4 ms·

Show HN: Moki is a recruiting platform built on Twitter

34 points by illdave 14y ago

illdave 14y ago
Hi HN, I finally got around to launching Moki - a recruiting platform & job board that aims to make hiring easier, by using social data. It's partly inspired by pg's request for startups that use Twitter as an infrastructure. I'd really love to hear your feedback - criticism of the landing page, copy, design & concept is all genuinely welcome.
- koide 14y ago
  How do you plan to solve the problem of, say, Paul Graham or Joel Spolsky receiving tons of job offers?
  - illdave 14y ago
    I think I may need to reword the landing page as it might not be completely clear how the site works. You can't give job offers to people who haven't applied for a job. Now, if pg applies for a job that you've listed, you'll probably find that a lot of people on your team follow him on Twitter - so his application will appear at the top of your list - but it won't list people who haven't seen your job listing and chosen to apply.
- gizzlon 14y ago
  It's too difficult to view the twitter profiles: Since I couldn't find links to them on the job listing I had to remember the name and go to twitter.com/.. Guess you don't want too many links to off-site?
  - illdave 14y ago
    No, that's a good point - if a lot of people would find it useful visiting those Twitter profiles (from the main company page?) that can be added. Thanks for the feedback.
jasonkester 14y ago
You might want to work on your copy. I read your whole homepage several times, and still can't figure out what it is that your product does. You start off with: "Moki uses Twitter to make your social recruiting smarter" OK. How? Is this your big selling point? As a guy off the streat, I have trouble even parsing that, let alone coming up with what it might mean or how it would help me (or even if this is a problem I have). So, thus far we know that "Twitter" seems to be a big deal for your thing. You have a "why twitter" thing taking up the rest of the space above the fold: "On Twitter, we tend to follow people we trust. And if your team follows an applicant, that's a sign they could be a great hire" Is that true? As a job seeker, would I need to be following people on Twitter for your thing to work? As an employer, would I need to be following people on Twitter for your thing to work? Onward, below the fold is a bunch of talk about applications, job boards, etc. But still no word on what your thing does that sets it apart (and never another mention of Twitter anywhere). I see things that look like features, but it all seems like pretty generic job-board stuff. So yeah, here I am having read everything there is to read about your thing, with no real understanding of what it is or whether it would help me. How about instead, above the fold, explaining in a few bullet points: - What your thing is - Why I need it - How it works Then, you can tell me about Twitter below the fold. (oh, and since you seem to be here, how about explaining to us here at HN what your thing does, why we need it, and how it works!)
- illdave 14y ago
  Hi Jason, thanks very much for the feedback - I really appreciate it. It sounds like the copy is definitely something I need to get right. And in answer to your question - It's a recruiting platform like The Resumator, or Jobvite, but with a job board built in. It also adds social data to job listings and to job applications - so each job listing will also show a list of people who recommend working there. If you're an employer, when people apply for you job, it shows you a list of your team members who choose to follow the applicant on Twitter. Companies could find it useful because recruiting is extremely hard - there's a low signal to noise ratio, so you might get lots of job applications from people who aren't really suitable, and only a few applications from people who are great. Moki helps you spot the people who are most likely to fit in quicker. Job seekers can find it useful because jobs listed aren't from recruitment agencies - they're from the actual company themselves - you can see a profile page of the company that explains their culture, office & perks and you can see a list of people who recommend working there. It works, hopefully, seamlessly - companies list jobs in the same way they would with a regular job board and people apply for jobs directly on Moki, filling in a form on the site. The only difference is that you need to log in through Twitter to sign up. Nothing is ever automatically tweeted from their account. As you can see - I've not quite found a way to word the concept elegantly yet. Thanks again for the feedback - I genuinely appreciate it.
wiradikusuma 14y ago
congrats on your launch! although i think "On Twitter, we tend to follow people we trust. And if your team follows an applicant, that's a sign they could be a great hire" is too idealistic :P a lot of people follow celebrities (can be in tech industry), bots, official twitter of some entities/websites, and even random people they find entertaining.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  and everyone uses their Twitter account differently, there are people I respect a lot and would agree 100% with the company I work for hiring them but I don't follow them because their Twitter usage doesn't appeal to me, the same in reverse: there are people I follow who would be an awful fit.
- illdave 14y ago
  Thanks very much - you're right, I certainly follow people who are unrelated to my industry, but it shouldn't affect the results Moki displays, as it's very unlikely that a celebrity will apply for a job on Moki, or recommend working for a specific company (and even if they do - that data is still probably useful to know).
nodata 14y ago
Does your job search page work? I get no hits for java, lisp, or php. Also, I always see "Showing 1 to 4 of 4 jobs" at the bottom of the page.
- illdave 14y ago
  Hi, it does work - it's just a brand new site that only went live today, so there are only a couple of jobs in the system at the moment.
  - nodata 14y ago
    Ah. I thought it was trawling Twitter. mea culpa.
mutewinter 14y ago
Those avatars look familiar http://eightbit.me/ http://eightbit.me/.
rmATinnovafy 14y ago
Tell us about the stack/code.
- illdave 14y ago
  It's all built on Ruby on Rails, and it's running on Heroku - expect a more detailed post later on the Moki blog :)

