The Race to Create a Web of Reputation

By Mathew Ingram


One of the big issues with the ongoing explosion of social media, whether it’s blogging or Twitter or Facebook, is a lack of effective ways to filter the signal from the noise — in other words, to figure out who we should pay attention to. Facebook relies on your existing social graph, while Twitter uses its own internal algorithms to suggest people you should follow, and LinkedIn uses your professional status and co-workers or contacts as the benchmark. But the race continues to try and measure online reputation in an effective way. Should it be based on activity? Number of followers? A ranking system in which people can vote on you? All of the above?
One of the latest to jump into this race is Mixtent, which launched today with a voting-based system that uses data from your LinkedIn profile once you log in with your credentials (and will also pull in your Facebook info if you connect that as well). The company says it is “building a professional reputation graph on top of the main social and professional networks” in order to help people hire others and get hired themselves. If Mixtent looks a little familiar, that’s because it appears to be almost identical to a LinkedIn-based game known as Cube Duel that got some attention a couple of weeks ago, in which users vote for co-workers and can “unlock” various badges, and so on.

In trying to measure who has the highest reputation among your co-workers, and therefore who is best qualified to either recommend you or be recommended themselves, Mixtent is going after the same kind of market that other startups such as Honestly (formerly known as Unvarnished), Namesake and BranchOut are aiming at — namely, the professional end of the social web, in which people are looking to network for jobs. In the same way that Mixtent is based on the LinkedIn network, BranchOut uses Facebook as a platform, and leverages all of the people you are connected to via your social graph who might work (or used to work) at other companies.
One issue for BranchOut that I wrote about when the service first launched is that Facebook is primarily personal, and so the overlap between that part of your life and the professional side is haphazard at best, and useless at worst. In a similar way, the game-like aspect of Mixtent might not jibe well with the more professional aspects of LinkedIn for some users. Honestly, meanwhile, is trying to create a reputation-based network that achieves the same thing as LinkedIn or BranchOut — a way of measuring a person’s skills within a certain professional context — but allows for anonymous (and therefore theoretically more honest) input about the people who are being ranked.

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Top 100 job search websites and categories

by eric shannon



This is the 2011 guide to the top 100 US job search categories. For each top employment category it lists the top 3 or 4 niche job search websites.
This guide excludes:

• job sites that lack top Google rankings
• sites with high Google rankings but low credibility, authenticity or integrity.
• most sites which always require registration or paid membership to be useful
• aggregators and job board networks like our own job search engines at JustJobs.com

This guide relies on my 14 years of experience running a top niche job board and dozens of hours of research.  As you’ve probably noticed, the Internet can be a cesspool (to use Google CEO, Eric Schmidt’s words). So avoid posting your job or resume the first place you come to. Remember the old saying “measure twice, cut once”. Look for websites with personality, that win meaningful awards, that are in the news, that publish a blog – whose credibility is clearly high.
What’s different or unusual this year in the search results?

• more job sites owned by publishers for whom jobs is an extension like fashionjobs.com
• more social network type sites such as firefighternation.com
• want to see creativity? check out the flash sign up at exploretalent.com or site design at careersinmusic.com
• fewer entrepreneur operated sites, more corporate and seo/affiliate entities
• European job search Engines and Craigslist are making their way up

The top 30 job site niches. These rankings represent an average of 12 months search data at Google and are influenced by seasonal considerations as well as the business cycle — so take this top 30 for what it is, just a snapshot in time.

accounting construction cruise ship data entry engineering college environmental finance freelance government graphic design healthcare hospitality insurance it

journalism law enforcement marketing medical nursing overseas part time police retail sales security teaching warehouse welding work from home

If this is in any way useful or interesting to you, please share it with your friends or link here if you’re a blogger! If the response is good, you’ll help me keep it going.  Without further ado, here are all 100 categories and their job boards arranged alphabetically:
Legend

• association – site is operated by an association and/or nonprofit
• free – free for employers
• IAEWS - displays International Association of Employment Web Sites logo

accounting

• accountingjobstoday IAEWS
• careerbank.com owned by OnTargetJobs.com

advertising

• marketingjobs.com
• talentzoo.com IAEWS
• mediajobmarket.com owned by ADWEEK

agriculture

• agcareers.com

airline

• flightdeckrecruitment.com

airport
architecture

• archinect.com

art
attorney

• lawjobs.com

automotive

• autojobs.com
• automotivejobsonline.com

aviation

• aviationemployment.com owned by Internet Brands
• jsfirm.com

B - Z

When did LinkedIn become a job search site dressed up as a social network?

