Pauloz
22nd May 2009, 05:32 AM
We'd had quite a lot of spam postings for Hound.com on this site, so I thought I'd check it out. Hound.com isn't exactly shy about self promotion, so it wasn't too hard to do a bit of digging. I wasn't optimistic, but it started out as a basic site review, and turned out to be a pretty interesting tour of some good ideas.
Hound's layout is pretty basic, too. Not much chance of getting lost in the techno- haze. It looks quite good, browsing around, until a screen comes up insisting that you register.
Well, OK, ho hum, no big deal¦
Unless
1. You're aware that most major job sites don't stick dialog boxes in your face to provide a service that most others provide for nothing.
2. You're in the employment advisory industry and are having visions of desperate people looking for work getting badgered by dialog boxes.
Hound, however, is a site that is persistent about it. That can get annoying.
So much so that I almost missed the rest of the site, which has some very interesting ideas and motifs.
Most important:
1. Hound.com targets employer web sites, not recruiters, using ads which aren't advertised elsewhere (see below)
2.The searches work. This is baseline searching, no frills, you get what you search for, which is a nice change from some sites.
3. Hound.com isn't a maze. Like most modern job sites, it's designed to be used, not impress IT grads.
In fairness, there's a lot more to the site than random dialog box attacks, like this page:
http://www.hound.com/gjincrerdible.php
This is the story of Hound.com, and how it came into existence. This is also where I got really interested in the site's. concept.
There are a range of types of "own story" testimonials. One is the breathless "Gosh this is wonderful" type, the other is the variety that approaches the subject from all angles with a few things to say, like Hound.com's page, written by its boss, Harrison Barnes.
This page also contains some valuable information for job seekers. The main thrust of the page is to tell people to contact employers directly, which is a common theme throughout Hound.com . That is absolutely correct, and readers should keep that in mind at all times when trying to target employers.
Barnes explains his own to put it mildly bumpy start in employment, and what he did about it, and how Hound.com came to be.
(Well, the guy's from Michigan, so you could say he'd suffered enough already, in employment terms. Anyone from Michigan starting an employment site really is poetic justice for the employment industry. How often do you hear the words "job" and "Michigan" in the same conversation in the same year, let alone same sentence?)
This piece is quite well written, and it's an interesting, quirky, story of Barnes' improbable career track. Barnes emphasizes, correctly, that the job search world is full of middlemen. That's why Hound.com doesn't have recruiters, or even allow their ads, on the site. I have to agree with that motif, too, because I've spoken to recruiters who were way beyond clueless about the jobs they advertise. Recruiters can be pure bureaucracy at its absolute worst.
Barnes says that 95% of jobs are found on employer websites. I won't quibble about percentages, but in support of this view, the economics of advertising on your own site and doing your hiring in- house are all in the employer's favor. It costs as much as the electricity, and you don't have to pay a fortune to some semi-conscious ignoramus to advertise your jobs for you.
This is Hound.com's raison d'etre, and in all fairness, I have to say that few people have been willing to take on the recruitment industry head on like this.
(The industry itself might condescend to notice that it's getting on people's nerves with its basic methodologies, too. The last thing a job seeker needs is someone with intellect of a fruit fly telling them they "¦Don't know much about the job, but you need to fill in this form¦.")
There aren't too many job sites with actual philosophies, and Hound.com deserves some credit for raising these issues.
That said, the marketing approach leaves a bit to be desired. We've had endless postings for Hound.com on CV Tips, and there really is such a thing as spam. What the hell's the point of posting what is basically graffiti on job sites, when you're competing with Monster, Marketcrossing, etc. ?
The site's OK, the marketing profile could be improved, drastically, by some decent advertising in the right places.
Check out Hound.com , see what you can get out of it, and get back to us with any comments. We'd also be interested in your thoughts about recruiters, for and against.
