JobCentral National Labor Exchange and AJB Phase-Out FAQ

The cost of inaction by employers would be far greater than the cost of supporting a national labor exchange site. Employers need an affordable, single site that helps create an efficient labor market, assures compliance with state and federal employment laws such as Affirmative Action Plans, Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), and Jobs for Veterans Act compliance, and provides proper privacy and security for both employers and job seekers.

As governmental agencies, neither DOL nor OFCCP can or will sanction JobCentral or any other non-government site as the official replacement for AJB. The bottom line is, employers are responsible for OFCCP, Jobs for Veterans Act, and Affirmative Action compliance. Neither DOL nor OFCCP have a statutory requirement to provide or sanction an online system to assure that employers are compliant. DirectEmployers Association and the JobCentral National Labor Exchange have an exclusive five-year Alliance agreement with The National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) to provide job seekers, employers and states a cost-effective transition from America’s Job Bank (AJB) when it is discontinued.

Employers will be provided all necessary reports to meet OFCCP and Jobs for Veterans Act requirements for all job postings that are distributed through JobCentral. These reports will include all information required by OFCCP.

Yes, member companies will be provided a "gap" report as requested. It will include an up-to-date progress report as well as the "gap" information.

No. Neither JobCentral nor any other site will be allowed to use America's Job Bank name or AJB's current URL.

JobCentral will not start posting directly to state sites until after AJB is closed down. We have agreed to continue supporting AJB until it is phased-out on June 30, 2007. We are currently conducting upload/download tests with state sites.

No. There might be some confusion because NaviSite which is currently contracted by the state of New York to host AJB has announced that they will continue to operate the site after AJB closes in June, 2007. Approximately thirty states are currently using AJB. NaviSite will not be allowed to use the America's Job Bank URL or any name that would confuse users and make them think the site is a continuation of AJB. It is unclear what NaviSite's business model will be going forward; however, it will be a commercial site with no government support.

Yes. JobCentral will essentially provide the same services that AJB currently provides to employers, job seekers and states at no cost. States can provide the same services at no cost to employers and job seekers that are currently provided by AJB. Employers will essentially pay for the value-added services over and above those currently provided by AJB. This includes distribution of jobs to Google, Indeed, SimplyHired and hundreds of other sites in the JobCentral network which includes diversity, alumni, and veterans sites.

Employers who want their jobs indexed (scraped) from their web site and automatically delivered to the states as well as to Google, Indeed, SimplyHired and hundreds of other sites such as diversity, alumni and veterans in the JobCentral Network will want to be members. There are other reasons companies will want to be members such as participation in Think Tank sessions, best practice sharing, research and reports, etc.

No. To include job listings from commercial job boards and niche sites would result in duplicate postings. JobCentral will have special arrangements with a limited number of job distribution sites which will allow third-party postings on behalf of employers.

Yes. All member company jobs on JobCentral that are indexed (scraped) from corporate web sites and all single-posting jobs will have O*NET codes applied through an auto-coding process.

Our interaction with each state will depend on the needs and circumstances of that state. For example, some states might only want to exchange job order information with other states and with JobCentral or post jobs on our national site. We would facilitate this. Other states -- ones that had depended on AJB as their self-service labor exchange system -- might want a replacement system. We would work with those states to provide a branded self-service system based on JobCentral for those states similar to what AJB now provides.

JobCentral is owned and managed by employers through a non-profit employer organization. It exists for the sole purpose of developing and operating internet recruiting systems to improve labor market efficiency for its member employers. Commercial job boards are generally publicly-traded companies whose operations are normally driven by their business model. There is a place for both for-profit and non-profit sites in Internet recruiting.

Yes. JobCentral will offer states for which it operates self-service systems a means both to screen jobs and to verify employers. States will be able to advise JobCentral to invalidate an employer's account if a company is not in good standing with their state. This would invalidate their job posting and resume searching privileges in that state's self-service system. Moreover, JobCentral will not post jobs that include discriminatory specifications, are substandard, appear to charge jobseekers fees, or are from employers involved in a labor dispute.

Yes. Each state will be able to receive and/or search jobs from neighboring states.

Yes. JobCentral will provide the capability for states to upload jobs from their state sites to the national labor exchange website and to download jobs to their site from the national website for their state and for neighboring states in which they share labor markets.

It is our goal to reach all states; however, to do so requires the cooperation of each state. JobCentral has signed a five-year exclusive agreement with the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) to help accomplish this. At the very least, JobCentral hopes to be able to post the jobs from its member companies to all state websites. If this is not possible, jobs will be posted to the appropriate One-Stop Centers, Local Veterans Employment Representatives (LVER's) and Disabled Veterans Outreach Programs (DVOP's) in each state to assure member company compliance with Affirmative Action Plans, Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), and the Jobs for Veterans Act.

