3 ms·

It's an interesting space: hiring's a big challenge for a lot of companies, there's clearly opportunities for improving it, and there's already a lot of money b

by jdp23 16y ago

It's an interesting space: hiring's a big challenge for a lot of companies, there's clearly opportunities for improving it, and there's already a lot of money being spent here so people may well be willing to pay for software that improves the process. A couple of questions: - what would this add to a dirt simple solution like internal blog pages with the process and job description, and then a blog thread for each applicant going through the interview process? - who's your target market? tech startups, retail, recruiting firms, ... ? - what are the limitations of existing recruiting software?

petervandijck 16y ago
Internal blog pages with descriptions and stuff is what I've used before, and what I think most people use, which makes me think there's a market here for a good tool, because, at least for myself, those solutions never really worked well. As an example, I once invited someone to apply to a job that I had rejected a few months earlier. As someone wrote here earlier: if people are using spreadsheets (or wiki pages) for problem X, it's a market. This would add spit, fit and finish. Make it easier to use. Add in easily publishing a page with a job description where people can apply/upload resume. Add an email address where you forward applications that then get automatically organized. Etc. In other words: it would add ease of use and features specific for hiring. (Still trying to determine which features exactly, which is what this post is for, but I've felt the pain myself and I'm sure many people have, so I see the problem part of this fairly clearly. Trying to figure out what a good solution would be.) Existing recruiting software is aimed at HR and "recruiting". This would be aimed at people like (presumably) you and me, who just need to hire a few people for their team, who want to create their own process. I'm not "recruiting". I'm building a team! Target market: people like me, ie. I would first go for people in tech firms hiring tech/ux people, because that is what I know best. We all read the "how to hire x" posts, it's not easy. The tools would make it easy to quickly set up a process etc. Existing recruiting software is aimed at HR, at large companies, in other words, it's "enterprise" crap.
- jdp23 16y ago
  that makes a lot of sense, thanks. one area that seems ripe for improvement is after resumes flood in, taking an initial pass and marking which ones you want others to give feedback on, and then tracking email and IM exchanges with and about the applicants. at Qworky we used tags in a shared gmail account along with cut-and-pasting the IM logs for this which worked okay but even when we just had a couple of jobs open we messed up several times.
petervandijck 16y ago
To look at it another way: what does a good bugtracking tool add to a dirt simple solution like internal blog pages with a thread for comments? Answer: domain-specific features. I'm trying to figure out what those features for hiring would be :) Thoughts?
- zeemonkee 16y ago
  Maybe something like the "Feedback" tab you see on many sites now. A "We're hiring" tab. The hiring company signs up & pays the fee and is then provided with a JavaScript tag to embed in their web page. This of course can be customized (position, colour, etc). Visitors click on the tab, and (assuming they are already registered) can just enter their credentials and hit "Post my resume here". Your resume is then made visible to the company, which can see thumbs of all the applicants at a glance. Your application would allow people to add their resumes - rather than upload a doc/pdf, maybe instead some nice themes, layouts etc. Only you, and companies you have clicked the tab on, can see this resume (although there might be other options - "make my resume public" or "show to recruiters" etc). Companies might also be able to leave comments/questions for you at specific points in the resume("you said you worked on drivers at IBM in 2005 - could you go into specifics ?") saving time at interviews.

by jdp23 16y ago

petervandijck 16y ago

Internal blog pages with descriptions and stuff is what I've used before, and what I think most people use, which makes me think there's a market here for a good tool, because, at least for myself, those solutions never really worked well. As an example, I once invited someone to apply to a job that I had rejected a few months earlier. As someone wrote here earlier: if people are using spreadsheets (or wiki pages) for problem X, it's a market. This would add spit, fit and finish. Make it easier to use. Add in easily publishing a page with a job description where people can apply/upload resume. Add an email address where you forward applications that then get automatically organized. Etc. In other words: it would add ease of use and features specific for hiring. (Still trying to determine which features exactly, which is what this post is for, but I've felt the pain myself and I'm sure many people have, so I see the problem part of this fairly clearly. Trying to figure out what a good solution would be.) Existing recruiting software is aimed at HR and "recruiting". This would be aimed at people like (presumably) you and me, who just need to hire a few people for their team, who want to create their own process. I'm not "recruiting". I'm building a team! Target market: people like me, ie. I would first go for people in tech firms hiring tech/ux people, because that is what I know best. We all read the "how to hire x" posts, it's not easy. The tools would make it easy to quickly set up a process etc. Existing recruiting software is aimed at HR, at large companies, in other words, it's "enterprise" crap.

jdp23 16y ago
that makes a lot of sense, thanks. one area that seems ripe for improvement is after resumes flood in, taking an initial pass and marking which ones you want others to give feedback on, and then tracking email and IM exchanges with and about the applicants. at Qworky we used tags in a shared gmail account along with cut-and-pasting the IM logs for this which worked okay but even when we just had a couple of jobs open we messed up several times.

petervandijck 16y ago

To look at it another way: what does a good bugtracking tool add to a dirt simple solution like internal blog pages with a thread for comments? Answer: domain-specific features. I'm trying to figure out what those features for hiring would be :) Thoughts?

zeemonkee 16y ago
Maybe something like the "Feedback" tab you see on many sites now. A "We're hiring" tab. The hiring company signs up & pays the fee and is then provided with a JavaScript tag to embed in their web page. This of course can be customized (position, colour, etc). Visitors click on the tab, and (assuming they are already registered) can just enter their credentials and hit "Post my resume here". Your resume is then made visible to the company, which can see thumbs of all the applicants at a glance. Your application would allow people to add their resumes - rather than upload a doc/pdf, maybe instead some nice themes, layouts etc. Only you, and companies you have clicked the tab on, can see this resume (although there might be other options - "make my resume public" or "show to recruiters" etc). Companies might also be able to leave comments/questions for you at specific points in the resume("you said you worked on drivers at IBM in 2005 - could you go into specifics ?") saving time at interviews.