Jeff Hunter, CEO of VisualCV, had a lot to say after reading Joel Cheesman’s initial review of Monster’s much-hyped relaunch.
He contacted us with these thoughts: “While we applaud the fact that Monster is trying to improve the job seeker experience, they’ve missed the point that the traditional resume is the broken tool in this equation, and it needs updating. They have thought a lot about career path tools and analysis at the expense of improving the way people can improve how they represent themselves and their achievements through an improved resume.”
I thought this insight warranted a further exploration of VisualCV’s position in this temperamental Web 2.0 world.
For those of you unfamiliar with the site, here’s a quick summation: VisualCV gives your traditional resume a digital makeover. It takes a plain CV and transforms it into a dynamic representation of the applicant that includes photos, audio, and social networking widgets (check out Guy Kawaski’s VisualCV for an excellent example).
I asked Hunter how VisualCV will continue to position themselves as the recruiting industry evolves.
“We see VisualCV.com right at the heart of recruiting’s evolution based on the response we’ve had to date from industry visionaries like Kevin Kelly over at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles who decided to invest at launch,” he said. “Heidrick is also building its own private label version of our platform where it can invite senior executives to network with its consultants. In Australia, Hunter Executive has reconfigured its entire business around our platform, requiring every candidate to have a VisualCV. Reactions like these make us think we’ve hit on something that all levels of recruiters are going to continue to embrace because it helps them help their candidates stand out, and it also makes for much more effective talent management when the candidate uses their VisualCV as a career bio that they keep updated.”
In essence, Hunter said he believes his company represents the best elements of social networking, but with the controls and professionalism that so much of that activity currently lacks.
But with new products surfacing every day on the market that challenge established industry leaders, how can one remain so confident? Hunter said because of the quality of people on his advisory board (including Marcel Legrand, formerly of Monster, and Guy Kawasaki) who played integral parts in shaping the social media agenda, he is confident that VisualCV will remain cutting-edge.
“We have a board that pushes and challenges us to keep improving the user experience and evolving the strategy in response to what’s going on around us to stay fresh and relevant,” he said. “With growing participation and numbers we also get user feedback and community participation which is ultimately the best research as to whether we are hitting the mark.”
Based on Hunter’s criticism of Monster’s relaunch, I asked how he thinks job boards might improve to address a burgeoning disenchantment from both companies and job seekers.
“The job boards were born in the second phase of the Internet when people looked at how you could do something more efficiently by putting it online, much like we did with FX Trade when I scaled that foreign exchange business in the financial services sector,” Hunter said. “I think the job boards have been victims of their own success to a large degree. Because they have generated revenue in the good times, they haven’t bothered too much about the user experience.
“But now they need to wake up to the fact that there are alternatives, and they have to raise their game and really think again about how technology can help make things faster and easier. That got lost in the volume and now people are quite rightly demanding a more expert service.”
Popularity: 9% [?]
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Monster missed the point of why the CEO of VisualCV thinks HIS company is important. Are you kidding?
Can we stick to some type of journalism and not just ads for sites? I’d like to propose a headline for my response to “VisualCV: Monster missed the point”
Everyone else: VisualCV not relevant.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
*YAWN* I’m sorry, did you say something?
I guess one shouldn’t be so flip about Jeff Hunter and VisualCV. Their success to date catering to exec search firms only underscores the niche application of the VisualCV offering, at least in its current iteration, but I see this company getting subsumed by a tsunami of better executed and more broadly marketable offerings. It also seems that much more deeply pocketed players can best them at this game fairly easily; how is VisCV fundamentally different from LinkedIn or even FaceBook in what meaningful way? What makes them think those guys won’t get there quicker and better if your platform shows traction? Monster succeeds because of many things (operating capital, massive marketing spend, global reach) but most of all because their platform is efficient and broadly applicable to all levels of the workforce and all matter of clients. It scales easily, and if they wanted to go after the Evangelist/VC/iBanker market…well I think they’d be able to pretty easily. Maybe it’s not exactly…profitable?
Monster bashers forget that Monster is not a niche play. It’s a hegemony in motion. I’ve found SVPs on there and clerks, but only one of these will ever use VisualCV, and that’s a longshot. Can you imagine Joe the Long Haul Trucker using VisualCV? Ever? But he’ll use Monster, and many companies will pay to find him there. The same is true for accountants, marketing, sales, retail, allied health and all the others that simply wouldn’t ever use the word “CV.” Monster is a strong tool that works and I think most of what they’ve done will serve their corporate and seeker markets well, though it’s probably more incrementalist an improvement than it is the game-changer they’d hope (and hyped) it to be.
