It was long overdue but I finally had a WordPress developer create a mobile friendly version of Job Board Secrets.

the mobile friendly version is here!

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I was recently interviewed on one of the top HR podcasts in the land, Drive Thru HR. Here’s the ear candy.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/drivethruhr/2013/01/25/chris-russell-at-lunch-with-drivethruhr

I ran into this interview with the founders of a site called Jobzle. In it, they detail how they crashed and burned with that site. You’ll hear some valuable lessons about starting an online recruiting business.

Not really I say.

I get questions from people thinking about starting some kind of video resume site or ways to apply via video. But just adding some kind of video component to your job site wont really add much value to the seeker or employer.

Employer/recruiters are BUSY people. And I cant stress that enough. They dont have time to sift through multiple video applications.

Video resume sites never really took off, the main reason being most people suck at creating them. Most people dont want to be on camera.

But video in the recruitment process does make sense in one area. Interviewing a small group of candidates. Thats why companies like Hirevue and Taketheinterview.com are getting traction.

It works in this case because it saves peoples time from actually having to walk into a building to interview.

So if you are a job board just use video to do career advice stuff. 5 or 10 years from now perhaps more job boards will have a ‘video apply’ as an option but thats a long way off.

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The job market is ever changing. Social media is the newest tool in the job seeker and recruiter toolbox. It is so much of a trend that it enticed me to build CareerCloud.com.

The mission of CareerCloud is to build social and mobile apps that help job seekers connect with employers.

Our first two products are geared towards the candidate side. First is our innovaive social resume system. It allows a job seeker (or anyone with multiple social media accounts) to combine all that data onto a single page…a “social resume”. The user can then use that page which is available via a unique URL to promote themself. We even created badges to share it online. Here’s mine:

The second product is a mobile app called “Hidden Jobs App”. I built in almost 2 years ago, just released version 2 a few months ago and now its a service of CareerCloud. We’ll be making more stand alone apps like this in the future. Get it for 99 cents in the app store.

Now some of you may be thinking that I no longer like the job board industry. Not true. I still own a small number of niche sites like JobsinSolarPower.com. Its just that social recruiting is here and its real and I want a piece of it!

CareerCloud is going to be a launching pad for all my new social tools and mobile apps. So stay tuned and get your free social resume today.

As an entrepreneur you always have to stay on top of your industry in order to take advantage of the trends shaping it. I have always been forward thinking when it come to online recruiting technology. Its a fun business and I’m good at it.

So my advice to you is keep experimenting and launching new products. You cant win if you dont play.

More than a year and a half ago I launched JobSpeek. The first app ever to let recruiters posts jobs from their iphone and syndicate them to the major job search engines.

It won much praise from industry analysts and such. In fact the YOH Staffing blog called it the ‘future of recruiting’. But even though it was cool technology, it was too cool for most recruiters who are still used to doing things from their PC. It did have a small group of loyal users, it did work, as we documented a number of hires with it.

But a recent bug in the app caused me to think twice about spending money to fix it. With the launch of my new social resume startup CareerCloud, I just dont have the time or passion for it anymore.

Plus the fact that it doesnt generate any revenue. I never spent the time to enable the pay-to-post feature. I think it would have worked but it would have taken too much time and energy.

Therefore I’m closing it and will attempt to sell off any assets. If you are interested in buying the app source code or the website, drop me a line.

Knowing when to shut something down is important. You dont want things to linger to long and get stale. Move on to new and better things. Learn from your failures.

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Whats a private job board you ask? Well Railyo is. According to their site:

Railyo is a global network of Ruby On Rails Developers. It’s a private network, all the members are handpicked (based on their portfolio/projects/skills/..) to ensure the quality of the network.

From a design perspective there are almost no graphics on this site. And thats ok because they use colors and text very well. Its amazing what you can do with a well planned page layout using CSS and Railyo offers a glimpse of that. The homepage tells you exactly what they do and I like the 2 column layout that explains why they are different than other tech job boards and freelance sites. Stating why you are different is important so you can set expectations. And it helps set you apart from the competition.

Now for the “private” aspect. Railyo is a new type of service that is cropping up. Others include InterviewJet.com. Their main premise is to curate the best candidates based around a certain niche. In this case they are targeting Ruby on Rails developers.

I like this business model because it helps recruiters save time and in theory see the best candidates. (and as you know time = money) But that is also the challenge for Railyo. How will they get enough candidates to fill the pipeline? They need to be laser focused on building their candidate database with enough top ruby developers to make it work over the long term.

TIP: think of products that help recruiters/employers save time. If you can help make their job more efficient with a certain part of the recruiting cycle you can charge for it!