CV Tips can't endorse products or services. We can definitely, however, say Hound.com is an interesting idea, and in the New Economics, it's new, practical ideas that matter. Hound.com , if it achieves its goals, could push the employment industry into some long overdue de-bureaucratization of itself.
Hound's layout is pretty basic, too. Not much chance of getting lost in the techno- haze. It looks quite good, browsing around, until a screen comes up insisting that you register.
Well, OK, ho hum, no big deal¦
Unless
1. You're aware that most major job sites don't stick dialog boxes in your face to provide a service that most others provide for nothing.
2. You're in the employment advisory industry and are having visions of desperate people looking for work getting badgered by dialog boxes.
Hound, however, is a site that is persistent about it. That can get annoying.
So much so that I almost missed the rest of the site, which has some very interesting ideas and motifs.
Most important:
1. Hound.com targets employer web sites, not recruiters, using ads which aren't advertised elsewhere (see below)
2.The searches work. This is baseline searching, no frills, you get what you search for, which is a nice change from some sites.
3. Hound.com isn't a maze. Like most modern job sites, it's designed to be used, not impress IT grads.
In fairness, there's a lot more to the site than random dialog box attacks, like this page:
http://www.hound.com/gjincrerdible.php
This is the story of Hound.com, and how it came into existence. This is also where I got really interested in the site's. concept.
There are a range of types of "own story" testimonials. One is the breathless "Gosh this is wonderful" type, the other is the variety that approaches the subject from all angles with a few things to say, like Hound.com's page, written by its boss, Harrison Barnes.
This page also contains some valuable information for job seekers. The main thrust of the page is to tell people to contact employers directly, which is a common theme throughout Hound.com . That is absolutely correct, and readers should keep that in mind at all times when trying to target employers.
Barnes explains his own to put it mildly bumpy start in employment, and what he did about it, and how Hound.com came to be.
(Well, the guy's from Michigan, so you could say he'd suffered enough already, in employment terms. Anyone from Michigan starting an employment site really is poetic justice for the employment industry. How often do you hear the words "job" and "Michigan" in the same conversation in the same year, let alone same sentence?)
This piece is quite well written, and it's an interesting, quirky, story of Barnes' improbable career track. Barnes emphasizes, correctly, that the job search world is full of middlemen. That's why Hound.com doesn't have recruiters, or even allow their ads, on the site. I have to agree with that motif, too, because I've spoken to recruiters who were way beyond clueless about the jobs they advertise. Recruiters can be pure bureaucracy at its absolute worst.
Barnes says that 95% of jobs are found on employer websites. I won't quibble about percentages, but in support of this view, the economics of advertising on your own site and doing your hiring in- house are all in the employer's favor. It costs as much as the electricity, and you don't have to pay a fortune to some semi-conscious ignoramus to advertise your jobs for you.
This is Hound.com's raison d'etre, and in all fairness, I have to say that few people have been willing to take on the recruitment industry head on like this.
(The industry itself might condescend to notice that it's getting on people's nerves with its basic methodologies, too. The last thing a job seeker needs is someone with intellect of a fruit fly telling them they "¦Don't know much about the job, but you need to fill in this form¦.")
There aren't too many job sites with actual philosophies, and Hound.com deserves some credit for raising these issues.
That said, the marketing approach leaves a bit to be desired. We've had endless postings for Hound.com on CV Tips, and there really is such a thing as spam. What the hell's the point of posting what is basically graffiti on job sites, when you're competing with Monster, Marketcrossing, etc. ?
The site's OK, the marketing profile could be improved, drastically, by some decent advertising in the right places.
Check out Hound.com , see what you can get out of it, and get back to us with any comments. We'd also be interested in your thoughts about recruiters, for and against.
CV Tips can't endorse products or services. We can definitely, however, say Hound.com is an interesting idea, and in the New Economics, it's new, practical ideas that matter. Hound.com , if it achieves its goals, could push the employment industry into some long overdue de-bureaucratization of itself.