And Marcel should be ashamed of himself. This has “Kawasaki vanity project” and written all over it…
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Jeez.. How much is VisualCV paying for the space on Cheezhead? Yes, the new Monster site has all sorts of problems, but its a heck of a lot better than it used to be. They didn’t hit it out of the park, but more like got to second base. Better than a strike out. Regarding video resumes, I wish the few proponents of them would STOP trying to convince the rest of us that they are viable alternatives to current, standard, good ol’ fashioned resumes. If video resumes had been “the next big thing”, they would have broken through in 2007. Recruiters don’t have time to watch inane videos of candidates. Candidates with the time to make a quality video production are suspect. The legal issues around discrimination and video resumes are ever-present. I wish the whole video resume thing would just finally die. Its slow death and attempts to resurrect it are so tiring and pointless in today’s world.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Vanessa, thanks for covering what Jeff Hunter had to say about Monster’s latest initiative. VisualCV is not just for execs, and it’s not a ‘Kawasaki vanity project’ – there is no such thing. The company was founded by two guys who have a real and vested interest in helping job seekers, many of whom do work in office-related, management or executive positions, find employment by presenting a more well-rounded presentation of themselves and their skills, than a flat piece of paper can provide. And the truth is, what Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs and countless other job board sites and VisualCV competitors have is nothing but a flat piece of paper online.
Times are tough right now, or has anyone else noticed? VisualCV’s are free to anyone who wants to create one for themselves. If nothing else, they are an additional tool for a job-seeker to use, free of charge. They are hosting a Job Fair online, with 30+ companies who have 200+ open positions on February 3rd. Anyone with a VisualCV is invited to register and interview. This is a real, ongoing effort to help people find work, and companies find a better way to hire folks.
VisualCV differs from Facebook, LinkedIn and other professional and social networks because it puts the FOCUS and the spotlight on the person’s resume. LinkedIn is not a resume – it is my network of people I have worked with in the past, would recommend to others, or would want to work with now. Facebook is a toy – friends from real-life and those I have met online, bop me on the head or do goofy things there. It doesnt’ *feel* professional at all. My VisualCV resume, linked here, is about ME and doesn’t display anything like ads, testimonials, connections, etc. unless I choose to add them there. I can send it privately, or make a public link. All my information (and mine needs work to be better – not the finest example of one) is there on ONE page, saving someone time from having to Google me and look up info at numerous different sources.
How can this be bad? It’s not. I think it is a great idea and does represent the future of how businesses should interact with applicants. Maybe some folks are just not ready to change. I for one, think the way the hiring, recruiting and job application system works now, has a lot of flaws for both candidates and employers. I am hoping VisualCV can make a difference in the way people find work and get hired, and as a consultant for them, I try to help them do that when needed.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Wow, was that cheaper for them rather than the 500,000 impressions they were going to buy?
Joel, pls find a competing company to “VisualCV’ and ask their CEO’s opinion if they ‘Missed the point’
Crazy. You have zero credibility.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I agree, its a pretty self serving post…and I was surprised to see such a post on Cheezhead.
Still, I cannot deny that I agree with the latter part of the discussion. Job boards must evolve to add more value to job seekers and, especially, passive candidates than they have in the past if they want to stay relevant. Monster’s latest iteration of their platform was an attempt at just that. Though they missed the mark in their ‘career management’ and other attempts at user-valued functionality, their performance underscores that the model must improve to sustain its position.
Like a few others, we are trying to drive that innovation through our own platform at Beaker.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Bobby – You might want to at least take a look at their VisualCV.com site before commenting. VisualCVs may not be for everyone, but don’t confuse them with video resumes (which universally suck). Most of the VCVs I see don’t have anything to do with video. A VisualCV is *not* a video resume. They have a bunch of examples on their site at http://www.visualcv.com/examples.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Does anyone have an update on the latest Monster security breach?
January 24th, 2009 at 1:10 am
Cheezhead,
This guy is advertising himself. You can’t hate Monster that much.
January 24th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Jeffery Clark –
How is your post any less self serving than the original article that we are commenting about haha!!!