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Opportunity Knocks… A lot!

Oct 01

In the last few weeks, I’ve had a rash of opportunities come my way via email (the majority of which were job opportunities from 3rd party recruiters, but there were also 2 different co-founding opportunities)… It occurred to me that politely responding to offers that were clearly a bad fit was fairly time consuming. I don’t know if it will do any good, but I whipped up a page detailing the kinds of things that interest me.

Incidentally, this is tangentially related to a feature that I always advocated for at Jobster… The “what I want” part of the online resume. In times past, resumes were sent directly to employers didn’t need this. If I send you a resume, the “what I want” portion of it is generally the “objective” (“To find a position that gives me the opportunity to grow professionally blah blah blah”). As the resume has evolved into something more generalized that you post publicly and then wait for the opportunities to roll in, it seems like it needs a more expanded section detailing what opportunities the job seeker really wants.

For the record– I’m NOT a job seeker. I don’t want a “job” (though I suppose I’d jump at the right one). This site isn’t a resume (but it has enough resume-esque information to suffice), so I figure I’d add a page that details what sort of offers I’d entertain.

What do you think? Dumb idea? Will it fend off recruiters who aren’t sharp enough not to offer me entry level .NET coding positions?

FINALLY… Google offers a “Business Edition” Site Search Product

Sep 21

For many years as a consultant, when a small business said they wanted a site search engine, I was flummoxed. The best site search option was clearly Google, but it was ugly (you had very little control over the appearance of the search results) and, of course, laden with text ads. I generally settled with a premier version of Atomz, but the quality of the search was fairly mediocre.

I’m pretty stunned that it took this long for Google to offer it (given the obvious demand), but here we are! Google is now officially offering “Google Enterprise: Google Custom Search Business Edition” (they are clearly taking their cue from Microsoft on product naming… Sheesh). “Custom Search Business Edition turns off Google Adwords advertisements in search results that regularly appear in the free version of the Custom Search Engine. If you wish to significantly change the look and feel of your search engine, you can build your own user interface and integrate an XML feed of search results.”

Before you get scared off by the name (“Oh no! Enterprise?!”), here’s the pricing rundown:

* Search less than 5,000 web pages: $100 per year
* Search less than 50,000 web pages: $500 per year
* Search less than 100,000 web pages: $850 per year
* Search less than 300,000 web pages: $2250 per year

I honestly think they are shooting themselves in the foot a bit with the high end pricing (I think they could charge a lot more), but it’s nice to see some small-biz-friendly pricing on the low end.

Of course, a big problem remains here… If I build my own non-google search engine, I can make the results pages happily spiderable and they’ll get indexed by Google (which means a swath of resulting organic traffic). If my results pages are generated by Google, I’m darn sure I can’t talk them into indexing them and treating them like high quality content pages.

Speaking tomorrow night at SeattleTechStartups Meetup

Sep 19

Tomorrow evening I’ll be speaking at the SeattleTechStartups meetup (starts at 6pm– click the link for details).

The topic will be “Bootstrap Marketing for Web Startups: SEO, SMM, and Viral Marketing“. For the uninitiated, that’s Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, and Viral Marketing.

If anyone has anything in particular they want me to chat about, feel free to drop me a note (or leave a comment here). I plan to post the PowerPoint Deck and a “Related Links and Resources” page afterwards (which I’ll make available here as well).

Hope to see you all there!

Alpha Joy – Elegantly Simple Hiring/Recruiting Software

Sep 12

During my tenure at Jobster, I never got to do what I had set out to do with Jobby– create a tool that small and medium businesses could use to make hiring people less of a pain in the backside. I don’t blame Jobster a bit– with $48 million in venture capital, you have to swing for the fences and go where there are vast piles of money to be had… Which means you start at the enterprise level and work your way down or start on the consumer level and work your way up (Jobster is doing both!).

When you have $0 in venture capital, the same rules don’t apply, however. I think there is a really serious need for software to serve companies in the 5-200 employee range– companies that don’t have the time or the budget to endure the painful ATS market that’s out there right now.

That’s why I was glad to see that Kirkland Rails God Ben Curtis has been building some snazzy recruiting software between his consulting gigs. I’ve seen a sneak preview and it looks SHARP.

If you’re a hiring manager (but can’t stomach the complexity and cost of the ATS scene), head on over to CatchTheBest and sign up to hear about the launch!