Growing An International Job Search Engine – with Yevhen Onatsko from Jooble

In a recent episode of the HR business marketing podcast, A Better HR Business, Ben and his guest, Yevhen Onatsko, Country Manager USA at Jooble, talked about the rapidly evolving world of recruitment technology.

Jooble is an international job aggregator and job search engine founded in 2006. It operates in 66 countries, aggregates vacancies from 140,000+ sources daily, and employs 330+ people. The company drives targeted traffic to client job postings while keeping its platform free for job seekers. Jooble has launched mobile apps on iOS and Android, acquired the job aggregator Hotwork in 2020, and partnered with LinkedIn and Google. It also invests in startups, such as Indonesia’s JayJay, and has launched initiatives like Give a Job for UA to support Ukrainian refugees.

You’ll hear practical strategies for how to find consulting clients, marketing for HR consultants, and using AI in consulting. Whether you identify as HR, workplace, L&D, OD, recruitment, or people & culture, you’ll discover real stories and actionable advice to attract clients, win contracts, and grow sustainably.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How global labor market data uncovers new opportunities to attract consulting clients
• Why HR consultants must move beyond basic traffic metrics and use analytics to improve client acquisition
• Yevhen Onatsko’s advice for standing out and winning international business using credibility, relevant content, and partnership strategies

• Jooble website: www.jooble.org
• Yevhen’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yevhen-onatsko

Scroll down for the video version and the transcript.

Ok, onto the show!

Interview – Growing An International Job Search Engine – with Yevhen Onatsko from Jooble

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About The ‘A Better HR Business’ Podcast

In my HR marketing podcast, I talk with different HR consultants and HR tech companies from around the world to learn about what they do and how they keep their businesses healthy and moving in the right direction.

If you have questions you want to ask me about growing an HR consultancy or marketing for HR tech companies, just let me know or visit the HR marketing services page.

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Enjoy the show!

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Episode Transcript

Episode 305: Growing An International Job Search Engine – with Yevhen Onatsko from Jooble

Ben Geoghegan [00:00:05]:
Hello, welcome back to the show. Great to have you along. And I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation with a fantastic guy, Yevhen Onatsko. Yevhen is the Country Manager US for a fantastic company called Jooble. And Jooble is a leading international job search engine used by millions of people in 66 countries, I believe, and they help clients to reduce their time to hire by driving targeted traffic to their job postings or their clients’ vacancies. And on the flip side of that, for the job seekers, they simplify the hunt by consolidating millions of listings from thousands of job boards, corporate sites, and other sources into a single easy-to-use platform. Very cool and I’ve got some interesting numbers and stuff, but firstly, Yevhen, thank you very much for joining me today.

Yevhen Onatsko [00:00:54]:
Yeah. Hi, hi, Ben. So thank you for having me. So that’s great opportunity to talk and share those. So that’s, that’s a great opportunity. Thank you.

Ben Geoghegan [00:01:03]:
Thank you. And, um, obviously super difficult times for Jooble, a Ukrainian company. Personally, I was in Kyiv many years ago, wonderful place, possibly the strongest vodka I’ve ever drunk in my life. I will say that. So just be careful if you ever visit Ukraine, people. But yeah, do you want to just give us a quick snapshot of Jooble itself? You know, I gave an overview, but tell us a bit about what the business does and then we can get into the rest of it.

Yevhen Onatsko [00:01:36]:
Yeah, sure. With pleasure. So actually Jooble operating now, as you mentioned, in 66 countries. So main office in Kyiv and especially now that’s really important to keep strong actually and operating and still have new opportunity to expansion in different countries. And especially we have a few focus countries. We have a really strong position in Europe, in Germany, in Poland, in France. And now I’m working with US market. Because we definitely see the great potential.

We already have a lot of customers there, but we want to grow. We want to be a trusted platform and a trusted partner for many, many more customers, and help them reach their goals together with us. So actually, Jooble is an aggregator, but not a classic one. Because we are able to work with different types of customers and we are super flexible. And actually, our expertise, which helps us in different countries, allows us to see how we can operate in different markets with different cultures, different operating systems, and different models. Actually, that’s our strong side, which we’re using with pleasure. And actually, that’s the case for Jooble, and we really, really want that Jooble will be a good partner for new customers.

