Archive for the ‘Hiring Sciences Hunch’ category

What Career Should You Choose?

May 30th, 2013

 

What Career Should I Choose

What Career Should I Choose

Looking to change careers? Want to predict your growth and earning potential? If so, check out this interactive chart from Rasmussen College that will help your analyze your options. It organizes occupations into four quadrants based on salary, anticipated growth, and number of jobs available

The data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (as of April 2013). You can research each occupation by clicking on the dot.

Give it a whirl at Rasmussen College’s What Career Is Right for Me? page.

The Hiring Sciences Hunch

You may want to consider avoiding the following career paths.

  • Air Traffic Controller, Postal Service Employee, Millwrights, Railroad Operators

And, if you are undecided or looking to reinvent yourself consider the following professions.

  • Software Developer. Veterinarian, Biochemist, Physical Therapist, Financial Planner

I wonder where corporate recruiter fits into the mix. What do you think? Is recruiting a viable profession?

Comments Off on What Career Should You Choose? »

Posted in Careers, Hiring, Hiring Developers, Hiring Sciences Hunch, hiring tools, human resources, selection

Tags:

Intern Sushi: A Tool for Netting Interns

March 30th, 2013
Here’s the idea: Resumes are pretty useless when it comes to choosing interns. Actually, they’re pretty flawed in general, but they’re particularly bad for internships, where employers are probably choosing one or two candidates from a large list of applicants whose resumes are going to look pretty similar (because they don’t have much professional experience yet). Instead, with Intern Sushi, users are asked to create a profile that captures their personality and ambitions. That centerpiece of the profile is a short video, but users can include a portfolio of their work, too. They can also create content tailored to a specific opening, like a video cover letter outlining why they really really really want that internship.
Employers, meanwhile, can build a presence that isn’t just promoting a few openings, but instead the general company culture — so even if there isn’t an opening at the moment, a potential intern could still stumble on a company profile. Think, “Boy, I really want to work there,” and check back later. That’s one of the reasons Intern Sushi’s traffic continues to grow even when most companies aren’t looking for interns, said co-founder and CEO Shara Senderoff.

Intern SushiSpring has sprung. Kids are busting out their cargo shorts and sun dresses and heading to the quad. Plans are being hashed out to get to Spring Break to catch those DJ Pauly sets. Epic! And, yes, some of our more industrious youth are starting to fish for those coveted summer internships.

Meanwhile, many employers are starting to bait the traps for summer interns. Enter Intern Sushi. Intern Sushi allows employers to list internships in advertising/PR, TV, film, fashion, sports, publishing, art, music, theatre, web, technology and other industries. Interns create digital profiles that capture their personalities and ambitions. The spotlight of the profiles are short videos that can include a portfolio work, too. Interns can also create a video cover letters explaining why they’re interested in a specific employer.

The idea is to give interns a way to standout seeing as their resumes are typically fairly lean. Employers benefit by getting a snapshot of the applicants’ personalities before scheduling interviews. The basic service is free for both employers and interns, but the startup offers premium services to interns with features like early application periods and functionality geared towards the parents of interns. The company has also announced that it is planning a premium business product too. My guess this will be geared towards enhanced employer branding.

The Hiring Sciences Hunch

I am not willing to concede that resumes are dead. Sure, resumes have their flaws. However, I do agree with Intern Sushi CEO, Shara Senderoff,  that traditional resumes are generally useless when it comes to selecting interns. Interns have such a limited body of work that we generally end up focusing on education and interests. Intern Sushi presents that data employers need to take the next steps.

Put aside compliance fears and Intern Sushi could be the best use of  video interviewing yet. And, Intern Sushi has even started to manage the process of hiring interns by offering what appears to be light applicant tracking. This is a nice touch. While growth depends on a classic two cheek kiss, the need for both employers and interns to sign up, Intern Sushi is a great idea and has attracted some reputable brands. Will Intern Sushi duke it out on their own or could they be a good acquisition for Indeed or LinkedIn? Either way, Intern Sushi belongs on your fish finder.

Comments Off on Intern Sushi: A Tool for Netting Interns »

Posted in corporate recruiting, Hiring Sciences Hunch, HRTech, Recruiting Technology, screening process, selection

Tags:

Dice Rolls into the Candidate Sourcing Tool Market with Open Web

February 19th, 2013

Last week, Dice, the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals, rolled into the candidate sourcing tool market with Open Web, a recruiting tool that allows users to search approximately 50 social and professional networks and billions of web pages to create an aggregated or “super” profile of a candidate’s professional experience. Very similar to TalentBin and Entelo, Open Web from Dice allows recruiters to search for candidates with desired skills and experience across the web from one interface. The profile aggregation functionality pulls together the disparate pieces of information from across the web so recruiters can easily put together a meaningful story about candidates. “Open Web not only pulls in information about candidates’ professional experiences but also about their interests making it a valuable tool for collecting the underpinnings that contribute to assessing cultural fit,” said Jeff Winter, a professional recruiter and General Manager at technology search firm Gravity People in San Francisco.