34 points by illdave 14y ago

Hi HN, I finally got around to launching Moki - a recruiting platform & job board that aims to make hiring easier, by using social data. It's partly inspired by pg's request for startups that use Twitter as an infrastructure. I'd really love to hear your feedback - criticism of the landing page, copy, design & concept is all genuinely welcome.

koide 14y ago
How do you plan to solve the problem of, say, Paul Graham or Joel Spolsky receiving tons of job offers?
- illdave 14y ago
  I think I may need to reword the landing page as it might not be completely clear how the site works. You can't give job offers to people who haven't applied for a job. Now, if pg applies for a job that you've listed, you'll probably find that a lot of people on your team follow him on Twitter - so his application will appear at the top of your list - but it won't list people who haven't seen your job listing and chosen to apply.
gizzlon 14y ago
It's too difficult to view the twitter profiles: Since I couldn't find links to them on the job listing I had to remember the name and go to twitter.com/.. Guess you don't want too many links to off-site?
- illdave 14y ago
  No, that's a good point - if a lot of people would find it useful visiting those Twitter profiles (from the main company page?) that can be added. Thanks for the feedback.

jasonkester 14y ago

You might want to work on your copy. I read your whole homepage several times, and still can't figure out what it is that your product does. You start off with: "Moki uses Twitter to make your social recruiting smarter" OK. How? Is this your big selling point? As a guy off the streat, I have trouble even parsing that, let alone coming up with what it might mean or how it would help me (or even if this is a problem I have). So, thus far we know that "Twitter" seems to be a big deal for your thing. You have a "why twitter" thing taking up the rest of the space above the fold: "On Twitter, we tend to follow people we trust. And if your team follows an applicant, that's a sign they could be a great hire" Is that true? As a job seeker, would I need to be following people on Twitter for your thing to work? As an employer, would I need to be following people on Twitter for your thing to work? Onward, below the fold is a bunch of talk about applications, job boards, etc. But still no word on what your thing does that sets it apart (and never another mention of Twitter anywhere). I see things that look like features, but it all seems like pretty generic job-board stuff. So yeah, here I am having read everything there is to read about your thing, with no real understanding of what it is or whether it would help me. How about instead, above the fold, explaining in a few bullet points: - What your thing is - Why I need it - How it works Then, you can tell me about Twitter below the fold. (oh, and since you seem to be here, how about explaining to us here at HN what your thing does, why we need it, and how it works!)

illdave 14y ago
Hi Jason, thanks very much for the feedback - I really appreciate it. It sounds like the copy is definitely something I need to get right. And in answer to your question - It's a recruiting platform like The Resumator, or Jobvite, but with a job board built in. It also adds social data to job listings and to job applications - so each job listing will also show a list of people who recommend working there. If you're an employer, when people apply for you job, it shows you a list of your team members who choose to follow the applicant on Twitter. Companies could find it useful because recruiting is extremely hard - there's a low signal to noise ratio, so you might get lots of job applications from people who aren't really suitable, and only a few applications from people who are great. Moki helps you spot the people who are most likely to fit in quicker. Job seekers can find it useful because jobs listed aren't from recruitment agencies - they're from the actual company themselves - you can see a profile page of the company that explains their culture, office & perks and you can see a list of people who recommend working there. It works, hopefully, seamlessly - companies list jobs in the same way they would with a regular job board and people apply for jobs directly on Moki, filling in a form on the site. The only difference is that you need to log in through Twitter to sign up. Nothing is ever automatically tweeted from their account. As you can see - I've not quite found a way to word the concept elegantly yet. Thanks again for the feedback - I genuinely appreciate it.

wiradikusuma 14y ago

congrats on your launch! although i think "On Twitter, we tend to follow people we trust. And if your team follows an applicant, that's a sign they could be a great hire" is too idealistic :P a lot of people follow celebrities (can be in tech industry), bots, official twitter of some entities/websites, and even random people they find entertaining.

citricsquid 14y ago
and everyone uses their Twitter account differently, there are people I respect a lot and would agree 100% with the company I work for hiring them but I don't follow them because their Twitter usage doesn't appeal to me, the same in reverse: there are people I follow who would be an awful fit.
illdave 14y ago
Thanks very much - you're right, I certainly follow people who are unrelated to my industry, but it shouldn't affect the results Moki displays, as it's very unlikely that a celebrity will apply for a job on Moki, or recommend working for a specific company (and even if they do - that data is still probably useful to know).

nodata 14y ago

Does your job search page work? I get no hits for java, lisp, or php. Also, I always see "Showing 1 to 4 of 4 jobs" at the bottom of the page.

illdave 14y ago
Hi, it does work - it's just a brand new site that only went live today, so there are only a couple of jobs in the system at the moment.
- nodata 14y ago
  Ah. I thought it was trawling Twitter. mea culpa.

mutewinter 14y ago

Those avatars look familiar http://eightbit.me/ http://eightbit.me/.

rmATinnovafy 14y ago

Tell us about the stack/code.

illdave 14y ago
It's all built on Ruby on Rails, and it's running on Heroku - expect a more detailed post later on the Moki blog :)