Ben Geoghegan [00:03:31]:
Yeah, I’d love to dive into that in a second. For people who don’t quite know how a job aggregator works, what does that mean? What is a job search aggregator?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:03:39]:
Actually, we aggregate vacancies from thousands of sources globally, which gives candidates a much broader and faster way to search the market. But from the employer side, I’d say your role today goes beyond just visibility. Actually, we help connect people who have job vacancies with job seekers who are searching for work in different countries, states, and across different levels of expertise and experience. And we try to make this process super simple, so that in just a few clicks you can find your dream job.

Ben Geoghegan [00:04:33]:
Got it. So in the financial world, there are lots of aggregators. So if someone is looking for a mortgage, they might go to an aggregator website and that will show them all the interest rates and offers from different banks and stuff. Or for a credit card, it’ll put all the different offers on one page. So that’s what an aggregator is on the job search side. It’s taking all the job search websites out there, pulling them together into one place so that a person can find them easily. Is that right?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:05:03]:
Yes, that’s right.

Ben Geoghegan [00:05:05]:
Perfect. And I know you come from the ad tech world, so you have some really interesting ideas, experience, and plans on the data-driven marketing side and ways of monetizing data for job portals and stuff. Do you want to talk us through that a little bit?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:05:25]:
Sure. Actually, this is about data, because data now brings a lot of information, but sometimes we use it only for reporting or basic insights. But now we can use data in a different way—a way that brings much more value.
And I think one of the biggest shifts happening right now is that full market search data is no longer just something you use operationally—for traffic acquisition, inventory balancing, or campaign optimization. It’s increasingly becoming a monetization layer by itself.

If you look at how job platforms worked historically, the model was pretty straightforward: attract traffic, aggregate vacancies, generate clicks, and monetize employer demand through sponsored placements or CPC products, for example. That was the traditional approach.

For a long time, scale was the main competitive advantage—the more traffic you had, the stronger your positioning. But the market has become much more complex now. And I’m not surprising you if I mention AI and digitalization and so on.

Today, employers operate in a much less stable environment. Talent shortages are uneven, salary sensitivity changes by category, candidate behavior shifts fast, and often traditional traffic metrics no longer explain why hiring succeeds in one case and fails in another.

And actually, that’s exactly where full market search data becomes strategically valuable. Because once you see search behavior across the full labor market, you stop looking only at traffic volume. You start seeing market tension.
That’s what we need to focus on. You can identify where demand is overheating, where candidate supply is thin, where acquisition costs are rising because of competition, and even where vacancies are underperforming before the client fully understands why.

So we don’t just have numbers—we have explanations. Why some vacancies are not performing well, why there are no clicks, why there are no candidates.
And that creates a very different monetization opportunity. Instead of monetizing exposure, you start monetizing intelligence.

Can I give one example? Just to clarify. If, for example, healthcare roles in one market generate very strong search demand, but response remains weak, that usually means the issue isn’t visibility—it’s a market mismatch.

So maybe compensation is below the market in the job description. Maybe the vacancy wording reduces the conversion rate. Maybe the timing is wrong, or maybe sourcing should shift toward different channels.

And in this situation, selling more clicks or just bringing more volume is actually the least efficient answer. The higher-value answer is helping the client understand what exactly is blocking performance.

Ben Geoghegan [00:09:47]:
How do they know though? How do they know what those blocking issues are?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:09:56]:
The answer is data. So there is strong analytics that show us at what time, in which part of the world, people are searching for this job, how we can perform better, what people are actually looking for in a job description—what they need to know about the job, shifts, wage or salary, timing, or types of employment.
So whether it’s part-time, full-time, or something else. And actually, this search data helps us understand that.

And for Jooble, this matters a lot, because our scale gives us very broad market signals. We operate across multiple countries, different verticals, and very different labor market conditions. That means we can see patterns that are hard to detect from a single market alone.

For example, candidate behavior in logistics may shift earlier in one region than another. And salary sensitivity may trigger different responses depending on the market maturity. Actually, there are many, many “red flags” and “green flags” that we can use to make decisions.

Ben Geoghegan [00:11:26]:
Actually at a very basic level, a simple example would be the whole return-to-office versus hybrid work trend. You would probably see data trends around whether jobs are advertised as hybrid versus in-office, and then see a decrease or increase in applications, and maybe even further data sets.

If certain cities are going all-in on return to work, and then there’s an increase or weakening in applications, you can feed that through to other locations. That’s an example—is that correct?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:12:00]:
Yes, that’s correct. It’s really important to see trends and understand how the market is moving—what’s actually happening. Because if we see what’s happening in the US, for example, we can check and understand, okay, maybe there is a need for more drivers in logistics in Texas or somewhere else.
If, for example, a few big logistics companies open in one state and close in another, we understand that companies will need to find more people in certain areas. And that’s why these are also signals that employers can use to understand the market and find the best way to reach suitable candidates.