Posted by procureinsights

As LinkedIn moves closer and closer to launching their long-awaited IPO I cannot help but recall a line from the 1976 movie All The President’s Men, when Deep Throat admonished Bob Woodward (played by Hal Holbrook and Robert Redford respectively) to “follow the money.”

To what am I referring and, what does Watergate have to do with a social network IPO?  Well simply put of all the analysis that has been done so far in which data such as revenues, assets, cash on hand as well as registered users and page views, it is the trending relating to LinkedIn’s revenue source that stands out.
Let me share the following numbers with you:

• Job listings, Jan-Sept 2010: $65.9 million (41% of revenue)
• Job listings, 2009: $23.75 million (29% of revenue)

• Advertising, Jan-Sept 2010:$51.37 million (32% of revenue)
• Advertising, 2009: $23.8 million (30% of revenue)

• Premium subscriptions, Jan-Sept 2010: $44.1 million (27% of revenue)
• Premium subscriptions, 2009: $33.2 million (41% of revenue)

While advertising revenue has increased slightly by about 2% between this year and last, it is the almost equal reversal in the revenue percentages generated from Job Listings versus Premium Subscriptions over the past year that is noteworthy.

What these numbers say is that even though the dollar amount relating to subscriptions increased from $33.2 million in 2009 to $44.1 million in 2010, it’s premium memberships dropped significantly in terms of its percentage of LinkedIn’s overall earnings.

Conversely, revenue generated from job listings not only grew in terms of dollars from $23.75 million in 2009 to an incredible $65.9 million in 2010, but its share of the overall revenue generated by the network in in this most recent year grew to 41%.

These are not incidental, by the way numbers.  What they indicate is a trend which would seem to tell us that LinkedIn has become one of the first social networks to discover its true revenue producing formula or model.  And if you follow the money, it is more than likely going to lead to a re-branded business centered around jobs, jobs and more jobs.

Of course, and as I learned during the dot com bust . . . and subsequent boom, most of the early high flyers in the tech industry admitted that they really did not have any idea as to how they reached the lofty stratosphere of big dollar success – a point that was proven with the collapse of so many companies into a remember when oblivion.

In short, I am not certain that the fine people that occupy the executive suites of LinkedIn actually planned to become a premier job listing exchange however, and after their having grappled with various revenue model mixes, you graciously accept the results and capitalize on it through, you guessed it, an IPO.

Now I am certain that the brain trust at LinkedIn will probably pooh-pooh my take on the above numbers, indicating that they are at their core still a social network.  No doubt they will point to recent revisions of the site to include follow options and open forums to support this claim.  But bell and whistle introductions notwithstanding, the bottom line speaks volumes in that in 2009 LinkedIn’s net income was minus – that’s right minus <$3.4 million>.  In 2010 net income grew to a positive position of $10.1 million.  The big question is simply this, if their job listings service had remained the same as it was the year before, would they have turned a profit if their revenue was based on the increase in subscription revenue?  Follow the money.

This in turn leads to another question . . . is the growth in job listings an indication that perhaps LinkedIn has finally found the market’s hot button that will enable it to establish a genuine revenue model versus a pie in the sky valuation associated with other virtual realm sites such as Groupon?  For those who are unfamiliar with Groupon, it is a group buying site that offers collective purchasing power to its members who pass around the savings opportunities to people they know at a viral rate that would surpass any of the worst pandemics in history.  A hot property, Groupon received a $1 billion valuation despite having no visible means of revenue level to support it.  Ahhh, it reminds of the glorious days of the dot com era, when sizzle trumped substance.

The point I am making is that while the majority of social networks and related social media are still struggling to find their income producing footing, LinkedIn just may have found the money artery so to speak.

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Master LinkedIn's advanced search tips to get ahead of the competition

In a recent post, I talked about leveraging LinkedIn as a resource to help you identify both decision makers and competitors. To do that successfully, you have to get used to doing advanced search queries in LinkedIn's vast database. I'm going to give you a few scenarios below with specific examples to help you understand how to do this. If you're not technically inclined, it may seem a little daunting at first, but if you take the time to try these tips, you'll find that a wealth of information can be available to you in your job search.

Scenario 1: Research the Competition (Competitive Analysis)

Say you want to find competitor profiles to see how you stack up against them. If you're a writer, type in "writer" in LinkedIn's search box and you'll be presented with results that include "writer" in the profiles.  If you're a project manager, however, you have to include quotes around your search terms to find "project managers," instead of just profiles with the words "project" and "manager."

