Make Your Job Listings Stand Out
These days, online job boards are a dime a dozen. But how do you stand out from the crowd when you’re looking for just the right person? Montreal-based StandoutJobs believes that video is just the tool to shake up the hiring and recruitment. Ben Yoskovitz, who founded StandoutJobs with Fred Ngo and Austin Hill, said the start-up wants to take a new approach to hiring. “Fundamentally, the job market is broken. Hiring today is all about the process and not about the people.” The company wants to let companies post three to five minute videos so they can show people who they are in a better and more personal way than a bland text-based job ad. StandoutJobs is using itself as its guinea pig with an ad video featuring Fred and Ben talking about the company and its need for a top-notch Ruby programmer. In a little while, you’ll get to see a video on StandoutJobs from b5media. It was a pretty cool and painless process with an amazingly quick turnaround time.
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4 opinions for Make Your Job Listings Stand Out
AndrewK
May 8, 2007 at 1:47 am
Mark I am glad to read that b5media is trying it out. Seeing web video effectively used gets me excited. Until then a few thoughts the premise of StandoutJobs.
Pros:
They seem passionate about the concept. Recognize that they need more than a warm body in the seat that can code. Their emphasis on communication skills is what all startups should be looking for with each new hire. Both have past startup/non profit experience and better still are realistic about current resources. Getting a Ruby programmer that also gets architecture will shorten their time to market another plus. Video is hot right now. Add another point for having an engineer as a founder.
Cons:
Most video résumé / job boards services fail to look at it from HR’s perspective. You mention that the process was easy. My question is, does it scale? Remember most have multiple vacancies and are constantly looking at applicants. With that in mind. How much is it going to cost to make, host and maintain videos? How about scheduling principals for the shoot? Imagine the concept does take off and everyone does it as a best practice. How many applicants want to sit through hours of video job postings? How will that limit response rate? What about attractiveness bias in the evaluation? Will video index in search engines like a text job postings do now? So we can see hiring guys in motion how many takes did they have to get it just right? How do applicants manage these video job postings? etc.
That said there is a ton of potential for StandoutJobs and the job posting was great. Here is hoping that b5media gets a great hire out of the service.
Austin Hill
May 15, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Thanks for the mention Mark.
re: AndrewK
Great comments and thoughts. You bring up many questions we have gone through and we are certainly concious of how do we use the rights tools for the right part of the job.
Video is a great tool, but as you point out there are unique issues with using video that change both production & consumption habits for job seekers and advertisers.
Can’t disclose much at this point, except to say thanks for your comments and we hope when we release our first preview versions you’ll give it a whirl and let us know what you think.
-Austin
Trevor
May 16, 2007 at 5:04 pm
I’ve been doing rich media job postings for months on jobs.redcanary.ca, in fact I wonder if this idea began when I invited Ben to take a peek at my then fledgling job board. :) :( /endrant
Let me tell you that there are issues galore with this model…I’ve been living them. It doesn’t scale. Companies like the idea of video but resist the execution. B5M is probably a web-savvy exception. Most companies barely even know how to write intriguing job descriptions that take into account what a potential candidate will get to build/do/learn/lead and you think they’ll post videos? Who’s going to write what they say? Besides, a video saying how cool the company is misses the point…in a talent-thin market, you should be talking about what’s in it for the candidate.
And there’s the real issue that I run into all the time: an acute lack of available talent. REALLY good people aren’t looking for work, they never have to, so how do you interest them in the first place? You’re competing against proactive headhunters who are spearing passive fish. Job boards tend to attract a halo of wannabes…the Workopolis effect.
Don’t get me wrong, this CAN work, but there are plenty of issues, and Standout should be careful not to drink too much of their own cool-aid.
Ben Yoskovitz
May 18, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Hi Trevor - Thanks for the comment. I appreciate Andrew’s as well, and see that Austin’s already replied.
I don’t think b5media is entirely an exception, but I do think there’s a very clear segment of companies that would understand the technology and be willing to give it a try.
Plus as Austin points out - video is only a tool. Companies will need to do more than rich media job ads to reach the best talent.
I would venture to say that lots of people/companies are bouncing around the ideas of video and the job market - it’s something Austin, Fred and I have been speaking about for many months. While I can see how you might think our ideas sprung out of what you and I spoke about, that’s definitely not the case. Hopefully you don’t really feel that way.
There are lots of issues and challenges in the road ahead for Standout Jobs and the online job market in general. It’s not an easy nut to crack…
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