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I think the broader principle of this post is solid. It's one that I've been thinking a lot as a friend asked me to advise his dating-site startup. I don't li

I think the broader principle of this post is solid. It's one that I've been thinking a lot as a friend asked me to advise his dating-site startup. I don't like the space for one major reason (and job hunting is isomorphic with dating): to optimize making money you have to fail to deliver on the expectations of those for whom you're matchmaking. With dating/jobhunting if you create a supremely efficient market place that finds the match almost immediately your customers go away. They don't need your service any more. It behooves you to increase the inefficiency of your marketplace to deliver almost-matches that keep people interested and paying, but not quite good enough to make them leave. Perhaps you could argue that a job board is different because employers are repeat finders and will come back again and again - the adultfriendfinder approach, people who keep getting laid keep paying. Either way they're tough businesses to make money on AND deliver a great service. LinkedIn does a ton of other things of course, to monetize, and isn't just a job board. But that just raises questions about some of their other practises of holding your own data hostage - which seems to be a key business model for social network monetization at the moment, and that's a whole other question.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> I don't like the space for one major reason (and job hunting is isomorphic with dating): to optimize making money you have to fail to deliver on the expectations of those for whom you're matchmaking. For job hunting (but probably not dating), its at least conceivable that you can structure the charge model to one where one or the other party (or both) is paying for success in making a match (basically, that's what lots of non-web-based employment "matchmaking" services of various kinds do), so that you can, in fact, align customer satisfaction with profit maximization.
- nostrademons 13y ago
  Another approach is to do something like take a cut of the first year's salary or difference between the first year's salary and what the jobhunter was previously getting. That conditions success not only on making a match but on making a good match, as you get paid virtually nothing if an employee gets hired but then gets fired 2 weeks later. Many recruiting firms take this approach.
ondross 13y ago
The difference is that people in relationships feel guilty shopping around. I know many people with jobs who keep one eye on LinkedIn in case they see a great opportunity.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Which is weird because the great opportunities are based on recommendations almost only. Someone pulls you somewhere, you pull someone to you. You match a friend with another friend in trouble. I have yet to see (in IT) someone that get great job by the standard interview process. Also not all persons in a relationship feel guilty of that.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> I don't like the space for one major reason (and job hunting is isomorphic with dating): to optimize making money you have to fail to deliver on the expectations of those for whom you're matchmaking. For job hunting (but probably not dating), its at least conceivable that you can structure the charge model to one where one or the other party (or both) is paying for success in making a match (basically, that's what lots of non-web-based employment "matchmaking" services of various kinds do), so that you can, in fact, align customer satisfaction with profit maximization.

nostrademons 13y ago
Another approach is to do something like take a cut of the first year's salary or difference between the first year's salary and what the jobhunter was previously getting. That conditions success not only on making a match but on making a good match, as you get paid virtually nothing if an employee gets hired but then gets fired 2 weeks later. Many recruiting firms take this approach.

ondross 13y ago

The difference is that people in relationships feel guilty shopping around. I know many people with jobs who keep one eye on LinkedIn in case they see a great opportunity.

venomsnake 13y ago
Which is weird because the great opportunities are based on recommendations almost only. Someone pulls you somewhere, you pull someone to you. You match a friend with another friend in trouble. I have yet to see (in IT) someone that get great job by the standard interview process. Also not all persons in a relationship feel guilty of that.