Almost the Real Scoop On Jobster

I blogged on Jobster a few weeks back. I wrote about my skepticism of the product, how I didn't get replies to my e-mails, how I was unsure what the product even did and wondered if Jobster is really any different than Linked in.

It's funny who might be out there reading your blog! A few days later I received an e-mail from the Chief Jobster himself, Jason Goldberg. His e-mail was basically saying…bring it on. Now, it was much more subtle than that. He actually said…”anytime you want to be educated on our product, I'm ready when you are.”

I immediately liked the guy’s directness and his sarcastic sense of humor. Second, I was impressed that he is out there reading the blogs and responding. The guy is a CEO of a start up and he is spending the time to become self aware. I believe companies that get this are usually the survivors. Last, the Chief was willing to tell me how it really is. Yes I was still skeptical; yes I wanted to find the flaws; yes I wanted to believe that this was no better than anything else and why should I invest. BUUUTTTTTT…..it's no, no and no. I think Stevie likes it!

Was it just because the Chiefster sent his top, high powered, ex TMP superstar to my office to seduce me with her Jobster superpowers? Nah, she actually had a nervous twitch, she mangled her words, was spitting at me when she talked and it looked like she shopped for her clothes at garage sales. Okay, I'm being totally facetious here. I know she may read this and how it would be her worst nightmare if I actually meant it. The real scoop on her, her name is Heather Gray and she is Jobster's West Coast rep. She knows her stuff…she pretty much ran the show for TMP NW when she was there and she is smart as a whip as well as a darn good presenter.

So Heather gave our team the scoop. What did I learn….

1. It's basically a viral advertising tool. It is definitely different than your standard networking tools although it incorporates the six degrees technology. In terms of what I've been saying about the need for on-line media experts on your recruiting team…these guys are giving us a tool to start doing this ourselves.
2. The concept is simple and it makes you wish you thought of it yourself. It's very innovative though and takes things to the next level in terms of on-line recruiting. If you are going to pay for a product you want it be easy to use and effective.
3. I’m just going to say exactly what it does (since they don’t really do this on their site)-it allows you to send a customized job advertisement to your network, and allows them to send it along to their network, and then to theirs and so on. If this stuff works then I think they may have something quite revolutionary. The product also allows you to see the progression of the campaign. It tracks each time it’s passed to a new lead. This to me was one of the most interesting tools within the product. You can go in and review each individual the campaign touched.
4. Their dashboard is sleek and clean. Once you are in the dashboard area their product appears to be easy to use. I still think when you go to their main page it's a bit confusing. Part of this is probably due to the concept being so new. The other reason is because I don't think they just come out and say what it does.
5. The pricing is fair and similar to the way job boards price their products. I don’t see them replacing job boards in any sense. It’s a different type of tool. Job boards will continue to expand their category and time will tell if Jobster will be the next big thing in on-line recruiting.
6. They plan on adding new online media targets in their next versions. They are thinking about every device and every platform. I liked this a lot!

Now for the disclaimer, I still have not actually used the product. I am going to give it a try though. I was more impressed than I thought I would be after the meeting with Heather Gray. Either Heather should get a raise for convincing me or the product really does have some substance to it. I will of course have an update on this product once I use it.

Oh..and on a final note….their business cards a cool. They are little text bubbles with their Jobster characters. They also have cool quotes on the back of the cards. The card that I have reads, “Some people dream of success. Other people wake up and work at it.” I love cool business cards! Heather also informed me that the characters aren’t actually representations of real Jobster employees. Oh well, nobody can be perfect.