Dice

Site's statement

Jobboard Finder’s opinion

Summary: On paper, DICE (Data-processing Independent Consultant's Exchange) has been around for over 20 years, but the specialist (or niche) job board has seen many changes in management. Currently a DHI Group Inc. (delivering hirer insights) service, Dice is affected by the changes made by the former. A household name is the world of tech recruiting, the brand remains a very popular in the US. Not only that, over 20% of the website’s activity comes from overseas which means that places like India and the UK also think it’s worth keeping an eye on the job offers and tech updates posted on Dice.

Design: While the design looks straight forward, it can actually be quite confusing. Some links lead to pages that don’t exist anymore (“Work at Dice” or “request a demo” for example), others lead to the news and blog section which appears to be completely separate from the dice.com job board (it’s updated regularly, but the topics are too wide-ranging) and others focus on the amazing software from Dice which refers first and foremost to OpenWeb (software they created over 3 years ago).

The job board objective: The idea was to connect the best tech talent with the best tech companies. However, though that remains the official objective, the numerous changes in management make it a bit difficult to have one clear focus. Dice is an affiliation of DHI which owns many companies with varying goals and became more than just a job board when EarthWeb bought it in the early 2000s.

Recruiter observations: There is no e-mail address for Dice. Even the DHI website only offers a postal address and a phone number for the various headquarters. Even if you do find an e-mail address or form to fill out, it’s difficult to know who exactly will be receiving your message. Once the UK and Germany Dice pages are out of the way, it won’t be so confusing. There are many loyal brands that use Dice (Dell, Cisco, Deloitte, Apple, etc.), which is a big reason for its success.

Jobseeker observations: Be careful about where you create your account: the one you make for the UK will not be valid for the US and vice versa. Dice US has new offers posted on the job board every few minutes, so if you keep an eye on the activity, you can apply to a number of positions. Not just anyone can use Dice to look for work: you need to have a pretty complete tech background first.

The job offers: The jobs available on the website are only in fields which use a lot of new technology: data engineers, Android developers, technical leads, etc. They have very specific job titles, and the list of skills refer to programs most of us have never heard of. Unfortunately, the offers range from vague lists of skills to dreadfully long pages of repetitive information concerning one job offer. There isn’t enough structure. There are currently 70 772 job offers on Dice US, 3 558 on Dice UK and 3 294 offers on Dice Germany (which isn’t a secure webpage).

Reactivity: The automatic e-mail is a nice touch but we’re still waiting for a real response.

Special features: A page dedicated to the company overview for those posting jobs on Dice; the trending skills (to add to one’s profile); the news and blog section; popular searches; “report a poor listing”; rating job offers.

Verdict: It feels like Dice might have bitten off more than it could chew. On Glassdoor, the overwhelming opinion from those who are or have been on the inside, is  that DHI (and Dice) is a failing company with an 8% decline in its revenue this year alone: “In the few months I was there, they had extremely high turnover […] DICE is a dying company, and it comes through in their culture.”, “The way we build technology is a total disaster.”, “The product isn't competitive and customers are aware of that - Dice isn't even part of the conversation for most modern tech recruiters”, “Out of touch senior management, deplorable HR”, etc. They also highlight the poor management and the lack of loyalty. It’s disconcerting to know that Dice is closing its UK and German job board pages without so much as a goodbye to its users. I guess that confirms the “poor communication” skills within the company. When a ship is sinking, it’s probably not a good idea to get onboard.

Written by Ali Neill

As the job board tester and blog editor for the Jobboard Finder, Ali works on job boards from all around the world and keeps a close eye on the recruitment trends thanks to a number of sources, including the website's social media pages.