Ben Geoghegan [00:12:56]:
I’m just thinking that the marketing team at Jooble could probably use some of that data for content marketing, couldn’t they? They could create little infographics or who knows what—talking about how a particular job has gone up or down, or is weakening due to salary, compensation, or healthcare requirements, whatever it may be.

So that could be an interesting avenue to promote the business.
Speaking of promoting or marketing, Jooble has grown so quickly. I mean, it quickly became a leading player in Ukraine and then expanded to other countries. So can you talk us through what accounted for the early growth of Jooble and now what marketing methods you’re using to expand internationally?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:13:46]:
That’s a good question—thank you. Historically, Jooble has been operating for more than 19 years.

Ben Geoghegan [00:13:56]:
So it’s not a baby.

Yevhen Onatsko [00:13:57]:
Not a baby. It started with just two people, and now we have close to 400 people around the world.

Actually, it started from the idea of being something like Google, but in the HR space. That’s why the name Jooble sounds a bit like Google.

The main idea from the CEO and founders was to build a great platform that helps people find jobs easily—not to make the process complicated.
In today’s fast-paced world, people want to take their phones, open an app, and in just a couple of clicks find their dream job. Or for students who want part-time or hourly-paid jobs, they can search by location, state, or radius (in kilometers or miles) and find something very quickly.

Ben Geoghegan [00:15:25]:
That probably helps from an SEO perspective too, right? From a marketing perspective—ranking for keywords and things. I believe Jooble has done very well historically.

I don’t know how it’s going now because AI is changing the game a bit, with people using tools like ChatGPT instead of going directly to Google. But for many years, Jooble ranked for a lot of keywords—by job title, location, maybe city as well. Was that one of the key growth drivers?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:15:57]:
Yeah, for sure. Keywords have been important, and competition is very strong in the HR tech space. It pushes us to be faster, stronger, and to use all of our opportunities.

You mentioned ChatGPT and LLMs—we don’t see them as competitors. They are more like helpers. AI can do things faster than humans, although we still need to control it because LLMs can hallucinate or generate misleading information.

At Jooble, we use LLMs and build our own agents—for example, to detect duplicate vacancies or clicks, and to identify bot traffic. This is especially important in the US market, where there is a lot of bot traffic and duplication, which can create problems for customers.

But we solve these issues quickly because we have a strong team supported by AI. So overall, AI is more of a helper than a competitor.

Also, when people use ChatGPT to search for jobs, it often suggests platforms like Jooble and others—so again, it supports discovery.

Ben Geoghegan [00:17:52]:
Optimized for AI results. And you mentioned the US—it’s a tough nut to crack. A very competitive market. You already have users and customers across 66 countries, with something like 300,000 new jobs added daily and up to a million daily searches on the platform. So it’s already big. But what are your marketing and growth plans specifically for the US?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:18:28]:
As I mentioned before, our main focus in the US is to broaden supply—not just be a job board.

We are expanding performance-based partnerships, including strategic and vertical-specific aggregators. We want to deliver the same or even greater value than we already provide in Europe.

We know we can do this—we have a strong team, strong expertise, and a solid position in the European market. So expanding into the US is a logical next step.
Yes, the US is very different—especially in terms of competition, market size, and number of players. But it’s also very exciting and full of opportunities for growth.

Ben Geoghegan [00:20:07]:
Some people listening to this will be from other HR tech companies—maybe in diversity, inclusion, L&D, HR—and some will be outside the US looking to expand there.

It was interesting to hear you talk about different job sites and job boards across the US. From a practical business development perspective, for those companies looking to expand—what does that actually look like?
Is it as simple as making a list of job boards, identifying key people—CEO, marketing, etc.—and reaching out? What’s the actual step-by-step process they could apply in their own sector?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:20:59]:
Actually, on one side it’s quite simple, because everyone in this field understands what job boards are, what CPA and programmatic are, and what aggregators are. So we try to find the right people, connect with them, and explain how Jooble can help them scale and grow.

So in that sense, the strategy is quite straightforward. Right now, especially in the US market, we’re focusing on four ICPs—four main types of customers.
These are: marketing agencies, aggregators, programmatic platforms, job boards, and recruitment agencies. So actually, four core customer types that we’re focusing on.

