News of another job aggregator in the U.K. wouldn’t normally attract much attention but when its founders are Doug Monro, ex COO of Zoopla and Andrew Hunter, one-time Head of Marketing at Gumtree then the industry takes note.

Certainly it has been enough to open the eyes and wallets of investors with Passion Capital already providing £300,000 for the startup, called Adzuna. Munro and Hunter both met at Gumtree and have come together to challenge the established job players by combining existing listings with social elements – users can connect through Facebook and LinkedIn and see vacancies at companies where they already have connections.

On the face of it the idea is good, if not unique but where Adzuna may have stolen a march on other social-network approaches is that rather than leaning solely on referrals and friends they are adding that dimension to existing markets. That, Munro claims, means they are broader than the niche appeal of social sites such as Top Prospect.

The fact that Adzuna launches with 300,000 listings backs up that argument but there will doubtless be those in the business who accuse aggregators like Adzuna of piggy-backing on other sites’ listings since Adzuna data is a mix of dedicated feeds and the results of spidering other sites.
Munro’s reply is that “we drive traffic to their listings — we’re an alternative to Google. We’re not misappropriating any data.”

Asserting your moral credentials by comparison with Google is a questionable strategy but there’s no doubt that Adzuna is worth keeping an eye on and having launched against the big players it is almost certain that Munro has plans for expansion both in terms of internationally and across other sectors.

One to follow.