公司通常会利用一系列工具来“了解市场竞争情况”。而市场调查与分析本身已经成为一个独立的行业。那么，求职者是否也能获得一份关于特定职位竞争情况的报告呢？

    当然可以。凯业必达（CareerBuilder）刚刚推出的一个求职网站便计划提供这项服务，使网站会员通过对比同一个职位的其他求职者，更好地了解自己的竞争力。

    这个名为Headhunter.com的网站将提供“职位竞争情况报告”，并作为一项特色服务，将自己与美国其他三十多家资深经理人与高管求职网站区别开来；当然，更重要的原因是为了吸引那些习惯于每天阅读市场调查报告的优秀求职者。

    作为凯业必达旗下这个小众网站的副总裁，本•加布罗称：“如果我们没有高质量的管理人才储备，就无法吸引公司使用我们的网站。”他还说，目前，求职者和雇主都对网站做出了积极的响应。Headhunter.com于上周三正式上线，同时，对大约2,700名人事经理进行的调查显示，未来六个月内，约有23%的公司计划招聘高层人才。

    加布罗称，凯业必达公司的市场调查显示，高管职位空缺“具有极大的增长潜力”。Headhunter网站计划在一年内提供约10,000个管理职位，将超过目前的三倍。

    彼得•威德尔表示，在线求职领域的竞争力报告服务并非独一无二，但也确实不同寻常。彼得•威德尔目前在就业信息与出版公司Weddle's LLC担任首席执行官，该公司的主要业务就是跟踪就业信息平台。他认为：“目前这个行业还没有明确的领头羊，因此这一服务的推出确实是明智之举。”

    2010年6月，凯业必达首先在其主站中推出了一个精简版竞争情况报告，称该报告可使用户“深入了解其他求职者的资质”。

    而新服务的工作原理是：求职者在Headhunter.com注册，申请某个职位。之后，她可以通过一个链接，打开长达四页的“职位竞争情况报告”，报告将以柱状图和饼形图列出求职者的工作经验、近期薪酬水平，以及求职者曾工作过的顶级公司列表。（但未列出最近的雇主。）报告还将包括求职者的教育水平、母校和下属人数 ——但条件是申请该职位的人数不低于5人，并且申请者的数据可供提取。

    Businesses often use a whole battery of tools to "know the competition." Market research and intelligence is an industry in and of itself. So why shouldn't job seekers expect a report on the competition as well?

    CareerBuilder has just launched a job search site that attempts to do just that, allowing users to find out how their credentials stack up to other candidates for a job.

    The site, Headhunter.com, will offer a "job competition report" as a means to differentiate itself from the three dozen or so U.S. senior manager and executive job boards -- and just as important, help lure quality candidates who may be used to seeing market research as part of their day-to-day jobs.

    "If we don't deliver quality management candidates, companies won't use the site," says Ben Jablow, vice president of CareerBuilder's niche sites, who added that the response so far has been positive from both job seekers and employers. Headhunter.com was officially unveiled on Wednesday along with a survey of just under 2,700 hiring managers showing that 23% expect to hire senior level workers in the next six months.

    CareerBuilder's market research showed the senior management job space offered "a lot of growth and future potential," Jablow says. Headhunter aims to offer around 10,000 managerial jobs, more than three times its current level, in the span of a year.

    The competitive report is not unique in the online job board world, but it is unusual, says Peter Weddle, chief executive of a workforce information and publishing company called Weddle's LLC that tracks job boards. "Without a clear market leader, this is a smart move," he says.

    CareerBuilder first launched a slimmer version of the competition report in June 2010 on its main site, saying it provided "an inside peek into the qualifications of other candidates."

    The new one works like this: After a candidate signs in and applies for a job on Headhunter.com, she can click on a link that brings up a four-page job competition report, complete with bar and pie charts showing candidates' years of experience, recent salaries, and a list of the top companies where they have worked. (The most recent employer will not be listed.) The report also shows educational level, alma mater and the number of direct reports -- but only if at least five candidates have applied and their data is available to be pooled.

    Headhunter网站将从求职者个人档案和求职申请中收集信息，并在30秒内在线生成一份报告。若之后有其他人申请，求职者可查看更新后的报告。雇主也可利用这份报告指导之后的人才招聘工作。但凯业必达称，目前，该服务仅面向求职者，未注册的网站访客尚无权使用。

    以昨天芝加哥的一个市场营销总监职位为例，“职位竞争情况报告”显示，大部分求职者的期望薪酬在78,000至93,000美元之间。多数求职者均拥有20年以上工作经验，而且大部分都获得了学士学位，其中约四分之一自称持有硕士学位。求职者毕业的名校包括德堡大学（DePaul）、普渡大学（Purdue）和北密歇根大学（Northern Michigan）等，求职者曾经就职的公司中最常见的是网络设备制造商3Com Corp.、管理咨询公司Statement Marketing，以及风之城联合公司（Windy City Inc.）。