Screenshot from Infoworld

Screenshot from Infoworld

Open Web is likely just the first roll for Dice. There are rumors that the tech job advertising leader is currently testing technology that will allow recruiting firms and employers to use the Open Web technology to update their candidate databases with the most current profiles of past job applicants. This could be another great tool for recruiters and employers that are constantly sourcing high-demand passive candidates. And, if that’s not enough, Dice promises to release a professional-facing tool that will enable tech professionals to view and interact with their Open Web profile as recruiters and employers see it.

The Hiring Sciences Hunch

Historically, Dice has been a strong player in the technology advertisement vertical. Their pricing has always been fair and their reputation is as good as, if not better, than any traditional job boards in the business. The release of Open Web starts the latest chapter for Dice, expanding their footprint into the white hot sourcing tools space. We don’t think Open Web is a big gamble. Dice has a unique advantage that can’t be overlooked. They’ve been active in the recruitment market for over 20 years. They understand their users and their buying trends. This is not just a group of smart engineers and fresh MBAs sitting around room guessing what recruiters do all day. These guys have seen the market evolve for 2 decades and they are jumping in the game with lots of chips.

Our hunch is that Dice with their significant customer base and brand recognition has a strong opportunity to run the table in the sourcing tools category. Their entry in this space will certainly create competition for smaller vendors with fewer offerings and little brand recognition. Open Web also gives recruiters a good alternative to LinkedIn which has created some negative equity recently with it’s aggressive sales tactics and high prices.

For more information about Open Web, contact dice: http://www.dice.com/

“Hiring managers visit many places in their search for candidates with the right skills and experience for their open positions.  In today’s social grid, that’s a big dig – consuming a lot of time putting together disparate pieces of information from across the web,” said Scot Melland, Chairman, President and CEO of Dice Holdings, Inc.  “Now, Open Web makes it easy by consolidating all kinds of valuable, public information about technology candidates in one place.  In a few seconds, employers get unique profiles with real depth allowing both an understanding of the candidates’ qualifications and how to approach tech professionals on a more personal, direct level.

Comments Off on Dice Rolls into the Candidate Sourcing Tool Market with Open Web »

Posted in Candidate Sourcing, corporate recruiting, Hiring Sciences Hunch, HRTech, human resources, Recruiting Technology

Tags:

JobLark, Joins the Flock of Employee Referral Tools

February 4th, 2013

JobLark joins the growing flock of employee referral management products that have landed in the market over the past 18 months. Very similar to Zao, Goood Job, Sticky, Select Minds (Oracle) and dozens more Joblark leverages social networks to enable referrers to discover and refer job applicants. And like Zao, Joblark also allows employers to track and reward all the people that help make successful hires, whether they work for the employer or not. Joblark (like Zao) makes money by charging a fee once a hire is made.

Headquartered in Utah, JobLark appears to have around twenty or so employees and claims to have taken 1 million dollars in funding with 9 million more committed by Apple Tree Capital. Not much else is known about the company, the management team or active customers.

The Hiring Sciences Hunch

The employee referral management space is white hot but the space is getting crowded. The editors here at Hiring Sciences agree that ERM is an interesting niche in the HR Tech landscape but the window may be closing quickly for small upstarts like JobLark. Competition from applicant tracking software vendors, many of which already offer integrated employee referral management modules, will force standalone solutions like JobLark to focus on smaller employers with smaller budgets. Also, user adoption will pose challenges for the likes of JobLark as employees are inundated with tools and a standalone ERM solution may not carry the weight of other more mission critical systems. Overall, we believe the ERM space is very interesting and solutions like JobLark are making great use of social networks but it’s still unclear if a majority of employers are ready to adopt these new standalone tools.

If you are interested in learning more about JobLark visit the site at https://www.joblark.com/

Comments Off on JobLark, Joins the Flock of Employee Referral Tools »

Posted in Employee Referral Management, Hiring Sciences Hunch, HRTech, Human Resources Software, Just Another Recruiting Start Up, Product Reviews, Recruiting Technology, Social Media Recruiting

Tags:

SayHired: Applicants Pitch Your Products

January 19th, 2013
SayHired: Applicants Pitch Your Products by Hiring Sciences

SayHired: Applicants Pitch Your Products by Hiring Sciences

SayHired, another Bay Area-based recruiting start-up that received a round of funding in July 2012, has a rather unique pitch. Candidates apply to positions by recording responses to pitch prompts or employers can set their own screening questions. The responses are analyzed by SayHired’s engine for the qualities that the employer values most for the position. Responses are then ranked on a scale of 1 to 100 for each individual characteristic. Once processed, the scores are released to both the candidate (nice touch) and the employer.

