• March 26, 2008

Yahoo has launched a new system for ranking job listings on HotJobs that borrows from the company's search and targeting technologies to improve matches between job seekers and employers.

The new system ranks job listings by four criteria: relevance (matching text in job titles and descriptions with keywords used by candidates); engagement (measuring how candidates respond to listings); availability (determining that openings shown are still unfilled); and displaying jobs by location.

The goal is to go beyond traditional listings sorted by category and date to optimize job searches. Yahoo says that HotJobs' new ranking formula has boosted "applies" per job listings by 25%.

--Mark Walsh