Type in: "Project Manager"

When you search for project managers, you're going to get profiles from various backgrounds. To exclude the non-relevant results, use the NOT feature (i.e. NOT construction would exclude results containing project managers with a construction background.) It's important that you use the word NOT in ALL CAPS.

Type in: "Project Manager" NOT construction

Scenario 2: Industry Networking

What happens if you're trying to set up informational interviews at various companies and you want to target people you may not already know? Say you're a software developer, and you know from experience that potential hiring managers would have the titles "Engineering Manager" or "Software Development Manager," etc. You can use the OR feature of LinkedIn to display both results.

Type in: "Engineering Manager" OR "Software Development Manager"

Scenario 3: Research Decision Makers (Prospecting)

Now you see a particular job at Microsoft that intrigues you, and you're tempted to blindly submit your resume. Then you remember from my columns that companies like Microsoft can get as many as 900 applications, so you don't want to be just one of the masses. You know that if you can speak to the potential hiring manager, you can learn more about the job beyond the job description and that can help you better tailor your application.

Read The Rest Of The Article And More Tips

Stanford's eHarmony-Style Job Search Offers Large Payoff

John Byrne offers a window into Stanford GSB's career services office with his article, "Creating An eHarmony Model for MBA Careers." He starts by reminding readers that graduates from Stanford GSB report the highest median base salaries—about $120,000/year compared to Harvard and Wharton's $110,000, Dartmouth and Kellogg's $105,000, and Columbia's $100,000. Furthermore, he states, nearly twice as many Stanford grads receive other guaranteed compensation as do HBS graduates.
Such numbers could be attributed to Stanford's small class size (about 385 a year compared to 910 at Harvard), to its location in the Silicon Valley, and/or to its phenomenal Career Management Center.
It is this latter consideration that Byrne focuses on in his article. The GSB's Career Management Center is headed by Pulin Sanghvi who is modeling the career match process to a system similar to that of eHarmony, a popular dating website.
Bryne sums up Sanghvi's understanding of the changing face of MBA recruiting as such:

"MBA recruiting is changing from the old recruiters-visit-campus model to one that is far more customized and targeted to individual student desires and goals. Roughly 80% of the companies that recruit at the school now hire only a single Stanford grad a year. For many of these recruiters, it makes little sense to come to campus and interview dozens to hundreds of students. Half of Stanford’s graduates now do self-directed job searches, forgoing the prestigious yet more traditional MBA jobs with McKinsey, BCG, Goldman and Morgan Stanley. Instead, they’re searching for positions with smaller companies in biotech, healthcare, private equity, or venture capital. They’re looking at small hedge funds along with Internet and technology startups."

To accommodate this change, Sanghvi is relying more on online resources to connect students with unique career opportunities. Similar to eHarmony's personalized matching system, Sanghvi is crafting custom support for individual students to connect them with jobs that best match their objectives and skills.
Stanford's career management staff uses an innovative software program to match student-updated online profiles to available career opportunities and to create customized support and mentorship between students and career advisors. The process is not automated, but more "an outcome of…high touch service" (15 full-time people in the career management center for 385 students). Such personalized matchmaking is realistic only when you're dealing with a student body the size of Stanford's.
“As we capture information online, we are using it to inform our one-on-one interactions with them,” says Sanghvi. “What we can bring every student is deeply customized support. Instead of focusing on generic topics, we’ll find out that there are ten students who want to know how to network in the clean tech industry. So then we can do customized programming for them, gathering best practices for that industry and bringing in alums from clean tech to speak with them.”
As a result of Sanghvi's program's success, many Stanford students are choosing not to participate in the fall recruiting cycle; the school has adopted a year-round recruiting schedule instead, recognizing that sometimes the longer you stay in the market, the greater the opportunities you may encounter.
Here are some statistics included in Byrne's article on how MBAs of Stanford's class of 2010 found their high-paying jobs:
SCHOOL-FACILITATED ACTIVITIES:
On-Campus Recruiting: 27%
Other (GSB-facilitated): 4%
Alumni: 4%
Job Boards: 6%
Resume Book: 2%
Career Fair: 1%
Faculty: 1%
GSB Class/Project: 1%
Student Club/Club Event: 1%
GRADUATE-FACILITATED ACTIVITIES:
Pre-MBA Employer: 23%
Family/Friend: 11%
Business Contact: 11%
Other (student-facilitated): 5%
Company Website: 2%
Executive Search Firm: 1%
Undergraduate Network: 1

See Original Post

Top 10 Social Networks for Entrepreneurs

EpicLaunch


There are hundreds of social networks out there. You can’t be everywhere and we all need to focus our efforts and time on the most effective social networking sites. Here are the social networks I would recommend most for entrepreneurs.

