One of the many types of email that manages to clog up my inbox is the regular stream of recruiters looking for good engineers. Occasionally they're interested in recruiting me, but all of the time they'd appreciate it if I could pass the word on to others I know.
Unfortunately, that doesn't scale well.
And this has been going on for a long time now. A few times, partly out of desperation, and partly to see if they'd take the bait I've responded with something like this:
Honestly, I probably do know folks who are qualified and even interested in the position. The trouble is getting to them in a way that's not spammy or tiresome (I can't do it every time someone asks). And it'd be rude of me to just give you their email addresses. But if you're willing to pay $xxx, I'd be glad to post it on my blog...
I'd then go on the describe the readership and traffic characteristics of my blog and hope and pray that they'd say "no thanks."
Why?
Because I had no infrastructure in place for taking money, putting the listings up, and so on. It would have all been manual work and I was already too busy.
But I was curious. It felt like there might be demand... and opportunities for someone.
It was around the time that Paul Stamatiou wrote The Job Boards Boom that I sent out an exasperated email to a list of people that I figured would know if anyone had cracked that nut--someone who had built a simple self-serve system that solves exactly the problem I was having.
Amazingly, I quickly learned that there was at least one service already up and running. There are at least two more in late stages of development or testing.
So I've decided to start trying them out. You'll see technology job listings appearing on the right side of my individual blog posts (in the sidebar).
I'll write more about each service in future posts, including the one I'm using now. But I just wanted to point out that it's there so that nobody is surprised. And, if you're looking to hire, feel free to post a job. :-)
Posted by jzawodn at November 13, 2006 09:39 PM | edit
Neat... I even see a couple that are worth sending an email about.
When I first read about hidden network on tdwtf, I immediately thought that it was the perfect fit for your blog! Glad to see you taking advantage.
Hey Jeremy.
I took a look at the 'hidden-network' site and they seem to pay $5.00 cpm and $25 for each referrals (I assume that is successful referrals that get an interview/job rather than click-through).
The CPM aside, $25 seems pretty low to me -- especially for the types of jobs being advertised, the audience you have and the amount recruiters get per hire (the alternative to this). And, frankly, you're putting your reputation somewhat behind this service -- which IMHO is worth far more than $25 per hire!!!
I'm surprised recruiters, if they know who you are, aren't prepared to split their bounty with you if you are able to matchmake successful candidates... or would that be a conflict of interest at Yahoo!? It's definitely something I'd consider doing in your position - and would probably lead to a lot more than $25 a hire!
Ben,
You're right. The numbers aren't likely to be the most compelling around. But the real point is this: thanks to a good self-serve system, I was able to from NO MONEY to collecting SOMETHING without much effort.
Now here's the amusing part. The $5 CPM is quite competitive with what I see from AdSense.
Anyway, I'll proabably test a few more job listing networks over the next months and try to report on how they stack up.
There's no way to set your location!
I happen to be on vacation in Australia, so the system automatically showing me Australian jobs, rather than jobs from Boston, where I live.
It's true I can show all the jobs, but then I have no easy way to identify the jobs that are local to me.
You're on vacation and reading my site? And you're admitting it?
Wow. You need a more exciting vacation! :-)
Okay, I'm only half kidding. That's a valid complaint. I'll make sure the Hidden Network folks see it.
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