwide network of BBS systems (called FIDONET), and USENET Newsgroups such as misc.jobs.misc, misc.jobs.offered and misc.jobs.resumes (Hauben & Hauben, 1997). Colleges such as Rice University and the University of Illinois used their GOPHER servers to aggregate job postings from a variety of sources (Dolan & Schumacher, 1994). Founded in November 1993, the Online Career Center (OCC) signed up more than 100 member companies within a few months and offered more than 4,000 positions for review (Rosen, 1994); by late 1994 the head of OCC reported that more than 3,000 firms had used their services to hire new employees (Callaway, 1994). In New England, technical recruiter Jeff Taylor started The Monster Board in 1993 to help local employers find qualified information age workers.
Community-based networks as well began providing job-related services. The 1,584-line Directory of the Cleveland Free-Net, what Jay Hauben (1995) calls the "grandfather of the worldwide community computer networking movement," contained information on Jobs Wanted (under Community Services), cle.jobs (under Cleveland Area Special Interest Group), Jobs & Rehab. Resources (under The Handicap Center), and The Jobs Area (in The Computer Corner). Founded in 1984, maintained and upgraded by some 250 volunteers, the Cleveland Free-Net had more than 40,000 registered users during its fifteen-year life.
Proprietary computer networks also waded into this burgeoning field, led by the 1991 founding of E-SPAN by CompuServe, a site that focused on professional and managerial positions. Offering a service that would become a standard feature of these sites, CompuServe created a number of separate "forums" for specifics occupational areas (Rosen, 1994). America Online had its "Career Board" with 42 professional topic areas. Prodigy, the smallest of the proprietary services, offered a "Careers Bulletin Board."
Complementing the growth of these online job matching sites was the emergence of computer software packages to help assemble resumés, prepare for interviews, automatically enter resumés into computerized data bases, and automate a host of HR functions. As recruitment industry analyst Joyce Lain Kennedy (1994) marveled: "Employers have already boarded the e-train. They like electronics because it's cheaper to use computers than to employ people to sort through mounds of resumés and to keep track of everyone. The number of recruiting organizations that are substituting technology for labor in job-search screening will continue to accelerate…. A job-market revolution is happening before our eyes" (para. 7).
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That's great deep history Josh! Many thanks!
