JOBMATCHBOX

“Welcome!” they said to me on my first day. At the time, I thought they simply meant the traditional, you know, welcome to your first day of work. But really, it was more like, “welcome to the wild ride that is the web startup culture.” No matter what, these last couple of weeks has meant a very different work experience than what I was used to.

I’m Kurt, a senior at the University of Maryland. I joined Jobmatchbox almost three weeks ago as the “Social Marketing Intern.” What does that mean? I think it’d be impossible to define it as one “job”, but if I had to pick a few, I work with social media experts to promote area job opportunities and companies. Additionally, I do some photography at DC tech and social events, and I record, cut, and edit video footage of various startup happenings and get-togethers. I also occasionally blog (the results of which you’re reading right now) and do some graphic design.

Though I’ve only recently found myself head-first in the eclectic sea that is the DC tech/web social scene, I feel very much at home as someone who has long admired it from afar. I was most pleasantly surprised to learn that, no, I don’t in fact have to move to San Francisco or Seattle to experience it and, yes, there are cool people doing cool things right here where I live and grew up. I look forward to getting more involved as time goes on and meeting lots of interesting and engaging people. Also, a special thanks to the folks at Jobmatchbox for 1) bringing me on and 2) making me feel so welcome. Wish me luck.

Hi, my name is Erin and I am one of the interns here at Jobmatchbox. I will be contributing an occasional blog entry and working behind the scenes at Jobmatchbox. This is my first experience in the DC tech/web industry. Here’s a look back on my first couple weeks on the job.

My cover letter began:

Dear Hiring Manager,

I saw your job advertisement on Jobmatchbox for a recruiting
associate, and I have great interest in pursuing this position in
order to gain experience in human resources and recruiting….

Beginning a summer internship with a start-up company looked like a
great opportunity for me to get experience in a different field. I
really had no clue about the industry, but I had a great interest in
the internship position they offered me. I always considered myself
up for a new challenge, and this job seemed like the perfect challenge
for summer 2008.

Before my first day, I only knew that I wanted to help people find a
job they could hold onto for years, and I hoped this company could
show me how to connect people with their ideal job. I soon found out
that working for a small start-up company required me to step up and
take on a lot of different responsibilities.

After the first day of work, I did not know how I felt about my new
internship, because it was totally different from any other of my
previous jobs:

…having less than five employees in the office, sitting next to the
company partners, completing meaningful projects that moved the
company forward, working in relaxed atmosphere where your opinion
counts, starting out all projects with flexible guidelines…

Now writing this post, I know that I am ready to make the most of this
opportunity, where I can see myself making a mark on the future of
this company and its practices. I always saw myself as an optimistic,
idealistic person who wanted to make a change in the world… at least
in this position I can see how my efforts are making a difference in
this company :)

Look for my next post or contact me at email@jobmatchbox.com or follow us on Twitter @Jobmatchbox.

We are proud to announce the second class of interns here at Jobmatchbox.  They are Erin and Kurt.  Kurt responded to an ad posted on Jobmatchbox that was published to the Refresh DC website.  Erin replied to a targeted ad that we ran on a social media property.  Both of them have been amazing and we can’t thank them enough for choosing to spend their summer with us.  Both Erin and Kurt will be contributing to Jobmatchbox so look for their thoughts on job hunting, hiring, startups and social media.

We are already starting to look for interns for the Fall semester so if you are interested send us a Tweet (Jobmatchbox) or an email (email@jobmatchbox.com).

We have heard from a lot of people asking when the next Social Matchbox will happen.  Every company that I’ve talked to since the event has told me that they hired someone who they met at the event so it is worth having another one.  With this in mind we are working on the next event, to be held either in Baltimore or Tyson’s Corner.  We may hold one in both places. 

If your startup company or interactive firm would like to participate let us know ASAP.  Depending on the number of participating companies this time around we may hold the event on more than one evening or extend the event time and insert more time for networking. 

We are also talking to new and returning sponosors, if you would like to become a sponsor let us know.  We are currently seeking a title sponsor for each night in addition to a food and beverage sponsorship. 

All inquiries should be directed to email@jobmatchbox.com .
   

