Is .jobs the staffing domain of the future?

Gerry Crispin has been talking about this for a little while...glad he posted it to his blog. There's a movement underway to create a .jobs (that's "dot jobs") web domain for corporate career sites. Aside from the implications for candidates (so much easier to find the career page than to search a company's main page for their careers site), I personally think there are bigger implications for the job databases. Specifically, I think you would (will) see the larger database companies (Monster, hotjobs and careerbuilder, for example), focus their efforts more on their search tools than the content of their site. By content I mean their job postings. I think there could be a market for value add content like job search advice. On second thought, I hope that blogs are doing more of that in the future. Since these companies would likely be more focused on creating tools that would allow a seeker to search across the .jobs domain, they would not have control over the job posting content...it would include everything on the .jobs domain .Guess then that they wouldn't be able to charge companies to post jobs. Also, since the sites would be less sticky (basically referring people to company career pages versus hosting the posting themselves), I suspect that advertising revenues could be affected. Perhaps the tools will be sophisticated enough to justify a fee for the user (a marketing message could be about how their tool helps you search the ENTIRE domain to find that just right job). I'm just speculating. I'm sure the job board folks are already figuring out their next move if the .jobs domain becomes a reality (or when it becomes a reality according to Gerry). Those companies tend to do a good job of creating new business models as the climate of the staffing industry evolves.

This could significantly change the experience for recruiters who do a lot of job posting (I don't but have in the past and know others who do) as well as the candidate. I don't have an up-close view of how this campaign to establish the domain is progressing, but I'll be sure to share anything else I hear.