Newcomers like Climber, itzbig and Jobfox are in for some new competition this week. Trovix, better known for its applicant tracking solution, is set to launch a job site this week. Its homepage currently shows a screenshot of what it’ll look like. However, a recent demo of the new offering includes the following highlights:
1. The resume / profile posting process promises to be much quicker and easier. Trovix believes the current crop of matching job sites expect too much investment from the end user.
2. The job seeker experience will include spidered content from the Web, a la vertical job search engine. The spidering technology is their own. Currently, Climber plugs in content from Indeed to supplement their own. This tactic allows the site to go big out of the gate, instead of growing virally, balancing postings with job seekers, usually metro-by-metro. Jobfox and itzbig, in contrast, rely on employers filling out a profile for each job.
Revenue is made by highlighting featured jobs (see Salesforce.com listing). Pricing is TBD.
3. The matching takes place in what can be called an artificial intelligence or AI environment. Technology looks at both the content of the job description and the resume to match each together. This is where the MIT degrees come in.
Additionally, employers cannot access the resume database as they do traditional job boards. The reason is believing this level of privacy will appeal to the elusive passive job seeker and keep Monster-style phishing scams at bay.
A legitimate criticism of Trovix’ competitors is whether or not users will take the time to fill out a profile. This solution solves this problem, at least on paper. If this works like they say it does, we have a buzzworthy product on our hands.
Now they just need traffic. When asked what they’re going to do from a marketing perspective, the crew at Trovix weren’t very specific, but they did hint that they were prepared to drop a lot of coin, particularly in January when the New Year’s Resolutions to find a new job kick-in.
Popularity: 7% [?]
September 24th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Pretty interesting. The fact that they are simplifying the sign up process is great, unlike other “e-harmony for jobs” sites, where it can take up to an hour to completely fill out the sign up process. Someone night have finally “got it”. Hopefully the AI is strong enough to produce good matches of jobs and candidates.
September 25th, 2007 at 10:49 am
itzbig does not require a lengthy sign up process. In fact, itzbig uses a progressive profiling approach with real-time results. Thus, a user can enter nothing more than their desired position and location and instantly start to see matching results that are scored and ranked. Then if, or as, a user enters more info about their skills and experiences, the results continually change/update to reflect the best matches. The itzbig approach even allows people to set up multiple profiles, each fine-tuned to a particular objective (e.g. next logical career step; ultimate dream job; fall back Plan B; etc).
Jim McGovern
(fyi and full disclosure: I work for itzbig)
September 28th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Joel–
“Now they just need traffic.”
Classic chicken and the egg scenario. If you were Trovix how would you get that elusive “passive” candidate to join another temporary network? I am curious.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I don’t see it as a classic scenario. They have the job content via aggregation. It’s a luxury many boards don’t have. To attract audiences of all kinds - passive and active - I’d focus on creating a wide variety of content and encourage user participation of some form.
September 29th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Agreed that the aggregated content attracts consumers (active, passive, whatever) but I believe that attracting a quality “membership” is much harder now than in the past. My assumption is based on the pure # of options available to consumers today. The bigger challenge to solve is building a more engaged community versus a temporary community. That is why Jobfox and others are touting “personal branding” and “messaging” functionality; which is potentially a step in the right direction. Anyway, thanks for the reply.
October 31st, 2007 at 9:53 pm
So as I am new to the recruiting industry. I am curious what some of you who have more experience think this will do to our efforts.