Have you ever had interview phobia?  For me this happened when I was asked a logic puzzle question that wasn’t the sort of question that I was used to beign asked.  For others it is math questions, computer science 101 questions, and things along similar lines. 

Everyone has to get through interviews.  This includes the hiring team members and the candidates.  Here are a few simple tips that will help you become an ace at technical interviews.

1. Job descriptions and resumes should be about what is really going on.  I’m not talking about exageration, I’m talking about stating what really matters.  If you write a resume it should include what you can do on day one.  If there are things that you would like to do then point that out too.  The same is true of job descriptions.  Whatever has to happen on day one should be there, but the wish list items should be noted as such.  One big problem that I’m seein these days is that hiring teams doctor the job description to sandbag for bad recruiters.  In one case a job description listed a type of software product as a requirement.  The job didn’t even involve the product.  It was listed becasue the hiring team assumed that recruiters would not be able to find someone without a clue.  The problem is that the clue might create a false positive or a false negative.  Imagine the pre-interview that happened with the recruiter, it probably involved a little exageration too (about that software too).  This is the sort of thing that keeps technical assesment companies in business.  Bottom line: cut to the chase and things will go better. 

 2. Be honest and answer the question.  I don’t know can be the right answer.  Hiring team members will often discuss the question with you.  If they interview you machine guy style then they problably can’t answer the question themselves (if they can it is because they’ve got the answer memorized).  You might even ask them a thoughtful question that you’ve got memorized right back and see if they can answer it.  The fact that you can think and not just BS is going to win you more points so honesty is the best policy.

3. The reality is that an interview begins with conversation and that if there isn’t one then it will not move forward.  People who are uptight tend to clam up and the conversation shuts down.  Note to hiring teams: creating an adversarial interview is not the way to make that happen.  Note to job seekers: thinking about the interview as a game of chess isn’t either. 

4. Know your audience and make sure you are in front of the right one.  Start by talking to the right people about the right job, not one that sounds cool or interesting.  Then make sure that you ask whoever gets you to the inteview questions about their interview process, who you will be interviewing with, what their expectations are, and if there are any things that should do to prepare.  Interviewing someone for job works exactly the same way in reverse.  Hiring teams should provide expectations, both over the phone and on the company career site, and should spend time familiarizing themselves with the candidate they are interviewing (BEFORE the interview starts). 

I got this from a guy who sent me a spammy Linkedin invite that I didn’t gratify by accepting: 

Hmmm… I don’t think I’m going to complain about not being on this guy’s spam list. 

There are a lot of people that I talk to who think that there is a secret formula to writing a job description. They read lots of books and study other people’s job descriptions for many hours. Then they strategize about how to game the recruiters who will interpret their jobs and the candidates, all in one job description. What they don’t realize is that the job description is not the same as a job ad. People often confuse the two and much to their disadvantage. You want your job description to carve out what the role entails, but you want your job ad to sell your company, job and team. These are two different things. I think that this is one of the reasons why the big traditional job boards are falling out of favor with job seekers.

To get yourself on the right track if you are in this strategic job description writing camp here are a few simple tips:

Think about your team’s narrative and the audience who you want to attract. Your job ad should spell out what you are about. If your team works really hard and earns big rewards (or expects to upon IPO or acquisition) then talk about it. If your team emphasizes fun and likes to play network games then talk about the games that your team plays and the things that you do for fun. If your team is more likely to have people leave for Harvard Business School then spell this out in your narrative.

Provide visual clues that substantiate your narrative. If your office is a dive, but there are lots of great neighborhood amenities nearby then show the neighborhood in a photo album. If the opposite is true then emphasize what you have going for you on the inside of the office. If you have a lounge with Foosball, Ping Pong, Rock Band, Arcade Games, etc. then put photos of these things in your job ad.

Tie the job ad into your company career website and provide a more detailed job description there. You should expand on the narrative and visual clues that you provide in your job ad on your company website.

There are decisions driven by business priorities, then there are decisions that are just difficult to make.  Being in business involves a lot of difficult decisions that have to be made every day. 

