Users who login with Facebook are able to find jobs based on their current or previous work titles, location, interests and their friends’ companies on Simply Hired. On the search results page, people looking for a job will be able to browse friends’ companies and search for job openings.

Beta testing of this feature has doubled user engagement on SimplyHired.com for users who opt-in. Additional features allow users to see a company directory listing where all their friends work and jobs at companies they like.  Users can also see companies where they have the highest number of friends and other job-related information. These features are available in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and India.

Google May Employ Simply Hired

According to a report from alarm:clock, at least one knowledgeable onlooker thinks that a deal will take place.  “Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdry says that Google is stepping up its efforts to buy VC-backed SimplyHired,” the site reported.

Those “efforts” (if authentic) will almost surely succeed – between Google’s cachet and its cash, few companies can say “no” to the search engine giant.  But alarm:clock went on to point out another reason why this could be a match made in Heaven: “[Simply Hired’s] angels are GOOG angels.”

Furthermore, Simply Hired is, like Google, “based in Mountain View,” and also “targets the long tail and landed a MySpace deal.”

Still, there are those who think that an acquisition is doubtful.  On the VC Ratings blog, Joshua Jaffe writes, “I don’t buy this one.  Google has acquired a lot of companies in the past six years and a grand total of two were focused on search.  This is something Google does best and doesn’t need to go outside the Googleplex for in all but the most bleeding edge of cases.”

As for the argument that Google lacks a job search engine . . . well, that issue’s apparently not  on the “bleeding edge.”  And Jaffe points out that Google’s “64% search engine market share affords it the opportunity to put anything it wants in front of lots of users.”

All in all, this leaves us with just one more will they/won’t they situation; refer to Microsoft and Yahoo, Google and Dow Jones, or MySpace and Photobucket for other recent examples.  Still, it’s always fairly exciting to see the Google checkbook crack open.

Job hunters now have one more site to add to their bookmarks alongside Simply Hired and Indeed. It’s called Hound, and its Juriscape owners tout the site’s simplicity and interface, and a large database of listings, as positives.

As dogs go, this Hound needs a little more training. With a motto of "Every Job On Earth" displayed beneath a friendly dog logo, we expect to see results. A query on Hound for pediatrician in Lexington, KY got us a ‘no results’ page.

The same query on Indeed picked up a half-dozen openings. Simply Hired found seven.

Bad dog. Or maybe we should just call it ‘beta dog’ instead. As a new launch they are likely still implementing some features like additional sources for listings.

Hound’s toolset makes it easy to personalize the way a person receives listings they want. Options for email or RSS feed updates as jobs matching a query become available.

A Browse Jobs feature lets the visitor check out listings for the United States and its territories. It’s another area where Hound needs work; omitting Louisville from Kentucky’s list of top cities for jobs is a glaring mistake.

More competition in the job metasearch range should increase the pressure on all sites in this category to become the definitive place to find those listings. If most listings for heavily searched positions duplicate closely across engines, it seems the site that can best establish itself as a brand will succeed long-term here.

The audiences for niche blogs and vertical-interest websites arrive with a specific interest in the content to be found there. Advertising efforts have followed, in an attempt to target those audiences with relevant messages. Some blogs have been experimenting with job boards, which looks like a natural pairing. Firms who would like to recruit people with given interests should do well at finding them from among the readership of niches serving those interests.

That brings us to Job-a-matic, which comes from the job search engine Simply Hired. Job-a-matic is currently in beta, but has attracted the interest of a number of sites. A-list bloggers like Tom Foremski and Om Malik have Job-a-matic implemented for their blogs. In the world of e-business, Eric Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified has Job-a-matic in place where he charges $199 for a 30-day listing.

Peterson and Simply Hired split the cash 50-50. If he wants more job listings displayed from Simply Hired’s index, he would get 30 percent of the revenue coming from clicks on those paid listings. His paid listings appear on top of any added by the job search company. Simply Hired does provide some networking to display the paid listings blogs and sites sell to companies.

Deals with LinkedIn and MySpace show those listings across those networks, broadening their reach. Job listings deliver what people see as a valuable addition to a site, where ads could be considered distracting. The control that Job-a-matic offers could be a clincher for site publishers too, it’s far more than anyone who isn’t actively selling advertising and vetting each ad would have.

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Bloggers can add paid listings from Simply Hired to their sites, and sell listings to advertisers seeking job candidates from among a given site’s visitorship.

A few prominent bloggers will adopt the service. Both Om Malik at GigaOm and John Battelle at his Searchblog will be participating in Job-a-matic.

Simply Hired also announced a couple of technology partners for Job-a-matic. Those companies will help promote Job-a-matic through their services to interested site publishers.

Six Apart plans to offer Job-a-matic to users of TypePad, the company’s hosted blogging service. TypePad bloggers will be able to drop paid listings from Job-a-matic onto their sites through the TypePad Widget program.

Simply Hired will also work with Feedburner and advertise Job-a-matic to that audience of some 323,000 publishers. Feedburner publishers will be able to promote paid listings within content feeds through the use of FeedFlare.

The new product and its partners represent a veritable who’s who of distinctive names in the modern Internet landscape. That and Job-a-matic could help Simply Hired solidify its place in what has become a very competitive job search field.

“Simply Hired’s Job-a-matic enables Web publishers to connect the targeted audiences they’ve developed with the employers, job boards and recruiters who want to engage with them,” said Gautam Godhwani, CEO of Simply Hired. “These talent seekers are very willing to pay for such access – especially given that they can reach passive candidates.”

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.