That Giant Scraping Sound: Li on Job Search

Forrester's Charlene Li offers an in-depth analysis of Yahoo Hotjobs' new free job listings component, and the job search field in general. (Bonus for reading: Dave McClure of Simply Hired weighs in with a comment.) Ryze, LinkedIn, Orkut, etc. -- am I missing any? maybe another dozen or so? :) ), but one of them seems to have all the momentum: LinkedIn. Indeed, after combing through a bevy of LinkedIn profiles last night, it struck me that the sole reason for many folks being part of LinkedIn is to expand their professional networks for ongoing career improvment. The most common situation for heavy networkers appears to be those with solid credentials who are currently underemployed or taking a semi-sabbatical to focus on child-rearing between successful gigs. (All of which reminds me of a story. A project manager at a niche interactive agency contacted me several times in my role as Andrew Goodman is Principal of Traffick.com, an acclaimed "guide to portals" which foresaw the rise of trends such as paid search and semantic analysis.