Turning recruitment upside down Wednesday, January 23, 2008
I received an email yesterday from a business acquaintance I haven't seen in sometime inviting me to a new service in beta yesterday. I skim read it and initially thought he must have spammed his contact book accidentally - "Oh God, another social network thingy to maintain" and put it to one side.
Then I read a post on Techcrunch tonight referring to "Notch Up" and all became clear. It's an inspired idea for the recruitment space designed to lure out candidates that might otherwise be inaccessible to the market because they aren't looking to move.
In short, individuals set a fee for which they are prepared to be interviewed. Only companies genuinely interested in seeing them will pay the fee, which filters out tyre kickers and time wasters. You can also filter out recruitment agencies and headhunters from approaching you.
For the individual, you get the feel good factor of someone paying you a fee simply to see you and the morale boost that they must really be keen. For the companies it tempts out the in-situ employee.
In reality, and similar to the housing market, I think everyone would move for the right price/role if it were offered to them.
It has been well positioned, since there's no downside to the individual of participating. However, I'm sure the person that sent me the invite may have been motivated by a 10% finders fee on any interviews resulting from people they introduce. Moreover, I suspect this may kick off a wave of spam unless there are some inbuilt restricters in the service to avoid duplicate invites being sent.
I love it when traditional ways of viewing the world or doing things are simply looked at from a completely different angle and the result is ingenious in its simplicity. Obvious but brilliant.
posted by John Wilson @ 9:42 PM Permanent Link
newsvine
reddit