Linkedin – Over 50 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities.

Pro: Largest business network on the web.
Con: Some features require payment.

Entrepreneur Connect – Start networking with entrepreneurs just like you.

Pro: Free membership.
Con: Self promotion is not encouraged.

PartnerUp – Network with other small business owners just like you.

Pro: Free membership.
Con: Very wide range of topics.

StartupNation – Source for Small Business Advice and Entrepreneur Forum.

Pro: Many resources available and advice.
Con: Limited networking capabilities.

Biznik – Business Networking.

Pro: Free membership.
Con: Small network.

Perfect Business – Powerful Business Planning Software , Find Startup Funding.

Pro: Resources and networking.
Con: Very small network.

Young Entrepreneur – Small Business & Entrepreneur Community.

Pro: Very active community.
Con: Forum is a bit difficult to use.

Ryze – Business Networking.

Pro: Very easy to use.
Con: Design is poor.

Xing – Social Network for Business Professionals.

Pro: Second largest business network.
Con: LinkedIn is better to use for mass networking.

Musts:

• Facebook – Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them.
• Twitter – Twitter is without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is happening right now.
• Flickr – Flickr is certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.

Reposted from EpicLaunch

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/top-10-social-networks-for-entrepreneurs-2011-1#ixzz1BaVPhNKI

Recruiters Rethink Online Playbook

By JOE LIGHT

As recruiters wade cautiously back into hiring mode, they're throwing out their old playbooks. Rather than sift through mounds of online applications, they are going out to hunt for candidates themselves.

Sodexo's U.S. unit has cut job posts on third-party sites since the recession started. Above, its Paris offices.

Many plan to scale back their use of online job boards, which they say generate mostly unqualified leads, and hunt for candidates with a particular expertise on places like LinkedIn Corp.'s professional networking site before they post an opening. As the market gets more competitive again, they are hiring recruiters with expertise in headhunting and networking, rather than those with experience processing paperwork.

Inundated by online applicants, McLean, Va.-based government contractor Science Applications International Corp. plans to cut the number of job boards it uses in the coming fiscal year to six from 15 or so, says company vice president Kara Yarnot.
SAIC has asked its 125 U.S. recruiters to find candidates for analyst, engineering, and other jobs on professional social networks instead.

"It's almost a throwback to the old, dial-for-dollars method of recruiting," says Ms. Yarnot. "We need to reach candidates earlier, before they're being pursued by competitors."

About 24% of companies plan to decrease their usage of third-party employment websites and job boards this year, according to a December survey from the Corporate Executive Board Co., a business consulting firm. Meanwhile, nearly 80% of respondents said they plan to increase their use of job-board alternative methods this year, such as employee referrals and other websites like Facebook Inc. or LinkedIn.

Food services company Sodexo USA, owned by Paris-based Sodexo SA, slashed the number of jobs it posts to third-party job boards by more than half since the recession started, says vice president of talent acquisition Arie Ball. The number of applications to some executive openings at Sodexo rose more than 50% to 300 since the downturn started, Ms. Ball says, but the increase brought many unqualified candidates.

"Recruiters had to put in all this extra time to read applications but we didn't get benefit from it," she says. Now, the company is hiring different types of recruiters who specialize in headhunting, including finding candidates to poach from competitors, rather than those who are good at processing and filtering applications.

Companies are adapting their plans as they start hiring again after the downturn. Between November 2009 and November 2010, the total number of job openings rose 32%, according to the Labor Department.

Job seekers who were reluctant to leave their existing jobs—as well as unemployed workers sitting on the sidelines—have begun casting about for opportunities, too. Between December 2009 and December 2010, recruiters saw a 17% increase in applications per opening, according to the Corporate Executive Board.

The trend has in many ways been a boon for job boards, which say they haven't noticed any impact from some companies' pullback. But some of the largest sites acknowledge that the new environment means they must do more to keep customers happy.

In the coming months, Monster Worldwide Inc. plans to roll out technology that ranks candidates based on how well their applications fit requirements set by the recruiter, says chief global marketing officer Ted Gilvar. The product has been available to some customers since late last year.

Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group Inc. remains concerned that relying too much on job boards could be bad for business.

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