A few posts back I talked about Jobfox (formerly Market10), a great website that does much better than most job boards at matching up applicants with job opportunities. This type of technology is definitely a dominant trend right now, and we're seeing many products out there that really try to narrow down the applicant funnel in a speedy but valid way (Trovix is another example). Another trend is coupling these 'smart funneling' systems with simulation tests, such as the Virtual Job Tryout or Virtual Job Audition.
In an article in this month's Inc. Magazine, another similar type of service is described--Protuo.
Protuo's job matching system is probably the most detailed I've seen, which is good or bad depending upon how you look at it. Good in that the matches that are generated are hypothetically much more likely to be on target. Bad because given most people's attention span, I question how many people will actually fill out the entire profile.
The candidate/job profile has three broad categories:
* Personal skills and knowledge
* Social skills and training
* Business and analytical skills
Within each category is another set of fillable tabs. For example, under "Personal skills and knowledge" there are separate categories for Personal Skills (e.g., creativity, initiative) and Arts, Language, and Science (e.g., math, biology). Individuals can create their own web pages to highlight their qualifications (example here)--with full HTML editing capability and blog included, which are nice touches.
Aside from time considerations, there's another potential problem with drilling so deep. People aren't known for their ability to describe themselves particularly accurately. This is not helped by the fact that people are asked to describe their skill level in general terms that are not tailored to the category and for which no instructions are provided (e.g., Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert). My guess is the match percentage will suffer for it.
On the other hand, these types of systems are still developing. Credit goes to Protuo for combining job search with personal pages. Expect much more in the way of tailored application and assessment processes that try to maximize speed and quality.
2 comments:
I just wanted to thank you for the review of the Protuo product. I am an Executive at Protuo and wanted to address your concerns. At this time we have not received any complaints from our users in regards to the survey system. Rather we have even made some very solid matches. And yes we are already in the process of adding a How to section and a small direction area for the Best Fit Match. I would love to invite you back to review the Protuo product once more in August after our 2.0 launch which we are making the user interface even more compelling. Again thank you for this review.
I just wanted to thank you for the review of the Protuo product. I am an Executive at Protuo and wanted to address your concerns. At this time we have not received any complaints from our users in regards to the survey system. Rather we have even made some very solid matches. And yes we are already in the process of adding a How to section and a small direction area for the Best Fit Match. I would love to invite you back to review the Protuo product once more in August after our 2.0 launch which we are making the user interface even more compelling. Again thank you for this review.
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