Trends

A more recent trend in job search engines is the emergence of vertical search or metasearch engines, which allows job-seekers to search across multiple websites. Some of these new search engines primarily index traditional job boards. These sites aim to provide a "one-stop shop" for job-seekers who don't need to search the underlying job boards. Tensions have recently developed between the job boards and several scraper sites, with Craigslist recently banning scrapers from its job classifieds and Monster.com specifically banning scrapers through its recent adoption of a robots exclusion standard on all its pages while others have embraced them.

Other job search engines index pages only from employers' websites, choosing to bypass traditional job boards entirely. These vertical search engines allow job-seekers to find new positions that may not be advertised on the traditional job boards. There is a close relationship between these search engines and the emergence of XML based standards in the recruitment industry. Employer review websites are also used for job searches. They enable job seekers to find and read reviews about experiences of working for a company or an organization. Although employer review websites may produce links to potential employers, they do not themselves list vacancies.
Venture capital and mergers and acquisitions have been active in the job board industry for more than a decade. Several private equity firms are currently in the process of piecing together large job board networks and other firms are simply expanding through acquisition. The success of jobs search engines in bridging the gap between job seekers and employers have spawned thousands of other job sites, many of which list job opportunities in a specific sector, such as education, health care, hospital management, academics and even in the non-governmental sector. There are reportedly more than 40,000 employment websites in existence today, the largest of which are represented by The International Association of Employment Web Sites, a trade association for the global online employment services industry. Smaller job boards tend to focus on a particular industry or geographic region