techTribe, the career networking site (profiled earlier on Webyantra) has launched a referral recruitment service called frontFoot. This is claimed to be a patent pending concept and the first one of its kind in the world; it is based on the rationale that the best way to recruit non entry-level employees is through employee referrals & professional networks. The way it works is simple- companies can post for middle mgmt openings (read high-paying jobs, minimum 8-10 lacs CTC) on techTribe; users can refer (frontFoot) other tribers as candidates for the jobs; if the company hires the candidate you referred, you make 10K. To control referral spam & filter down the resumes based on relevancy, there is a system which tracks and surfaces the referrer’s cumulative ranking; thus if you randomly refer candidates and they do not end up getting hired, your ranking nosedives, which does you more harm than good.
I like the concept for the following reasons:
Firstly, it addresses a REAL PROBLEM that afflicts recruitments in India; the lack of quality manpower and how to search for good candidates in an ocean of mediocrity. In fact, just a couple of weeks back, I wrote this post about online job boards and how they can be useful in addressing the quality dimension in recruitment, that none of the Indian jobsites seems bothered to address. I see frontFoot as a vindication of my stance.
Secondly, for all those who are looking for answers about how to monetize social networks, there is something to learn here. frontFoot is an innovative way by which the site can become useful to recruiters as well as to job seekers, while rewarding its genuine users monetarily.
Finally, the timing of frontFoot’s launch hits me real hard in the face. Let me explain how- two weeks back, I was invited to participate in an online discussion about emerging trends in India in the fields of social media, user generated content & social networking. The discussion was published on Blogworks.in, a social media strategy blog. The discussion panel included Prerna Gupta of Yaari.com & Alok Mittal of Canaan Partners/Venturewoods. And let me quote Alok from the talk’s transcripts- “…I would expect to see the first career social network to start gaining momentum in next 12-18 months……I think it’ll be a mix of LinkedIn and Jobster (passive and active hiring network); I think it will be more intrusive that either of those (Indians want good jobs real bad); and I think it will be some mix of consumer ownership between the companies and the SN provider (rather than pure media model of LinkedIn)….I still do not think it will get to ‘senior level hiring’ in the short term, more likely to be junior-mid levels…..â€
That was two weeks back. Alok’s guess was absolutely correct, though it happened 12-18 months sooner than he predicted.
What still baffles me, is the monetizing model, for the Social Networking sites. How do these sites make money? I assume frontFoot will charge a fee from the employer for recruitment of a member, and MAYBE even charge the individuals for membership. But the other purely social networking sites, how do they make money?
Sorry, if the question is tangential to the topic. I have been wondering about this, for quite sometime…
Cheers,
R
Amit – I was thinking… :).
Best wishes TechTribe, if the guys there are reading this post.
Rajesh/Amit,
Thanks for the support. We do feel good about the innovative model, and thank you for the best wishes and the confidence shown.
Amit, thanks for pointing out tha lack of foresight on my part 🙂 Honestly, I think a lot of people have been expecting this for a while, am glad someone finally did it! Will wait to see and test to see if I got any part of those feature predictions right! Best wishes.
It is very unfortunate to see only copy innovations happening in India.
Rohit,
I think it is very similar to ecademy and Zubka partnership announced late last year.
Is wwww.zubka.com different?
I agree with Syon, I feel the same. Zubka model has been there for long time now. Similar concepts had come up in 200-2001 with sites like http://www.refer.com, but they failed.
I just checked out Zubka. At a high level, it’s similar. The devil is in the details. Major differences in basis for referral, offline model replicated, quality of referrals, tools for hiring managers, etc.
hi,
I just checked out http://www.linkedzone.com , its similar too but doesnt pay for referals. Although tech tribe seems better, I found more friends and colleagues on linkedzone
Amit, I think the quality dimension could get helped by a tool like FrontFoot. However, it remains to be seen what adoption (or perhaps I should say referral) rates) will come up. Personally, (1) I feel I will only refer someone if I know that person well enough and (2) I will do that directly, not through a network/Internet service.
But yes, something like this is needed by the newer companies. Either you have to be a specialized/niche player or you need a differentiation on some valued attribute (like in this case) or else the network effect of Naukri and the giants are too powerful (irrelevant jobs or not)
Its simple, the reward a referrer gets is 20% of the amount these social career networking charge. rest goes into their pocket.
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