Broadbean is a service that allows recruiters and companies to distribute job postings to a variety of job boards, and to track job applications from these channels (job boards). So the scenario is: I'm a recruiter, I want to put my job advertisement on 75 job boards, but I don't feel like keying in the posting 75 times. I put it into Broadbean, click 75 checkboxes (one for each job board), and presto - the job will be distributed. That's their "adcourier" product. If I want to track which of these job boards is the most successful in eliciting applications, I can buy the Broadbean aplitrak product.
The recruiter or hiring company needs to 1: pay Broadbean for at least a basic adcourier service and 2: establish an independent commercial relationship with the job board. It's up to the job board to determine whether they want to charge the recruiter, but most do. On the other side, individual job boards pay a one-time setup fee of 1000 GBP (now over 2000 of our banana-backed American dollars) to be able to receive jobs from recruiters via Broadbean.
Technically speaking, the jobs come as relatively well structured XML documents, which includes roughly 20 dated-related fields (job title, duration, etc.). The XML format is simpler than, say, the HR-XML standard for positions, but looks suspiciously similar. It is more structured than Google's unworkably bloblike full-of-garbage Googlebase XML data, and a bit more structured than indeed.com. In addition, job boards can customize these fields a bit – though this may turn off potential recruiters who would otherwise send through a job via standard Broadbean format.
OK, let me confess that I've actually worked with Broadbean on my own project to find some of these things out. I found them a pretty easy group to work with. And according to their Corporate CV's corporate culture assessment, their employees are a happy bunch with a balanced, if not slightly driven culture. 
I perceive Broadbean to be rather European in its style: rather than a high volume, free-of-charge service, you have to pay (more) to get into the Broadbean infrastructure, but your quality of service is better. Costly, but good, like the mobile phone networks.
But this does give rise to one complaint: job boards still must do business development with the recruiters that use Broadbean; just because you’re part of the eco-system doesn’t mean recruiters want to use you. As an intermediary, Broadbean would do well to encourage more matches between its buyers and sellers (recruiters and job boards).
My Angle:
Broadbean fits in with the Liquid HR economy, as they contribute to two of three Liquid HR components. They give a good start at standardizing HR data with a relatively structured XML feed. However, time will have tell whether their feed is structured enough to encourage more intelligent processing and matching of the data by job boards and networking communities. Furthermore, Indeed.com’s UK launch will be pressuring Broadbean. While indeed.com’s business model requires no fee, it also means their data is less structured. Broadbean would be wise to continue to exploit and maintain this qualitative difference, and should consider a larger counter-attack in the U.S. (I can see U.S. jobster is already onboard).
Broadbean’s large network of recruiters and job boards definitely encourages liquidity of HR information flow, but of course their membership fees preclude total liquidity. As far as matchmaking goes, Broadbean’s aplitrak product apparently helps clients not only track applications, but filter spam applications out as well. This is interesting: Broadbean is making a play at being more than a conduit of information, but being a matchmaker (at least for pre-screening purposes) as well – two of the three roles available for a Liquid HR company.
According to Broadbean’s claims ( 60% of the top 250 staffing firms; last month distributed in excess of 1.2 million ads. ) and press releases, it’s doing quite well. I’ve heard recruiters refer to them while doing business development in the UK. I think the big question is how less structured job aggregators like indeed.com develop – that is, how fares the battle between structured (XML) Intranet data and unstructured Internet data. Either way, Broadbean is worth a look even for U.S. players – but remember that if you are a job board, it’s an infrastructure play, not an advertiser for your services.
Great article, thanks.
Posted by: Jewellery Jobs | April 16, 2009 at 09:31 AM