By DAYANTI KARUNARATNE

Two local guys (with great jobs of their own at Shopify) have developed a sophisticated — and affordable — new website for job hunters. Hired Ottawa is catered to modern job hunters and seekers, who know they shouldn’t pay a bundle to survey the scene and understand that the search for a job is not what it used to be.

Dylan Hunt

When I first checked out the site developed by Dylan Hunt and Nick Evans, I was taken aback by the fee structure.

On the plus side, it’s free: free for those looking for jobs, free for those looking for employees. (Did you know sites like Monster often charge over $600 per job posting? In chatting with Dylan, I learned that this has lead companies to use a type of “bait and switch” approach to Monster et al.)

Then I noticed the monthly and annual fees. Is the Canadian job market so bad that people are expecting to be on the hunt for a year?

No, says Dylan. The fact is, people are — or should be — tracking companies and industries that speak to their interests and careers paths. Companies, too, ought to sign up for their premium membership, which includes daily emails of jobs that match their keyword searches. So, for example, if I wanted to keep track of who is hiring journalists in the city (please don’t lure my cherished freelancers into stable day jobs!!), I would sign up for their premium package. This can also give employers insight into who is paying what and other key market info.

Here’s how it works:

Ottawa companies submit links to their job boards (did I mention, for free?). Job hunters visit the board and apply. It’s just that simple — instead of searching numerous job boards across the city, Hired brings them into one central site.

Pay a little extra — $8 per month, or $48 per year — to get jobs with your chosen key words sent to you by email. This extra fee also goes to direct online support, should there be a broken link or something.

Hired Ottawa is also available as an app

(Being techies, they have a system for flagging jobs that might have been filled. Being sensible entrepreneurs with full time day jobs, they aren’t promising every link leads to an open job, as they are but the middle men.)

Of course, it’s only as strong as its members, which is one of the reasons I decided to write this post. Unemployment sucks. I have a job I love. And, it turns out, that was the same thing that motivated Dylan and Nick.

When I asked Dylan why he chose to develop this website/app, he said simply: “To help job hunters and our friends.”

He also noted a recent influx of retail jobs from companies like Home Depot and Terra20 — jobs perfect for those suddenly unemployed Target employees.