Hong Kong based Recruit.net, a job search engine we first wrote about in May, is expanding, and they’re still not interested in the United States.
Recruit.net aggregates job listings from partner sites for its main portal and also provides syndicated results for other sites, a model that sees the Recruit.net bringing in increasing revenues in a hyper-competitive vertical.
Recruit.net launched into Malaysia in September and will launch a New Zealand portal this week. Coming soon are sites for Vietnam and the Philippines in the first quarter of 2008. The company already provides sites for Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Singapore.
It’s an interesting corporate strategy, not only from the tech/revenue viewpoint but from the complete lack of desire to enter the US market (I understand it, but others with a US focus may not). Recruit.net’s Maneck Mohan told me that the company sees a growing internationalization of web services, and that their focus on Asia is timely given the growing economic power of the region at a time when the US economy is in trouble. Countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines still have relatively low internet penetration levels (20% and 16% respectively) but this is changing as more people come online as both see a growing middle class. Even Malaysia, long considered to be one of the more prosperous South East Asian countries has only recently passed 50% internet penetration (52% currently) out of a population of 28 million; Vietnam and the Philippines have populations of 85 million and 87 million people. As Mohan said to me in an email: “why enter a crowded market like the US and compete with existing players, when white hot emerging markets like Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam are wide open and under serviced?”
Stay focused in the region is best strategy. After all, the US market too crowded.
They will enter the US market when they are good and ready. US market too Big to ignore.
Smart strategy. They have to focus on emerging markets and channelize their energy / resources there.
2nd rate site with rose colored glasses on. I don’t see them becoming big in all the countries they are going after either.
Their strategy is (currently) to stick in markets with little real competition and a possibility of really boosting marketshare in the future… the USA isn’t the world, there is plenty of opportunities in other places
Jon
I like recruit.net search & email features.
With the world’s population well over 6 billion, I would imagine there are plenty of other opportunities outside the US. Besides, staying away means less legal backlash and competition to focus on growth strategy. Good business sense in my opinion. Buy the way, the Euro is quickly becoming the standard currency in world trade while the dollar is declining globally. Why go for the dollar?
In the Philippines the most popular online job search site is http://www.Jobstreet.com, this site is like a “household name” for all workers, well at least for me. When i search for a job on the internet the first thing that comes to mind is Jobstreet.com.
OMG, that’s just amazing.
This is more advanced job site in Asia, check out if you must.
http://www.CareerEngine.org
http://www.ChinaSplash.com
I think they will need to refine their search a little bit better more to match the present competition especially here in Australia but otherwise not a very bad site.
duncan how would you compare these guys to seek?
The middle east is the growth area! So many of them blow themselves up that there is a shortage.
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
The real competition in the region is jobsdb.com, also hong kong based, the defacto standard site for recruiters and jobseekers, /ac.
@willowtree what in heavens name is more advanced about your own little job board compared to Recruit.net or any other job board in the APAC region?
I’m based in Shanghai, what a great site, recruit.net has turned out to be, thanks for pointing it out, very useful…
Its different from seek, jobsdb and other job boards, since its a job search engine. Job results are drawn from a variety of boards and sites. I like how they also index jobs from companies directly.
Very useful and cool.
Well then just say it’s copycat of http://www.simplyhired.com... albeit asia focused.. no?
Nothing wrong of being a search engine.. Google, and all the wannabes..
Asia is a huge market with plenty of room to grow without worrying about the U.S. and Europe. And because there is too much VC money chasing too few deals in China (meaning a lot of competition) it makes sense to focus on some of the smaller Asian countries.
Using one simple search a user looking for job opportunities on the site will now also be able to find additional job opportunities in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Singapore and India provided by Recruit.net. I think its a great step and carry a win win situation. Asia emerging as the most powerful market, development and rapid expansion in the Asian market is much more as compared to other countries.
Parul
http://www.bhopu.com
I’m going to check this out for sure.. looks very cool
I agree with Duncan. This is not only an interesting corporate strategy but an increasingly common marketing tactic in the East.
Long gone are the days where the US was the focal (or even launch) point for hard goods, so it should come as no surprise that web services are slowly following suit.
I come from a hard goods (manufacturing) background, and the US has proven to be the least attractive of the major markets. The US is ‘hyper competitive’ with poor margins and unrealistic trade terms. Couple that with the decline (nee destruction) of the US$, and I have two words for you: Who cares?
I think it’s naive to think a service cannot succeed without a US presence. Yes, it’s a big market, but simple exposure does not guarantee success. The majority of sites written about on TC are US-centric, and this same majority of sites will have disappeared in 12-18 months.
I get the feeling Recruit.net will not be one of them.
There is Bighow.com, the complete community publishing tool where you can post resumes and job openings for free and tag it wit relevant city and skills.
aussie (#12)
very much a different model to Seek, these guys aggregate jobs from other sites, for memory careerone.com.au is a partner and provides content. It’s a nice service front end but it reminds me a little bit of some other Australian companies (Feedcorp in particular) in that the big part of the revenue comes from syndicating the tech/ results elsewhere as opposed to just the front end. Check out the earlier post for some examples.
In India there is a similar one called bixee.com but they got sued as they were doing it without any partnership agreements.
Always great opportunity to check recruit.net out! One of the better services online.
They will have tough competition in India since there are few leading job sites are there like naukri.com also monster.com has good pretense in Asian countries.
I was using recruit some weeks ago with success! If I ever have to search for an opportunity again I know where to go! *thumbs up*
I am in Singapore and for me recruit.net is great, I like to move around alot and so being able to search for IT roles that meet my quals is awesome…Asia is currently in IT heaven and to me is where the great jobs are because the US need to outsource to us here.. i might even work in New Zealand one day, now I know where to look…
the strategy makes sense. we have a similar non-US strategy. we’ve released in the philippines, malaysia, fiji, and south africa, and a few non-US countries are next.
I completely agree with the strategy. The USA is not only a crowded market but it is also an arrogant market. There is a big world out there and there is an enormous amount of money to be made if one provides an effective service. The fact is the rest of world IS catching up and we too are taking a similar approach.
It’s a good strategy and gameplan for sure. But speaking from Vietnam, it’s fiercely competitive in any industry and the internet is no different. The barriers to entry are low and the entrepreneurial spirit is high.
Plus old-media still dominates so they’ll need to play to big media if they are to breakthrough in markets like this. vietnamworks.com.vn got in early, produced an excellent product and pretty much took the market already….and got bought by monster.com.