Help wanted
A frontrunner in the increasingly crowded field of Internet recruiting, HotJobs.com was founded by Richard Johnson in February 1997. Johnson, who had previously started technical staffing firm OTEC Inc., took HotJobs public in August 1999, raising over $20 million for the fledgling company. While the site has yet to turn a profit, investors are optimistic that HotJobs will be able to capitalize on the success of its Softshoe recruiting software to spearhead a shift to black ink. Licensed to companies like Ford and Lucent, Softshoe streamlines the recruiting and hiring process for human resources managers. The HotJobs site earns revenue from recruiters, who pay a set fee to have a certain number of jobs featured per month; from banner ads of member companies, who pay for ads and premium placement on the site; and from numerous co-sponsorships.
Hot features
HotJobs has several features that aim to alleviate the complications of the job search. For one, the MyHotJobs feature enables registered members to post a resume, keep track of which HotJobs they've applied for, and check how many companies have viewed their resume. Site visitors can also use the HotJobs Job Agent feature to get a list of new jobs in specific industries e-mailed to them each day. In addition, the HotBlock function allows job seekers to keep their resumes blocked from selected companies.
Fight to the finish
While HotJobs is still battling it out with myriad competitors for employers' and job seekers' attention, the company got a boost by broadcasting a commercial during the 1999 Super Bowl. The commercial wiped out half of HotJobs' 1998 revenue, but CEO Johnson claims that the subsequent media exposure more than paid for itself. Indeed, HotJobs' hits skyrocketed to more than 2 million a month after the Super Bowl spot aired and revenues increased 82 percent. Membership agreements with companies like Microsoft, Walt Disney, and America Online ensure that there's a constant supply of openings for job seekers to pore over online, and HotJobs' large career fairs help keep the company's profile high in the real world. In May 2000, HotJobs acquired Resumix, Inc., a developer of staffing management software.