None - unless an employer wants value-added services that are not currently provided by AJB. This includes automatic indexing (scraping) of jobs from their corporate web sites as well as automatic job distribution to the states, Google, Indeed, simplyHired and other sites in the JobCentral Network. The JobCentral Network sites include sites for alumni, diversity, veterans and hundreds more.

Yes. States may opt to use JobCentral's search technology to search both jobs and resumes. Because the JobCentral search provides the option to include results from searches on Indeed, Simply Hired, Jobster and Google, states opting to use our search may not need to purchase a separate spidering program to expand the job availability to its job seeker customers.

Job seekers will apply for jobs as directed by each company or, for jobs uploaded by the states, as directed by the state. For companies, this includes applying directly into the company's applicant tracking system on their corporate web site or via other methods such as fax, email, or U.S. Mail. For states, this may mean directing applicants to a state automated system or to a local office.

JobCentral will use appropriate methods and technologies (including Web Services) to create the necessary interfaces for the state systems, taking into account the wide variety of state and company systems as well as the need to encourage the use of modern, commonly used data transfer formats and methods. With permission, JobCentral could also "spider" state websites to obtain agreed upon data, lessening the burden on State resources.

Yes. All jobs will be screened. The majority of jobs on the JobCentral site will be indexed directly from pre-approved corporate web sites. Single job postings will be screened for policy compliance prior to being made available online.

Yes. JobCentral will provide technical support for both employers and states.

Yes. JobCentral will provide customer service for both state administrators and job seekers.

No. JobCentral provides one site that satisfies all compliance requirements. This can only be accomplished through a strong employer/state partnership that meets the needs of all parties. This is exactly why a strong "National Labor Exchange" and JobCentral’s exclusive alliance with The National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) is so important for everyone.

Because JobCentral is a non-profit employer association formed to develop Internet recruiting solutions for employers. A national labor exchange owned and managed by employers can be a lot more efficient and more cost effective than any comparable commercial system. It is the only way a "one-stop" national labor exchange will exist.

Yes. JobCentral will provide self-service web sites at no cost for any state choosing this option.

Yes. Employers will be able to search veterans' resumes.

No. The JobCentral site will only include jobs, employment information and events, information about employers, and other employment-related information. It will neither sell nor permit advertising or marketing on its website.

Yes. JobCentral will include bilingual English/Spanish translation services.

JobCentral's vertical search engine works in many ways for jobs like the Google search engine works for the Internet in general. JobCentral searches across the Internet to identify jobs and link Job seekers directly to them on corporate web sites.

JobCentral "indexes" jobs from corporate web sites and does not actually use a "spidering" process. We used the word "spider" in the State Workforce Agency Participation Agreement because it is a commonly used Internet term and is often used interchangeably with indexing. However, the difference is significant."Indexing" allows JobCentral to identify links to jobs and take the job seeker directly to the job listing on the corporate web site when he or she clicks on the job title. This process is very much like the search process used by Google and other high-level search engines."Spidering" is the process of grabbing the job content from a web site, reformatting it, and displaying that content on a web site. This is not the process used by JobCentral.Another important point is that JobCentral only indexes jobs from corporate web sites. Jobs from commercial web sites are never indexed. This means the probability of duplicate jobs is very low in the JobCentral database and all jobs are current, active job listings. JobCentral indexes jobs from corporate web sites at least once a day, and in some cases as many as three times a day, to make sure the most accurate, up-to-date job listings are available.

The National Labor Exchange will be jointly governed and overseen by DirectEmployers, representatives of a number of the participating state workforce agencies, and NASWA as the representative of participating state workforce agencies.

Currently, JobCentral obtains jobs into two ways: 1) it indexes (scrapes) jobs from employer websites and; 2) it allows employers to enter single jobs directly through a web interface. Only registered employers can post jobs. No duplicates are generated in these two processes. Duplicates may occur when the JobCentral Network—Jobster, Indeed, SimplyHired, and Google--is searched. However, these search results are not co-mingled with those from the JobCentral National Labor Exchange.

JobCentral will make its best effort to ensure that the operation of its state interchange system will not result in moving duplicate job orders to states and multiple contacts with a given employer over the same job order. We will work closely with the states through NASWA to ensure that the proper filters are in place to eliminate duplicate job orders in its data transfers to state systems. JobCentral will not contact employers about a job in its system that was placed through the state. JobCentral will work through the states, in this regard, to develop an acceptable process for contacting employers in cases of error correction.

