Monday, June 26, 2006

Pat on the Back from Robert Wilson

In Job Boards Worshiping False Gods, Robert Wilson reminds us that many jobs boards are really advertising publishers and points out that "there is a great deal of money to be made off the inefficiency of search – and very little motivation for advertising publishers to improve relevance." Good stuff, but not as good as this gem:

Thankfully, organizations like TheLadders, Jobster, and JobCentral are building successful businesses by improving the labor exchange. If you’re an employer or a jobseeker looking for a true ‘matchmaker’ in the labor exchange process, then these three organizations should be at the top of your list.


Thanks, Robert!

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Spec Review with Bill Gates

Great post from Joel on Software: My First BillG Review

"Bill [Gates] doesn't really want to review your spec, he just wants to make sure you've got it under control. His standard M.O. is to ask harder and harder questions until you admit that you don't know, and then he can yell at you for being unprepared. Nobody was really sure what happens if you answer the hardest question he can come up with because it's never happened before."


Read the whole thing, it's an interesting look into Excel's weird date functions, Bill Gates and managing a software organization.

Better Job Search

In his post, Irrelevance of Job Boards, Robert Wilson complains that Indeed, SimplyHired and CareerBuilder send him totally irrelevant jobs in their Job Alerts/Scouts:

Below, you will find the top ten jobs emailed to me today by three scouts for ‘auto sales’ jobs in Boston, MA. Not one of the 30 is selling automobiles! Somehow, the job boards interpreted ‘auto sales’ to mean I’m looking for a job as an engineer, a mechanic, a pharmacy manager, a business analyst, a trainer, and a customer service rep.


As a curious guy, I wondered how we stacked up. So, I performed a quick search on SalesLadder for "Auto Sales" (login required). Here are the top three results:

Dealer Account Sales Rep
"...develop and support business relationships with both dealer and credit union clientele in the indirect auto financing industry..."

Sales Manager II
"...responsible for selling Progressive's Commercial Auto product..."

National Sales Representative
"...expand their US presence to such areas as large drug stores, 24 hour stores, office stores, auto parts stores and similar retail stores..."

Not bad, considering we're focused on jobs that pay $100k+. The top three results aren't really selling cars, but they are sales jobs related to the auto industry. Can't really complain about that. So, in this informal taste test, I'll give the edge to SalesLadder, where you'll find a better search for sales jobs.