What Will Provoke The Next Job Board Innovation? SearchMe!

April 10, 2008

The way that job boards display search results hasn’t changed much over the years. Traditionally vacancies have been listed in a rather flat textual manner, but that might be about to change.

The reason: we are beginning to see some new innovation taking place within the search realm. A new startup, SearchMe, is trying to reinvent the way us humble humans interact with the all powerful search engines. The ramifications might extend well beyond conventional search.

SearchMe focuses on improving how the search results are visually displayed to the user. Rather than a listing based approach, page views of the results are shown on screen, stacked in a manner that allows the user to easily flick through the available options. It’s very web 2.0 and not dissimilar to the iPhone interface. More importantly it instinctively feels like a step in the right direction.

Before we get too carried away I should stress that the service is still in beta (you can signup to give it a spin). It indexes only a fraction of Google’s content and at least in our preliminary tests the search algorithm and interface still needs to mature. But the very fact SearchMe is trying to innovate the interface end of search is a good thing, which may provoke similar innovations on job boards.

I can see it now, the ability to see all of the jobs that match a user’s search criteria laid out on the screen. With interactive Ajax driven software that allows vacancies to be quickly reviewed, dropped into an ‘apply’ folder or discarded. No more clicking backward and forth between the results page and the detailed job description.

Search is innovating; the new interactive job search is just around the corner, it’s never dull in online recruiting!

3 Comments »

1. Since joining the searchme.com team as a beta tester, I’ve found myself disliking Google more and more. It’s so old school. The way users search the internet, using search engines, this hasn’t changed since the internet first started. Searchme.com, however, they are taking the first step toward making the internet better — actually improving the users experience when searching for information; and above all else, helping users [see] results quicker than before.

   I absolutely LOVE this new technology, Searchme.com is EXACTLY how I want to be searching the internet.

   Comment by Derek — April 11, 2008 @ 12:51 am

2. It does seem that we might just be beginning to see the start of a whole new search method interface. It’s long overdue.

   Many new search interfaces and technologies are being developed that are breaking free of the QWERTY keyboard and point and click mouse, and would seem to suggest the drift towards a more tactile and ambient internet.

   A nice example of one such interface, which would make a perfect match for searchme, is Jeff Han’s high-resolution multi-touch screen recently posted on TED.com. Take a look http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/65 It’s a glorious bit of work.

   Comment by Karl — April 14, 2008 @ 11:35 am

3. Hi. You may also like to check out SpaceTime3D at http://search.spacetime.com. We are one of the early visual search pioneers with a nifty VISUAL search engine that lets you search Google, Yahoo!, Images, Wikipedia and more in our patent pending interface. We hope you will check it out. Thanks!

   Comment by Eddie — March 15, 2009 @ 11:57 am

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