I too followed the big birth of this really cool new recruiting tool and got a couple calls from a sales rep who wanted to book a demo and then … I think I asked her a question that was outside-the-box - I wanted to apply Jobster to a consulting gig that I was working on at that time.

It was Sourcing an initial talent pipeline of tech people that ranged in need and could be skilled from A to Z as far as type of tech people we wanted to attract… this non profit org actually is the largest association that serves over 475 tech companies in the state of AZ which yeah sounds like a recruiting -oh so yummy - opportunity but position turned into a huge non user friendly mode for new leads but, aahhhhhhhhhh - NO.

This non profit decides to create a talent and career online resource [job posting site] for the exclusive use of the 475 member companies using some “great technology” that rated and ranked talent by subjective skills profiling - which didn’t do it’s magic quite as it was pitched - but the AMAZING THING to my whole rant here was the non -profit org launching a career portal was like… “build it and they will come” sort of deal and the technology company thought installing their cool technology and sending out mass emails to ??? who knows where but we should be SOURCING” online and finding those great email databases that we pull from [oh sure off the net for free] some central place that basically said come hey you come here and register on this site - and POOF -> people would just go subject themeselves to a profiling that reminded me of when I signed up for a online dating service. {didn’t find my match on that site either come to think of it now} Okay rapping this story which has way gone to a vent session here almost-

I managed to get 1600 people profiled and into their initial online talent resource database by the launch of the site so that the posting companies had something to play with once they started getting charged for the postings… and it was alot of NO - and not from the magical email blasting type sourcing strategys the VP of the technology software company that kept wishing that it was “SOURCING” on a autopilot mode. No it was talking to the community - engaging in relationships and finding candidiate resources that could constantly refresh this never happy hungry for more people online service I had just been a part of creating …okay okay -> I found my way back to my intial point and it being …. I had thru the process of sourcing the cadidates realized oh lordie - we need some active content to this new service and wouldn’t it be cool to somehow merge the NEWEST KID on the block here JOBSTER with my association which was not going to fare well once my sourcing contract was up because they had no man power or resources to set up to manage this great idea once it came to life. JOBSTER I had hoped was going to be able to provide me with the needed grand changing of the guards once I wrapped up my days on the project end of May… I could never get Jobster to provide me with any concrete OH MY GAWD YES YES I GET IT type of material that I could pitch to this association that served from the start up to the big I—- inside chip making companys , 475 active companies that I had no idea how to spin JOBSTER too- I did have the offer to go thru the demo - but heck that never happened and so YUP ME TOO - I am all excited for you JOBSTER but I can’t figure out a way to use you -I am even as so bold to say hey I wanted to pimp myself someway and somehow as I am searching for that next recruiting challenge and opportunity now for myself here and I couldn’t post my resume and contact info to Jobster without being invited. I pretty much deflated from the JOBSTER curious cat killing excitement I had to find out more about you because dang - it just wasn’t that into me I guess …. so - hmmmmm !!! I hear they are doing well and have yes branded themsevles well also, but hey I can’t use ya- On a sidenot …since that blogger was all about passive people and finding them, have you heard of /JIGSAW …. oh yikes it’s wild - you can buy and sell contacts with other recruiters and they have formed a solid network of contacts that - wait it gets better …. gets maintained by the recruiting professional themselves. YOU can pimp off your entire database of contacts and get play trading dollars for good contacts that you can turn around and use to buy contacts from others… blah blah go check it out - seems fun to me and I know how to use it!!!!

P.s. I used work zoo in my own career search and I wasn’t excited with the leads it tossed back - since I am a recruiting looking for recruiting positions it gave me a bunch of unrelated leads all the time because recruiter was the contact info on alot of the postings… I alot of unrelated cybercoder postings is all I got with that service so it has some fine tuning needed or maybe it is I that should be doing the fine tuning.

Brenda DePas
480-232-2537
brendadepas@msn.com

http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2005/07/linkedin_gets_m.html

So, regarding the “no cost” thing — I’m not sure how much longer that’s going to last. Seems to me (though still dimly, I admit) that LinkedIn might morph into another type of jobsite.

BTW, Charlene has another slick piece of analysis on the future of classifieds here:

http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2005/07/hotjobs_crawls_.html

Be sure to check out Dave McClure’s (of Simply Hired) comments at the end.