According to the SEC filing issued in July 2012, SayHired has been in business for 5 years. The editorial staff here at Hiring Sciences found some older collateral from SayHired that indicates a small pivot from their original messaging referring to automated reference checks and phone screens but the general idea seems to remain the same.

As for pricing, SayHired provides the first 25 screens for free. Each additional screen is $.60. Apparently, you can upload candidates to screen via Excel. There is no mention of applicant tracking system integration on their site. A more in depth product review could be interesting and we’ll contact SayHired if we go down that road at some point.

The Hiring Sciences Hunch:

As always, we commend the entrepreneurs and innovators like SayHired that are willing to try something new in the recruiting technology industry. Depending on the accuracy of the scoring algorithms and true ease of use, there may be a good opportunity for adoption in high-transaction hiring environments like call centers, hospitality, insurance sales, etc. These type of employers seem to be the target for SayHired and we like tools that serve traditional industries that are often overlooked by new solutions that purely market to technology companies.

On the other hand, SayHired may in reality have a long road to hoe. Their target employers aren’t necessarily the early adopters and often are not often sophisticated IT buyers. Perhaps SayHired will postion itself as an acquisition target for one of the major pre-employment screening companies or they could be a good fit as an additional revenue source and add-on for a staffing software play like Bullhorn or JobScience. A large RPO or cash flush global staffing outfit could also be interested in putting SayHired in their bag of tricks at some point as an efficiency tool and service differentiator.

If you are interested in learning more about SayHired, visit their website at: http://www.sayhired.com/welcome

Comments Off on SayHired: Applicants Pitch Your Products »

Posted in Hiring Sciences Hunch, Just Another Recruiting Start Up, Product Reviews, Recruiting Technology, screening process, selection

Developer Auction: New Posterchild of the Technical Recruiting Bubble

January 12th, 2013

Developer Auction

The recruiting technology industry has undeniably inflated and officially crossed over into bubble status. Just take a look at Developer Auction, one of the latest of 482 companies tagged with “recruiting” or a similar term on Crunchbase. Launched to “disrupt” the recruiting industry, Developer Auction allows software engineers to create a profile and auction themselves off to venture funded tech companies. To go a step further, Developer Auction awards developers 20% cash back ($3000-$6000+) when they get hired through the platform essentially sharing their service fee (15% of the winning bid) with developers.

Developer Auction shows employers (all cash-rich, venture-backed tech startups in a few cities) a list of elite, vetted engineers that are looking for new opportunities and allows the employers to bid on talent without having to maneuver through a protracted sourcing process. For software engineers, Developer Auction is like an online speed dating service where all the potential matches are hotties but instead of a good figure or charming sense of humor the suitors have a stocked fridge, free lunches and a collegial environment that are reminiscent of the good ‘ol days on the quad at Stanford and MIT.

The idea is unique and essentially digitizes contingent recruiting but with a giant waft of exclusivity. The developers that get vetted and ultimately chosen for the bachelor style developer auction are all from Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, Zynga, Stanford, and MIT. It makes sense. Developer Auction is giving elite start-ups in uber-competitive markets access to what they covet most to boost brainpower and company valuation.

The Hiring Sciences Hunch

At Hiring Sciences we love to see new models and encourage further innovation in the recruiting industry. The idea of the reverse funnel created by Developer Auction is thought provoking for sure. But, we can’t help feeling a little “icky” about they’ve created. One of our editors keeps calling the service Developer Kardashians and thinks it reeks of the kind of elitism that insulates technology companies from the real world. He went to public school so it’s probably just his insecurities showing through again. Finally, while the service is certainty different from other sourcing solutions out there, it’s far from being disruptive to the recruiting industry or even technical recruiting yet but we’ll keep an eye on Developer Auction.

If you are interested in learning more about Developer Auction, visit the site at: http://developerauction.com/

Developer Auction was launched in order to disrupt the recruiting industry, and provide a better and more efficient way for talented developers to get exposed to exciting job opportunities at funded tech companies.
As serial entrepreneurs & software developers, we know that the smartest people are already employed, and that they receive numerous emails every month from recruiters and prospective employers that often go ignored due to the enormous amount of time that it would take to interview and negotiate with each company. We thought – “there has to be a better way”.
By reversing the funnel, and having companies submit offers based on work history & experience, we hope to shorten the hiring cycle, maximize efficiency and create transparency in a market that is currently anything but. To go a step further, we even offer developers 20% cash back ($3000-$6000+) when they get hired through our platform.
We believe that we can more effectively match developers with great companies, while driving down financial and “lost opportunity” costs for start-ups.

Comments Off on Developer Auction: New Posterchild of the Technical Recruiting Bubble »

Posted in Hiring Sciences Hunch, HRTech, Just Another Recruiting Start Up, Recruiting Technology, selection