Does anyone know more about .jobs than Gerry Crispin? He called me yesterday with a bone to pick about my blog post. It is not really accurate to say that SHRM has been championing diversity.jobs. He was right, that’s too strong a statement.
Nevertheless, Gerry is opposed to the .jobs expansion. There are a number of striking statements in his opposition letter below but this one stands out above the others “Job seekers enter a toxic environment in their efforts to
secure a position – everywhere in the world.”
I think the presumption here is that if .jobs were managed well, it could greatly reduce the toxicity. That’s a very interesting idea, but, I would like to point out that while some job boards pollute the waters with intent (yes, this is very serious), many employers do it out of neglect or blatant disregard for job seekers. That’s a bit off topic but a very interesting subject. Now, give Gerry’s letter a read – it’s a gem:
Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman
Members of the Board of Directors
International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
Dear Chairman Dengate Thrush and Members of the Board:
I urge you to reject Employ Media’s request for authority to permit second
level registration of strings that do not correspond to an employer’s name
in the .jobs sponsored top level domain.
My organization, CareerXroads, would NOT be directly or adversely affected
by this request. In fact, I am in favor of the concept of developing the
above taxonomy within the .dot jobs domain as a means to develop the
original intent of ICANN to increase the ‘safety’ of the content that
reaches the job seeker.
However, I strongly oppose Employ Media’s history of dissembling, lack of
transparency and willingness to enter into backroom deals and, am even more
strongly concerned with SHRM’s inability to choose to act as a trusted
referee. It is for these reasons that I oppose the unilateral expansion of
the .jobs charter to encompass regional and industry-specific second-level
registrations under their auspices. The two entities you have trusted with
the Charter have every intention to misuse it for profit and/or look the
other way in a misguided notion of their role. The result will be disastrous
for job seekers- not to mention legitimate job boards and real employers who
cannot be differentiated from less ethical look-alikes.
As a 20 year volunteer leader with SHRM [including their national Board of
Trustees in 1999], as an author of 8 published annual directories
[CareerXroads, 1996-2003] detailing the early growth of the job board
industry, and as a respected student, writer, speaker and observer of
staffing here in the US and abroad that continues to this day, I believe the
problems identified by ICANN nearly a decade ago are still present and
growing worse. Job seekers enter a toxic environment in their efforts to
secure a position – everywhere in the world.
SHRM and Employ Media have not achieved even a modicum of success in meeting
the Charter they were given. Nor has any other stakeholder group. While the
efforts of the International Association of Employment Web Sites
(http://www.employmentwebsites), an industry trade association, as well as
other collaborative trade groups are well meaning, they have had little
impact and no influence on the problems that .jobs aspired to address.
However, due to misinformation, lack of interest etc. etc. it goes without
saying that the community of legitimate job boards feels threatened by the
proposed expansion of the .jobs top level domain. I’ve no doubt you are
hearing from many of them. Some of it is due to their own myopic views but
much is due to the failure of both SHRM and Employ Media to act as educators
and facilitators. Missed opportunities in developing cooperative models to
manage the .jobs domains were missed day after day after day over the last 5
years.
ICANN’s original intent in getting SHRM to act as a trusted mediator in the
development of .jobs 5 years ago was brilliant and innovative at the time
but, in hindsight, they have not see their role as facilitating the key
stakeholders [job seekers, job boards and employers] to understand the
charter and facilitate some reasonable agreement- and they couldn’t even
represent the .jobs domain to their own members properly- relying instead on
Employ Media’s advertising which seldom if ever reflected the intention of
the .jobs charter.
The proposal before you at the very least violates the spirit of the charter
holder’s contract with ICANN and has generated incredibly bad will among
hundreds of decent firms that have invested billions of dollars in an effort
to do the right thing with job seekers.
I encourage you to reject the proposal and pull the existing Charter from
Employ Media and SHRM. I further recommend you issue a new Request For
Proposal to manage the domain to meet the original Charter’s intent.
Sincerely,
Gerry Crispin, SPHR (senior professional human resources)
Founder and Principal, CareerXroads
You must log in to post a comment.