Staffing Indus­try Ana­lysts (SIA) has been cov­er­ing the glob­al job board world for a while now, and they just came out with their lat­est report. It says that “the val­ue of the glob­al online job adver­tis­ing mar­ket rose 16% in 2022 to $36.1 bil­lion” and that the “50 largest firms col­lec­tive­ly gen­er­at­ed $29.1 bil­lion in rev­enue in 2022 and account­ed for 80% of the glob­al mar­ket.”

That’s a decent size mar­ket, eh? $36.1 bil­lion. But that num­ber hides a lot of things, like lay­offs, ebbing growth, con­tin­ue strong labor demand, and of course, both fear and hope regard­ing AI.

But first, back to the SIA report. I found their ‘top 5′ list inter­est­ing:

1. Microsoft (LinkedIn), $8.28 bil­lion, 23% mar­ket share
2. Recruit Hold­ings (Indeed), $8.03 bil­lion, 22% mar­ket share
3. Axel Springer (Stepstone/Totaljobs/Jobsite), $1.60 bil­lion, 4% mar­ket share
4. Seek, $957 mil­lion, 3% mar­ket share
5. ZipRecruiter, $905 mil­lion, 3% mar­ket share

Notice who isn’t on top? Yep, it’s Indeed. I would say that most of the con­ver­sa­tions I have with folks in the indus­try assume that Indeed is #1. And of course, in a lot of regards, it is: most CPC sold; most mar­ket dom­i­nance in mul­ti­ple mar­kets; and most unhap­py SMBs (at least with regard to CPA). But the oth­er thing that’s inter­est­ing about that list is: Zip has a way to go to reach the top. In fact, with Microsoft and Recruit on top, I’m not sure they’ll ever make it. Now, per­haps that’s not their goal. But I found it inter­est­ing.

Yet…we are – and have been for 3 years – in a time of eco­nom­ic change and some chaos. For exam­ple, a few more tid­bits about the glob­al job board world:

And I’m not even get­ting into the var­i­ous AI ini­tia­tives at this point. I guess my point is: the glob­al job board world is big. It is com­plex. Some parts are doing well. Some parts are not. Some mon­ey is going into the mar­ket. Some parts are falling apart (i.e., Career­Builder). So if you’re in the mar­ket, as most of you are, it does you no good to say ‘things suck!’ or ‘things are mind-bend­ing­ly great!’. Because both are prob­a­bly true – at the same time.

Instead, I would advise (and this advice has been earned via 3 – and count­ing – eco­nom­ic down­turns) that insta­bil­i­ty offers oppor­tu­ni­ty. You can see this in the upturn in acqui­si­tions. And there are oppor­tu­ni­ties to be had as com­peti­tors pull back, cut staff and expens­es, and go into a defen­sive mode. And again – the glob­al job board world is large, which means that you have oppor­tu­ni­ties – prob­a­bly in places you nev­er pre­vi­ous­ly thought pos­si­ble. Go to a con­fer­ence like Job­Board­sCon­nect or TAt­e­ch. Net­work. Read a blog (yeah, like this one!). Lis­ten to some pod­casts.

Then think about how a big mar­ket that’s in a peri­od of change offers oppor­tu­ni­ty!

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