Niche job boards proliferating, what about people boards?
August 5, 2006
Om Malik comments on Mike’s new job board, CrunchBoard, and suggests that the online jobs segment is atracting attention from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists (site like Indeed, TheLadders and Jobster).
Our thought is that there is a place for people boards - i.e. places to find great people instead of jobs. Combine that thought with Microformats and you have our concept called Hidden Talent (props to Scott Ryan for coming up with the name). Hidden Talent pulls resumes posted on the web that utilize the hResume microformat for markup. Ironically, we got the idea from Mike Arrington’s own Edgeio. Chris Messina explained it better in his post about our hResume plugin:
Why is this better than going to Monster.com and others? Well, for one thing, you’re always in charge of your data, so instead of having to fill out forms on 40,000 different sites, you maintain your resume on your site and you update it once and then ping others to let them know that you’ve updated your resume. And, when people discover your resume, they come to you in a context that represents you and lets you stand out rather than blending into a sea of homogeneous-looking documents. Finally, you’re free to share as much (or as little as you like) and if the data doesn’t fit in their predefined templates, you’ve got nothing to worry about because you’re in total control of your employed (or unemployed) destiny!
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3 Responses to “Niche job boards proliferating, what about people boards?”
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I would think more of a networking site where people can share contact information from their companies much like a social gathering. I was thinking of a site like this.
It seems the sites like Monster, Dice, Career Building are not very good at finding a job or hiring something.
As a consultant I would like to see a “job board” that is like going to a business gathering where people are met and contacts are made.
A vertical or very focused job board is good, like 37Signals is doing.
Sort of like LinkedIn?
No, sites like that have no value add for me. I am referring to something more interactive and for smaller groups.
Think of the people you know at a meet-up but online but not in real-time.