Almost daily we get news of another online recruitment service launch or job board startup. Some of the more useful we write about. By far though, the majority of these are me-toos; one more entrant into a field so crowded you can’t cross cyberspace without tripping on one of them.
Occasionally, though, we come across a site worth sharing. Here for instance are three of the more browse-worthy.
Labor Insight
This is a cool site even if you have no interest in employment analytics. If nothing else, you’ll be wowed by the site’s interactive, graphical displays and ease of use.
Starting with a map of the United States, a simple mouseover of the states gives you such basic employment information as household income, and size of the labor force. Click on a state and you see what cities have the most online job posting activity, an indicator of how robust the local economy is. Drill down, and Labor Insight will list every posted job in the time period you pick.
There’s also a search by company, which will tell you what company has posted the most jobs online during a given period. Or what company has posted the most jobs in Alabama, or check trends in occupations by ONET code (Occupational Information Network) or … well, you get the idea.
The site is a product of EmployOn, LLC, a jobs technology company, that provides jobs searching and matching, data structuring, and other services to education, government, and others. Laborinsight.com is a natural offshoot from the job scraping, and data structuring EmployOn does.
Even if you don’t think you have any use for such business intelligence (if you think that, we suggest you think again), try out the site. The three-day free trial tells us that this is not going to be a free service.
VoiceScreener
If you do a lot of telephone screens, you know what a pain just scheduling them can be. Add in the time it takes asking the same questions over and over and it’s a wonder you can get anything else done. That’s why automated telephone interviews have earned a place in the toolbox of high volume recruiters and staffing agencies.
One of the newest entrants into the field is HarQen (hark-en). Its voice screening and interview system is a little different than some of the others, since it lets you build a library of questions that can be assembled into a complete customized interview. With HarQen’s VoiceScreener you can create custom web pages for your candidates, have them answer knockout questions, and, if they qualify, they’re automatically telephoned for the interview. You, your team, or other designees can then listen to the responses at your convenience.
There are other services. turboVOICE out of Britain is similar and also integrates with its own ATS. Database Systems Corp. has hosted and enterprise IVR systems. There are also video interview systems, which may be overkill for certain types of recruiting. HarQen’s distinction is its ease of use and the handy way a recruiter can assemble custom interviews by selecting questions from previously recorded interviews. HarQen has cleverly integrated the telephone’s simplicity with online’s flexibility. Only missing is the ability for a candidate to handle the interview over the web.
eHire
Launched just last week, this site might qualify as one of those me-too’s, except for the promise contained in its founder’s LinkedIn company description. eHire, writes founder Joe Sabrin, “will help get one MILLION people eHired in 2009.”
eHire is a matching site, which (like nearly every other one of them) likens itself to eHarmony. In the press release announcing the new site, eHire claims to be “the first low-cost candidate-centric and transparent job matching online recruitment platform that gives both candidates a voice in the hiring process and enables recruiters/employers to efficiently find qualified candidates.”
We have no idea what that really means, and the website doesn’t explain it. But the feature set suggests this is going to be more than just another of those matching sites that have been cropping up in the last couple of years. eHire “includes features such as a multi-layered matching engine, a robust scoring mechanism, social networking components, comparative application and qualification views, career check-up services, and the automatic parsing of resumes, and more.”
Though still a little dubious, we’ll give Sabrin the benefit of the doubt. He at least has an understanding of the recruitment business, having founded the first iteration of eHire in 1999 as a boutique recruiter. Still, we have to wonder how he’s going to make eHire work with a business model that charges jobseekers to gain access to the jobs, and charges recruiters to get matches. Versions free to jobseekers haven’t made much progress, let alone matched one million. John Sumser doesn’t think much of eHire. We’re keeping an open mind.