Samepoint.com – The Conversation Search Engine

Some of us are at the point in our social media evolution where we recognise the importance of building a personal online brand.

This idea becomes even more pertinent as unemployment rates rise (or, at the least, hiring freezes mean those out of work will struggle just a little harder for a role).

In the past, it’s been difficult to manage your social media profile. All your stuff was disparate and difficult to track. Of course, the net’s adapted, and this adaptation has taken the form of sites like samepoint.com. Search yourself here (see mine) and it’ll give you the lowdown on all your social media activity. It also has a panel displaying recent conversations from Twitter. Here’s the other bonus (and now I’m beginning to sound like a TV flogger of knife sets), it’ll give you a rating by searching negative or positive comments in your personal information.

This site has a two-fold application. Recruiters can use it as part of their background checking. Candidates can use it in the way described, to check their online profiles.

Enjoy your new knife block. i hope the bonus steak set comes in handy. (Psst. Don’t just use it for special guests).

Hoojano Powers StaffSearcher BY MYOB

 

New player in the ‘Reward for Referral’ space Hoojano has officially launched today. Mike Wilkinson is CEO of HooJano.  He was formerly Group Manager, Innovation at Sensis, and has held senior marketing roles with both MyCareer and CareerOne.  He has spent the last 18 months developing the business and preparing it for launch.  

Mike has also been busy luring high profile partner in MYOB. Powered by Hoojano, they have launched StaffSearcher.com.au in the hope of leveraging from their more than 700,000 businesses and accounting practices in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Superficially, this concept is great.  It’s an innovative way of approaching the roundup of suitable candidates.  And it’s exciting that HooJano is finally off Alpha status and is ready to do some business. But what’s with Staff Searcher’s pitch “Forget Recruiters”?  

I’m clicking my tongue here.  You know that “click click” your mum used to make when you’d done something both stupid and disappointing?  Usually this sound was followed by a sermon steeped in Capital letters, like That Was So Immature and I Expect More From You.  

My mum, she could bowl guilt with more spin than Warney (and she’s pretty nifty on the old texting too:)).  Point is, mums have what they call “moral authority”, and I’m about to dish some of that out right now.  So if you’re on a diet, look away.

Of course, my investment in this discussion is skewed.  I’m a recruiter, and I want my industry to continue to flourish.  It feeds my family.  But there’s more involved in my perspective than my personal interest.  Recruiters do more for businesses than simply find resumes.  We must think of creative ways of attracting candidates, we’re often on the phone for the most part of the day, ringing contacts, social networking, getting the goss on so-and-so who wants to leave their current role and move into something different.  Most of us interview, we represent the clients and candidates, bartering for both their interests in trying to reach an agreement between the two.  Sometimes we’re like goddam matchmakers, or farmers, trying to get a cow and a bull to do the wild thing when both just want to chow down on some grass.

Hoojano/StaffSearcher, knowthis.  Probably a better approach to your marketing would have been to engage recruiters, rather than rally for their departure from the recruiting process.  

MyCareer The Head Hunter

I reported on the Jobfox and MyCareer technology deal back in early January.

At the recent Australian Talent Conference, the fruits of this partnership were revealed. MyCareer is set to launch a new product called Head Hunter. Here’s how it works:

Candidates complete an online interview that captures skills, desires and competencies. Head Hunter then matches these with available jobs. Employers can access the information and rate the matching candidates. They then get a shortlist of candidates for a particular role.
By MyCareer’s own admission, resume databases just don’t work (Taken from MyCareer’s presentation at the Australian Talent Conference, 2008).

And as I see it, there ain’t much difference between the Head Hunter concept and a resume database. The only difference is that, provided the technology being used is adequately assessing the suitability of candidates (and I am skeptical about this. It’s really difficult to design valid questionnaires for testing skills etc. and the whole idea of such flimsy concepts being reliant on the self-reporting of candidates makes me cringe), as a recruiter I get the most suitable candidates in my Head Hunter backend, rather than a bunch who I have to sort through.

Frankly, with the ‘manageable’ number of apps. I get from MyCareer (usually about 3 per job), sorting through the applicants is not really a big deal. Why would I want to pay for the service.

This brings me to wondering about the strategy behind the introduction of Head Hunter. Was it to provide a service to recruiters? I doubt it, recruiters aren’t too interested in being cut out of the recruiting process in this way, and paying extra for it.

Was it to cut out the role of the recruiter and offer a method of recruiting for employers? If yes, PageUp People already does this.

When a company devises a strategy for a new product, it needs to have some area of the market that it plugs; it needs to give it something that it’s longed for – or that you can convince it it longs for.

This ones just all flailing around with its arms in the air like it’s lost out at sea – and there’s no life jacket anywhere close by.

Jobfox.com and MyCareer in bed together!

Cashed- up US job board Jobfox.com with candidate/ job matching technology has reportedly struck a technology deal with Fairfax’s employment website Mycareer.com.au

“Jobfox will also grow internationally after completing a strategic co- branding alliance with Australia’s Fairfax Digital, a multimedia company that owns the national job board MyCareer. In the agreement, Jobfox’s proven technology will be incorporated into MyCareer in early 2008.”

The proof will be in the pudding if this helps Mycareer close the gap between itself and Seek