Why ask 5 burn­ing ques­tions for 2024? Bet­ter yet, why not?

Back when I man­aged a pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny, I learned some­thing very impor­tant. The fastest way to shut down a con­ver­sa­tion is to label a ques­tion – any ques­tion – dumb. I firm­ly believe there are no dumb ques­tions. In fact, those that seem almost sil­ly on the sur­face often led to pro­duc­tive con­ver­sa­tions. So, in that spir­it, I pro­pose the fol­low­ing ques­tions about our indus­try:

• Will Indeed com­mit anoth­er act of hubris?: “Hubris, or less fre­quent­ly hybris, describes a per­son­al­i­ty qual­i­ty of extreme or exces­sive pride or dan­ger­ous over­con­fi­dence and com­pla­cen­cy, often in com­bi­na­tion with arro­gance.” I’ve found that acts of hubris often occur when a com­pa­ny gets so big and suc­cess­ful that it can­not imag­ine that it could do any­thing that might fail. Indeed, of course, start­ed out 2023 by telling its clients that they would use a pay per appli­ca­tion mod­el – or else. As you know, it did­n’t work out that well. Is anoth­er sim­i­lar screw-up in the off­ing? Per­haps a demand by the world’s largest job board that all job ads will be rewrit­ten by their super-spe­cial job-writer AI tool? There are lots of acts of hubris that a big job board can com­mit – just ask Mon­ster!
• Will ZipRecruiter sur­vive anoth­er 12 months?: Remem­ber, no dumb ques­tions, right? There is no rea­son to expect ZipRecruiter to fail this year, except for lack­lus­ter growth, stalled rev­enue, and an inabil­i­ty to deliv­er on the promise it showed at the time of its IPO. Zip has a high­er pro­file than many job boards that are much old­er than it – but some­how it has­n’t seemed to find its slot in the indus­try. Is it an Indeed com­peti­tor? Will it lock down the SMB mar­ket? Or is it sim­ply for sale? I don’t know. But I’m curi­ous.
• Will Google Job Ads final­ly move out of beta (or alpha, or wher­ev­er they are)?: You have to won­der what Google is actu­al­ly doing with its Job Ads pro­gram. Is it real? Some­what, based on sight­ings here and there. Are they actu­al­ly seri­ous about it? Hmm. I remem­ber Google Hire, as do thou­sands of small busi­ness­es who used and relied on it – until Google yanked it off the mar­ket. Are Google Job Ads the next Hire? And of course, what is the big delay? Google knows and under­stands con­tent-based ads – so what’s hold­ing them back from drag­ging this prod­uct into the cold light of day? Heck if I know!
• Who will win the pro­gram­mat­ic bat­tle out­side of North Amer­i­ca?: Notice how I phrased this ques­tion: ‘out­side of North Amer­i­ca’. It seems like App­cast has already won the mar­ket in North Amer­i­ca. Now can they go on and con­quer Europe? You’d think so, since they’re part of Step­stone, the Ger­man job board behe­moth. Yet there are oth­er com­pa­nies out there that would like to pre­vent that from hap­pen­ing. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Pass the pop­corn!
• Will AI become inte­grat­ed into most job boards in 2024?: Gen­er­a­tive AI took the world by storm in 2023, and the fren­zy shows no sign of abat­ing. I’m not sure, how­ev­er, that you can say job boards were in the fore­front of AI usage – with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of LinkedIn. How­ev­er, what I’m real­ly won­der­ing is whether job boards will start inte­grat­ing AI into all aspects of can­di­date and employ­er inter­ac­tions and ser­vices. I for one would be inter­est­ed in how AI could allow for bet­ter analy­sis of the mas­sive amounts of data that a typ­i­cal job board gen­er­ates.
• BONUS QUESTION: Will Steven Roth­berg start yet anoth­er pod­cast?: Yes, this is tru­ly a burn­ing ques­tion. My for­mer pod­cast part­ner has gone on to cre­ate two pod­casts, and seems to be guest­ing on every pod­cast out there. Let’s face it – the man likes to talk! Luck­i­ly, he also knows a lot about job boards. How­ev­er – maybe he should start a pod­cast about flail­ing hock­ey teams?

So there you have it – 5 burn­ing ques­tions for 2024. I am wait­ing with bat­ed breath for the answers- and I bet you are, too!

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