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As the pandering intensifies, the cost to acquire an active candidate (getting them to visit your website or read your job posting) is starting to approach the cost of ferreting out a passive player. While the costs are becoming similar, the tactics are very different.

The active job hunter is in a risk taking posture. The passive player is (almost by definition) risk averse. The same tactics that attract a person looking to put better food on the table can frighten a player who is (at least somewhat) happy with the current grocery quality.

One way of thinking about the issue: the happier a person is in their current job, the more relationship is required to pry them out. Trust and security, which are relatively minor issues with active seekers, take precedence with the passive player. Delivering trust and security online is very different from delivering a database of jobs. It takes reliability, a constant stream of changing value and some form of personal connection.

Free Email

CareerMosaic has the market sense to drive innovation. CareerBuilder can sniff out the next trend better than any of the other players. Expect to see Free Email proliferate rapidly among the top 20 or so players. It's a smart move.

It's also the likely beginning of a round of technical improvements to the existing business model. Any strategist worth the paycheck has been eyeing the up and coming Excite Careers Network. Fully integrated in the Excite machine, the technical and market engine of Classifieds2000 are being groomed to deliver a full featured player. Since Excite seems to be setting the stage for freebies, we expect that Recruiting Industry players will have little choice but to follow.

The interesting thing about this development is that it narrows the line between active and passive job hunters. Free services are liable to root out any currently employed candidate with a hint of willingness to move. For this group, free email means risk reduction. From an active candidate's perspective, entering the market is all about risk reduction.

Tidbits

JOB access provides a place where people with disabilites (sic) can seek employment, confident that they will be evaluated solely on their skills and experience. ....By taking a few minutes to post your resume online, you increase your visibility to companies that are looking for qualified people with disabilities.

Job-Search-Engine.com enables a job hunter to plow through all of the jobs posted on all of the job boards from a single interface. It's the reinvention of Usenet.

We like the design at ActiJob, a bi-lingual Canadian tool. It's simple and red. We like red. It also has a neato remote control. We like remote controls. We like knowing that a remote control is called a tele-commande in French. We like navigating through folders and clicking on stuff. Clicking is fun. We enjoy looking at neato designs and cool stuff while we wait. It's just like going to the dentist. We like going to the dentist. We really like waiting a long time in the dentist's office. It's just like ActiJob.

We hate the design at Passport Access...garish, blinking, badly executed. It reminded us that virtual reality inevitably causes nausea.

But, we love the central product.