Cheezhead Recruiting News and Opinion

Ya’ gotta like a CEO who uses the word “Neanderthals” in an interview …

In light of some recent updates at Jobfox, I thought it would be a good idea to check-in with Jobfox CEO Rob McGovern for the skinny. Most interesting, resume tracking via your mobile device has received some criticism from the recruiting and job board communities. One recruiter I know said it was the most out of touch thing he’d seen in 10 years.

So what’s the dealio?

1. Give us a brief explanation of the new features.

Candidates and employers view Jobfox as a matching marketplace, referring to us as “the e-Harmony of jobs.” With this announcement we’re extending Jobfox to further cement our positioning as the place for passive seekers. Now, candidates can create a Jobfox page, with their own URL, which showcases their skills, experiences and strengths to employers. (Here’s a link to mine: www.jobfox.com/people/rmcgovern).

Additionally, we give them a trackable version of their resumes, which tells them who is looking at them, regardless of whether they submitted their resume at a major job board or directly to an employer. Lastly, we’ve added even more text message and IM features, allowing instant communications between employers and candidates.

For more on the new features, checkout the press release.

2. Why should employers care?

Because the national job boards have lost their way (that’s coming from the guy who founded CareerBuilder). When I meet with customers they all say the same thing: the legacy job boards deliver lousy results and they’re getting worse all the time. When an employer creates a match specification on Jobfox and instantly sees a precise list of candidate matches, that’s when the light bulb goes on for them. Instant results, no more poor quality resumes and 82 percent of the Jobfox candidates are presently employed.

3. Why the focus on mobile and what exactly does a job seeker see on their mobile device when a recruiter looks at their resume?

We conceived Jobfox as an entirely new type of marketplace. Along the way we realized the candidate/employer communications paths are part of the fundamental problem. The old model was just too asynchronous: Send out resumes, then wait. Contact candidates, then wait. Play telephone tag, then lose the candidate.

It’s a wonder anything gets done! Instead, we’ve made extensive use of SMS text and IM to provide the job seeker with status messages and allow for instant communications between job seekers and employers. Today’s young professional just doesn’t “get” the fascination with e-mail. Neither do we.

4. What do you say to the critics who believe enabling job seekers to see who’s viewing their resume as their viewing it will have recruiters running for the hills?

Every once in a while we come across an employer who believes that candidates don’t deserve to know what’s happening to them. Imagine, the most valuable entity in the recruitment process, the candidate (!), is being treated like a piece of meat.

Ninety-nine percent of the time we convince this type of employer that the best passive candidates come to Jobfox because we put them in control. In fact, 81 percent of our candidates report that they aren’t using any other job site but Jobfox. That’s not by accident! And then there’s the 1 percent of Neanderthal employers … where we walk away from the business.

5. What would you say to a job board considering blocking resumes with Jobfox tracking code on it for fear their customers might be unhappy?

I’d start by welcoming them to the Neanderthals, then wish them well as we pass by them in the traffic rankings. And then, of course, I’d actively tell my job seekers to go around the archaic job board and apply directly to the company. This whole topic is really about something Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads calls “candidate care.” In a world of permanent low unemployment, fueled by Baby Boomers retiring at accelerating rates, we’re long past the day when we can treat candidates without basic human dignities like: “I’ve read your resume.”

6. What markets are you now open for business?

We Beta-tested Jobfox in four major metros: Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Silicon Valley and Boston. Jobfox had over 500,000 people participate in the Beta. With this announcement we’re now serving the entire country. We’re adding sales offices and sales reps as fast as we can (fortunately we’re not dependent on the inept job boards to drive this growth).

* For more, I recommend checking out today’s Total Picture Radio.

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