In Europe, we already work with a broader range of customer types, but in the US, we’ve been focusing on this market for less than 12 months. So right now, we’re building the foundation and concentrating on these four segments.

Ben Geoghegan [00:22:29]:
And I know I’m being very granular here, but do you just set up a spreadsheet? Do you use something like Apollo to download leads and automate outreach? What does it look like in practice? Because there are so many potential targets—you can’t do everything. And if you’re taking meetings all day, you can’t scale that either. So I’m curious about the actual process.

Yevhen Onatsko [00:22:48]:
Yeah, the process—on one side it’s simple, but on the other, it’s quite complex.
We use different channels. For example, LinkedIn is a key one. Also events—especially when you attend industry events, you can meet potential partners in person, which is very valuable.

We’re also members of the TAtech Association, which is a strong HR tech community. There you have opportunities like a deal center, where you can connect with potential partners and explore collaborations.

In addition, we have a team of business development managers who actively search for the right people—those who fit our ICP. They reach out via email, calls, and direct communication to build partnerships.

And another important channel is the community itself. The HR tech space has a strong network—if you deliver good results and help companies succeed, they will recommend you to others. That becomes a powerful growth driver.
Jooble is already a well-known company in Europe. In the US, people are starting to recognize us, but sometimes they think we’re a new player. In reality, we have over 19 years of experience.

Ben Geoghegan [00:24:55]:
It’s already driving a car.

Yevhen Onatsko [00:24:57]:
Exactly. So yes—recommendations, business development, cold calling, emailing—that’s the mix. I think it’s quite similar to how many companies operate.

Ben Geoghegan [00:25:14]:
Yeah, and the reason I wanted to ask is because I know some companies in the HR space rely too much on inbound—thinking that if they post on LinkedIn or attend a few networking events, business will just come to them.
But what you’ve described is more proactive. You need real business development—actively identifying companies, reaching out via email, phone, and so on.

Secondly, partnerships—through things like the TAtech Association, working with other companies to expand together. And then, yes, content and marketing to support that and grow your network further.

So for people listening to this—what is the ideal customer? If they think, “Oh, I wonder if I can refer some business to Jooble,” who would that be? What does an ideal customer look like?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:26:11]:
The ideal customer types are aggregators, job boards, and media agencies that work with clients who are trying to hire people. So actually, there are three main groups: programmatic platforms, aggregators, and job boards.

Ben Geoghegan [00:26:35]:
Finally, I just wanted to ask—you’ve done so much, the business is growing, and you’re doing a fantastic job. What specific marketing or sales development advice would you give to others—either growing a consultancy or an early-stage HR tech company trying to expand? What advice would you have?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:26:58]:
Yeah, there are many things, but I’d say in HR, credibility matters more than aggressive visibility. HR buyers are usually careful, and they don’t respond well to noise—they respond to relevance.

So marketing needs to do more than explain features. It has to explain why your solution improves something that is already painful for them. For example: faster hiring, better sourcing efficiency, lower uncertainty—this kind of language usually works much better than product-heavy messaging.

I also think education is underrated in HR marketing. If your content helps clients understand the hiring problem more clearly, you’ve already built trust before the sales conversation even starts. And in this category, trust compounds over time. In HR, people usually buy confidence before they buy a product.
So my recommendation is to focus on clear, honest communication—really explain how you can help and bring that transparency to your potential customers.

Ben Geoghegan [00:28:36]:
That’s an excellent summary—really good advice. Definitely. Thank you.
Now, Yevhen, if people want to learn more about Jooble, maybe become a customer, refer business, or just learn more—what should they do next?

Yevhen Onatsko [00:28:50]:
You can visit our website, www.jooble.org, and find all the information there.
You can also find me on LinkedIn—just search for Yevhen Onatsko, Country Manager US. Please feel free to contact me, and I’m sure we can have a great conversation and discuss how we can help each other.

Ben Geoghegan [00:29:19]:
Definitely. If you’re listening on the go, we’ll include links to Jooble’s website and to Yevhen’s LinkedIn so you can connect and start a conversation. Yevhen, thank you very much. It’s exciting to see what you’ve built and how it’s grown. It’s no longer a baby—it’s driving a car now and looking very confident. The future’s bright—so congratulations on everything, and thanks for sharing your advice and insights today. I really appreciate it.

Yevhen Onatsko [00:29:47]:
Thank you, Ben. That was a great time.

Topics covered: how to find consulting clients, marketing for HR consultants, using AI in consulting, data-driven insights, HR consultants, attract HR consulting clients

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