What do you want in a job website?

I saw this question posted on Slashdot and wanted to share some of their readers responses...

"After reading some complaints about monster.com from both the perspectives of job seekers and employers it struck me as how, even in 2006, most job sites are incredibly poor at what they do. So I ask my fellow Slashdot readers, both job seekers and employers, what do you really want in a jobs web site? What features are totally lacking in the current crop? Also, what aspects of the current systems do you love/hate?"

Here are some responses...

1) I want Jobs not recruiters..

2) Less recruiting companies because they just seem to be statistic generating companies that are sampling the number of people looking for jobs in an industrial area. 2) Don't spam me OFFERING me a job, then not reply when I send you me CV.

3) There's nothing I hate more than having to go through some recruiter (who often turns out to be a scumbag). What I want in a jobsite is an actual connection between job seekers and employers, with no middlemen getting in the way. The recruiters are a problem in more ways than I can count.

4) Well... I have always wanted job websites to allow you to blacklist known scumbags and filter out their job ads. Unfortunately it is the scumbags which pay the website, not the jobseeker. So, as usually, whoever pays calls the shots. These features are not going to happen.

5) Jobs not recruiters - That's a great idea, but unfortunately someone has to pay for the site to run. Recruiters are charged (varying) amounts of money depending on the site and package they've chosen to post their jobs.

Most companies (as an ex-employer) choose to send their jobs out to a decent agency for them to handle rather than post it themselves (and pay individually) to job sites as the recruiter only gets paid if they get a candidate to fill the job.

And there's only so much you can do to try filter out dubious recruiters posting jobs to try to capture names for their pool too (and as my company's just redeveloped a UK based Technical jobs site, www.technojobs.co.uk, I know - I've tried a lot of methods to filter out rubbish recruiters/jobs - we have automated searches and manually check a sample of data frequently too).

Anyway, somebody has to pay to run the site: are you going to pay as a candidate or will you accept having recruiters on there and having them pay?

6) Let's not forget about the untold millions of multi-level marketing "work from home" and Herbalife scams thinly disguised as jobs. Last time I looked on Monster.com, which admittedly was a while ago, I was overcome with such listings.