We began 2011 talking about new “matchmaker” job sites starting up. As 2011 progressed, as Jeff Dickey-Chasins said, such sites, some more art than science, “proliferated.”
A year later, we’re not done yet. At least one new site is hoping to join the bunch. Called “Better Weekdays,” it is being built behind the scenes, with one major player in the company, who’d rather we not use his name, telling us it’s about five months off from launch.
The site has an abbreviated website up, in addition to a LinkedIn page and Twitter feed. It’s looking to hire recruiters or other recruiting-industry insiders. Better Weekdays hopes to use a combination of tests already built and used in recruiting, along with some of its own “secret sauce,” as one of the site’s founders says. People’s skills and “personal culture” — what’s important to them — will be captured and matched with companies looking to fill jobs with MBA graduates.
Better Weekdays is working on its site and on spreading the word among potential customers. But, unlike the “Mystery Applicant” site we mentioned, it’s not focusing on applicant tracking systems right now. The company doesn’t want to deal with the issues involved in integrating an application with those systems. And, it sees its sweet spot to be mainly hot, growing, small and medium-size companies, not as much Fortune 500 firms.
Those small/medium companies, Better Weekdays figures, are less likely to have much of an HR department, and could use Better Weekdays to hire someone, probably with a pay-per-hire model, rather than a pay-per posting.
“Hasn’t this all been tried before?” I asked my contact there. “Yes,” he says, “but still no one’s cracked the code.”
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Paul Basile Dec 31, 2011 at 11:42 am
Todd,
First, plaudits for continuing to pay attention to “job-matching” sites. This is important because job-person match is, it seems to me, the ONLY thing that talent acquisition or talent management should be achieving: i.e., getting the right person in the right job. It’s a win for individual and for employer. And we know how to do it.
What does it mean “no one’s cracked the code”? The code has been cracked for years. Validated assessments produce the best answer. The only debate I ever see on this point comes from a) naysayers who don’t seem to accept or trust science and the truth, or b) product- or methodology-protectors who argue about details and about which assessment is familiar and therefore preferred…
It seems to take a lot of time and effort for the message to get through: this business process (hiring and talent management), like nearly all others, needs to be based on solid analytics, data, and valid criteria and not on the oft-defended “gut feel”.
What better experience could a candidate expect than to be provided with reliable, job performance-predicting self-knowledge? The candidate is extremely well treated in scientific job-person matching. S/he discovers the most likely paths to high performance and satisfaction.
The solution to the overall poor results of hiring and talent management is well known. Convincing more and more organizations and individuals takes time… but that seems to have been the case throughout history for a great many new and better solutions that (seem to) threaten established, legacy approaches. May 2012 see more rapid progress in the adoption of this as well as other areas where known solutions exist and need to be applied.
Keep the spotlight on matching, Todd; it helps.
Latest Job-matchmaking Site Will Focus on MBAs | Sweet Rendezvous Jan 1, 2012 at 4:30 am
[...] Latest Job-matchmaking Site Will Focus on MBAs by Todd Raphael Dec 30, 2011, 5:41 am ET We began 2011 talking about new “matchmaker” job sites starting up. As 2011 progressed, as Jeff Dickey-Chasins said, such sites, some more art than science, “proliferated.” A year later, we're not done yet. … Read more on ERE Media [...]
Bob Gately Jan 2, 2012 at 10:10 am
Hello Todd,
Paul is correct, “The code has been cracked for years.” What hasn’t been cracked is the minds of many managers and consultants who foresee a drop off in their influence and power should hiring managers start using the code. It isn’t rocket science but it is effective.
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