    求职网站StartWire首席执行官克里斯蒂安•福尔曼认为，竞争情况报告对于求职者和雇主同等重要。StartWire公司主要为求职者提供在线工具，用于跟踪和管理个人的求职申请。他说，最终这些信息将演变成一个“改变求职游戏规则”的工具，并可用来定位能力出众的求职者和适合他们的工作岗位。

    目前，这类报告可以帮助求职者确定他们的期望薪酬是否已经跟不上形势，以及他们是否高估或低估了自己的能力。福尔曼称：“求职者可以更加清晰地了解就业市场的形势，这无疑对他们有利。”

    但这类报告或许无法全面、公允地反映市场的真实情况，甚至也无法如实反映出求职者的工作经验或薪酬水平。求职信息网站Job-Hunt.org发行人苏珊•乔伊斯认为：“这类‘竞争情况报告’对薪酬水平的统计可能并不准确，也没有特别的相关性。”乔伊斯还认为，公开这类数据，可能导致与隐私权相关的法律问题。“谁知道他们还会怎么使用这些信息？”

    但Headhunter.com的加布罗却表示，网站非常重视用户的个人隐私。他希望能够在未来几个月，根据用户的反馈对网站和竞争情况报告进行一定的发展和调整。

    但也有人质疑，这家网站的起步太晚，或者认为它试图用一些数据点来量化领导力技能。美国猎头行业协会（Association of Executive Search Consultants）发言人艾林•费恩苏德称：“领导力水平根本无法通过这种大众化的方法进行衡量。我认为这种新功能充其量只是一个吸引用户的噱头，对于高管求职者没有任何实质价值。”该协会旗下拥有一家与Headhunter.com类似的网站BlueSteps.com。费恩苏德还表示，这类竞争情况报告中的数据存在偏差，因为这些数据的来源过于单一，其中可能包括不符合职位要求的求职者。

    但Headhunter目前对求职者免费开放，而其竞争对手，如TheLadders则每月向用户收取15到25美元不等的费用。加布罗表示，除了工作列表外，网站中不会出现任何形式的广告，包括弹出广告。

    Headhunter网站上线时共有2,800个职位空缺，其中许多来自凯业必达或其旗下的其他七个小众网站。加布罗称，网站的“甜点”（此处指目标客户——译注）在于经理人、资深经理人和副总裁级别的职位，并且在2到3个月内，大部分职位仅限Headhunter网站独家提供。而相对而言，据TheLadders网站CEO兼创始人马克•塞南德尔透露，目前，TheLadders网站的职位空缺已经达到120,000个。

    译者：阿龙/汪皓

    Headhunter gathers information from candidate profiles and job applications and aggregates it in a report that takes about 30 seconds to generate online. After more people apply, candidates may view updated reports. An employer can also view the information and use it to guide the rest of their search. It is not available to individuals who browse the site, but only job applicants, CareerBuilder says.

    For one director of marketing posting in Chicago yesterday, a job competition report showed a wide range of desired salaries -- from $78,000 to $93,000. More applicants had over 20 years of experience and most had a bachelor's degree, though a quarter said they had earned a master's as well. The top alma maters were DePaul, Purdue and Northern Michigan and the most common companies that applicants had experience working at included 3Com Corp., Statement Marketing, and Windy City Inc.

    It's equally valuable to job-seekers and employers to compile such reports, says Christian Forman, chief executive of StartWire, which offers job-seekers online tools to track and organize their applications. Eventually, such information could evolve and become a "game-changing" tool to gauge where talented workers are located and where they are needed.

    Right away, the reports may help job candidates determine whether their salary expectations are outdated -- and that they may be over or undervaluing themselves. "It's beneficial for job-seekers to get a clear-eyed view of what the market is," Forman says.

    Yet the report may not give a full or fair picture of the market, or even the candidates' true experience levels or pay. "What 'the competition' states as their salary level may not be accurate and probably isn't particularly relevant," says Susan Joyce, publisher of career information site Job-Hunt.org. Joyce also argues that there may be legitimate privacy concerns about making this sort of data public. "What else will they do with that information?"

    Headhunter.com's Jablow says that the site takes user privacy seriously and that he expects the site and the report to grow and change partly based on users' feedback in the next few months.

    Others argue that the site is late to the game or trying to quantify leadership skills with a few data points. "Leadership qualities … are impossible to benchmark in such a mass market approach. I consider this new feature to be more of a bell and whistle, and not something of real value to the executive candidate," says Eryn Feinsod, a spokeswoman for the Association of Executive Search Consultants, which runs a competing site BlueSteps.com. Feinsod also argues that the data in the competition reports will be skewed because it comes through one source only and may include some people who are less qualified for the job.

    However, Headhunter is free of charge to job-seekers while competing executive job sites like TheLadders charges users $15 to $25 a month. Except for the job listings, Headhunter will be free of advertising, including pop-up ads, says Jablow.

    Headhunter launched with about 2,800 job listings, many of them from CareerBuilder or its seven other niche sites. The site's "sweet spot" will be manager, senior manager and vice president-level positions, and in two or three months, most of the jobs will be unique to the site, Jablow says. By comparison, TheLadders currently has 120,000 job listings, according to Marc Cenedella, the site's CEO and founder.