Job Central operates a number of "state" sites already. For the replacement AJB sites, we would replace these generic JobCentral state sites with sites that:

• Are branded with the State logo and contain the appropriate bottom navigation links and disclaimers.
• Contain the full functionality of the Job Central search engines which includes its member company jobs, jobs from 1600 employer websites spidered with permission and the State jobs that have been uploaded to Job Central. The JobCentral search engine also generates the same search on leading employment search engines (Indeed, Simply Hired, and Google) and automatically displays those results.
• Allow employers to post jobs and search resumes without charge.
• Allow job seekers to post resumes and to search jobs without charge.
• Give job seekers the option to search without posting a resume and to control access to their resumes (non-searchable resume, confidential resume, resume with contact information provided).
• Include the privacy rules and terms of use that are currently used by AJB or new ones modified with State and NASWA input.

We will produce four standard templates of our site that the State can choose to adopt. Because of the way our site is constructed, we will also offer a State the option to configure the home page in additional ways including the ability to add customized and State-generated content in more than 50% of the home page and subsequent pages.Our operating model is not to try to grab the job seeker and make them our customer; rather, we see our role as an efficient conduit for the job seeker to connect to our member's own employment websites. In the context of the State websites, we believe that the job seeker and the employer should be the State's customer. Where the State runs a job bank website of its own, we would configure our site so that job seekers and employers who wish to register will be sent to the State's own site (e.g., Alabama's Job Link or Hawaii HireNet) to do so. That will eliminate the resume synchronization issue since the resume will only exist on the State's own site.Our approach has another significant advantage for the States over the current AJB model. When a job seeker wishes to view/apply for a job on JobCentral, we send them to the employer's own site. When we include jobs posted through the State employment service into our site, we will send the job seeker back to the State's own website to view and/or apply. That allows the State another opportunity to capture the job seeker as a customer and to introduce him/her to other state services.

Currently, all jobs posted directly to JobCentral are screened by JobCentral staff to ensure that they are real jobs and they do not contain discriminatory specifications. Jobs downloaded from our member companies are not screened since they come from a "trusted" source. This is similar to how the process now works in AJB. JobCentral also has an existing process to verify that employers who register with JobCentral are valid employers (e.g.) verifying telephone number, street address, and email address. We feel comfortable using publicly available information as a way to verify employers. We do NOT want states to provide us with access to their UI databases which most states utilize for validation of employers, but would be willing to send a prospective employer to the state for verification, if that is desired. We run periodic audits of all jobs posted on our site to ensure they are appropriate. We will take down any inappropriate job found in an audit and would respond immediately to a state request to eliminate an inappropriate job.

We have committed to working with the states to establish a review and verification process that is acceptable to the states.

Job employment service orders entered into a state's web site will be automatically entered into the DirectEmployers Association's web site if the state designates the job for inclusion in the National Labor Exchange database. This may occur immediately, or through a scheduled upload, depending on the state's preference.

Currently search results of all matching job orders (requires a 100% match) are displayed jobs in a default order. From the pool of matching jobs, jobs posted by JobCentral member companies and those from non-member employers who pay to post their jobs are displayed first. Jobs that are indexed from non-member company web sites follow. Users have the option of re-ordering their search results by delimiting characteristics, such as "freshness" of the job (then it was posted). In that case, the default order is over-ridden.

The National Labor Exchange shall be jointly governed and overseen by DirectEmployers, representatives of a number of the participating state workforce agencies, and NASWA as representative of the remaining participating state workforce agencies, through the work of the following standing committees:Executive Committee – consisting of one senior-level representative from NASWA, one senior-level representative from DirectEmployers, one state representative, and one employer representative. The Executive Committee shall provide overall guidance for the project, resolve certain disputes, and make final determinations on whether to implement major system changes or enhancements.Operations Committee – consisting of six employers, six state representatives, one representative from DirectEmployers, and one representative from NASWA. The Operations Committee shall provide guidance and input for all program and business issues, input on proposed new functionality and features, and guidance and input on technical issues such as data exchange, spidering, search technology, and similar issues.DirectEmployers and NASWA may, from time to time, establish ad hoc workgroups and/or committees, ask committees to work jointly to address common issues of concern and may, upon mutual agreement, establish other standing committees.

Each state is welcome to join DirectEmployers Association and enjoy all the benefits of regular membership. Otherwise, states will have a voice in the operations and governance of JobCentral through the proposed DirectEmployers/NASWA partnership.

It is expected that a NASWA committee of state representatives be established that will provide direct input for ongoing operations as well as for planning system enhancements. This committee would also help set priorities.

Each year the DirectEmployers staff presents a budget to the Association’s Board of Directors for approval. Once approved, annual dues are determined for the following budget year. DirectEmployers has not had an increase in dues during its first five years of operation because increased membership has always covered the budget increase. This trend is expected to continue.

Our operating budget comes from the dues provided by our member companies. Since the number of member companies is and has been increasing, our budget is not static. Companies believe that it is in their best interest to finance the operation of JobCentral, even if it means subsidizing the job postings of non-member smaller companies, who post for free. In their view benefits they receive for their membership far outweigh the costs.