We live in web 2.0 world where data is free, but clicks are not, but that doesn’t mean that you should engage in shady business practices.  My beef here is primarily with ecnext because they are engaged in a shady business practice that I would liken to splogging.  However, both Indeed and Jobthread can put a stop to their shady business practice or at least make it easier for publishers and hiring teams to avoid beign tangled in your spammy web. 

Indeed needs to find a way for users of their job search widget to report spammy practices like the one that I encountered today.  If they don’t want to go that far then they should take the time to verify that publishers using their job search widget are not using it for spammy purposes.  Guidelines for publishers would be a good start.  For example: creat a policy that prohibits widget publishers from grabbing company names from their (Indeed) API and then listing ads that look like jobs or for just plain jobs from companies other than those associated with companies.

Here is what I’m talking about:

This is not ok:
Indeed Job Search [ Enter Keyword]  [Enter Location] Search
Acme, Inc. (pulled from Indeed’s API)
Ad Job - Work from Home
Ad Job - Job at Sprint

This is an ok use case:
Acme, Inc. Jobs(pulled from Indeed’s API)
Acme, Inc. Job #1
Acme, Inc. Job #2
End Acme, Inc. Jobs.

Ad…

This is an ok use case:
Acme, Inc. Jobs (pulled from Indeed’s API)
No listings found.
End Acme, Inc. Jobs.

Ad …

One such user that is currently abusing the Indeed Jobs widget is a company called ecnext that is based in Westerville, Ohio.  Their phone numbers are 614-682-5103 (main line) and 614-682-5105 (customer support).  They are an an online advertising company owned by Hoovers that publishes sites like Goliath, Manta and Standards and Poors.  They have a B2B relationship with Indeed.com that allows them to pull data from Indeed job listings (via API). 

What ecnext does with that data is identical to what sploggers do with the content that they lift from other publisher sites. ecnext pulls the data from Indeed’s listings, creates company profiles, then puts ads under the name of the company.  The ads are for other jobs - work from home, competitors, etc.  My example above is from their Goliath website. 

The company doesn’t get a voice in this and this is really bad because it makes it look like the company is either a staffing agency or worse - a scam operation selling work from home opportunities.  The case that showed up under one company that I looked at today (on Goliath) included work from home opportunities and jobs at Sprint like in the example above.  The company that I looked at had no affiliation with either work from home opportunities or Sprint.  This is very misleading and is used to improve the site’s SEO and ad revenue.

I called Indeed and they said that they would consider giving companies and opt-out option, but gave no promises.  This is a major headache because Indeed gets their jobs from other companies like Jobthread, a site that doens’t tell publishers or job posters that their content is going to be leveraged by a 4th party (ecnext).  The content is so far upstream by the time a company is hit with the problem that someone would have to contact a variety of publishers independently to get the problem resolve.

In any case, ecnext goes up in my hall of shame right next to the sploggers that shamelessly rip content from publisher sites and then attempt to re-monetize it.  I’ve been supportive of both Indeed and Jobthread because they provide much needed tools to job seekers and help hiring teams by simplifying the job posting process, but if something doesn’t change (on both ends) then they are going to lose my support.

I was talking to someone a few days ago and we got into the subject of company culture.  There are company cultures that put fire in our bellies and ones that make us watch the clock.  Having spent time in the small business and startup community I’ve come to hear people talk about their “open company culuture” frequently.  It usually involves a spreadsheet and a talk about how the company has an open books policy that everyone in the company has access to.  A few quarters go by and the company doesn’t do so well and everyone gets bummed because the spreadsheet doesn’t change, despite rhetoric to the contrary.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  If you run a company you can have an open culture without exposing your financials (and yourself) to scrutiny. 

A great example of this popped into my blog reading this morning.  Andy Monfried, CEO of Lotame.com, posted a blog entry titled “4 Minutes and a Buzzer” today.  He talks about how the company has all team members to share an idea and have it debated for four minutes.  Now I’m not just throwing this out there to point out that it sounds interesting.  This sort of thing happens around the Lotame offices on a regular basis. 

The company is in the social media advertising space and doing some really innovative things.  If you ask the team where their most innovative ideas come from you will quickly learn that it is events like this that lead to many of them.