Feeding The Hippo

Here’s a sign of the times. I spotted this question from an employer in the PageUp People forum.

We are considering using Hippo.com as an advertising medium to attract candidates for our call centre. (along with other mediums).

Has anyone had any experience with them, if so would appreciate your feedback?

It got me thinking. A little flush of excitement rushed to my cheeks as I considered how intrinsic the internet is now to the way we communicate.

Of course, folks have always chatted to one another about their satisfaction or otherwise with products and services they’ve used. But I can’t recall a time in the history of humanity when we’ve chatted to a reader or listener who is unknown to us. Not only that, we are then prepared to take the advice of that unknown entity and, presumably, act on it.

Prior to sources of information such as Hippo, a person interested in their service would have had to ask someone they knew had used the service, or they would have had to read some form of advertising propaganda published by the company.

Of course this form of “word-of-mouth” raises all sorts of questions about the reliability of respondents. They may have agendas around promoting the service, or not promoting it to keep it for themselves. None the less, it is interesting that we are willing to disregard these pitfalls in favor of gathering info.

Anyways. Enough philosophising. For those of you unfamiliar with Hippo, I thought I’d provide you with a few facts.
A quick check on the site shows:

- close to 200 jobs nationally.

- a focus on part-time/casual jobs aimed at young people .

- a large % of jobs advertised are for the hospitality industry.

- ranked number 56th on the latest Hitwise Australia rankings with 0.18% market share. (Seek ranked 1st and has 26.25%).

- $90 per job. (Seek $180+GST)