A baker’s dozen: 13 new recruiting sites for 2016!

It’s a new year, the snow is on the ground (in Iowa, that is), and it’s time for new recruiting sites from the Doctor. I did my last round up in September 2015, which is like 50 years in our industry. Sites have been bought and sold, the big boys are preparing their quarterly and annual reports….and a lot of recruiting sites have surfaced. Let’s take a look:

• Pymetrics: As the home page says, Pymetrics wants you to ‘play games to find your best fit job’. I did – and it was kinda fun. Even more interesting was the fact that the results more or less matched up with my ‘actual self’. The big question for this matching site (as is often the case): how many candidates will spend an hour or more (as I did) playing games?
• Lensa: Did I say games? Well, Lensa has you play a video game to find your next job. For us word-oriented types, this was a challenge. But maybe it works for millennials?
• Honeypot: No games here. Honeypot follows a somewhat tried and true path set out by Hired: the tech candidate fills out a profile, someone at Honeypot reviews it, and then matches it to an employer’s opening. Employers pay when they hire someone. Not so sure about the name.
• Lytmus: This assessment platform has three core tools: Phone Screen, where the employer watches the candidate do some actual coding; Qualify, which sound like coding tests; and Showcase – essentially an online career fair. Lytmus is aimed at tech folks (naturally!). I’ll be interested to see where it goes.
• JobzLab: JobzLab calls itself “the first social referral market-network ecosystem”. In other words, it’s a referral network with bounties, social sharing, and a few other quirks. I’m not sure it’s “a radical social recruiting tool box” – but if enough engineers get on it, it might work.
• Nudj: Maybe it’s me, but the name is a little iffy, don’t you think? Anyway, Nudj is a peer recommendation app – you load it on your mobile device, then start recommending your friends (and foes?) for jobs. It’s aimed at startups – but it wasn’t clear to me what the incentive was for users to refer their friends.
• Clinch: This recruitment marketing platform from Ireland lets you building landing pages, track candidates, and distribute job ads to different sites. It has plenty of competition (think Smashfly, Entelo, etc.), but Matt Charney likes it – so who knows?
• JobSuitors: Although still in beta, JobSuitors claims to be able to take your info and match you to the right job using big data. Sound familiar? Umm – yes. But perhaps they have the ‘secret sauce’. We’ll see.
• Relode: Like Clinch, this is more of a hiring platform than a recruiting site – but since the lines are blurring, I thought I’d include it. Relode is a ‘visual hiring tool’ that includes job ad distribution, a referral system, and an ATS. Also includes a browser extension, which seems to be a ‘thing’ with several new launches.
• TalentSky: TalentSky says they are “the world’s first professional skills network.” Hmm. At any rate, the platform lets candidates ‘tell their story’ via videos, documents, etc. – which employers then either use to contact them, or follow them. Nice explanatory videos, but it didn’t seem different from many other ‘networks’ out there.
• Phenompeople: They call themselves ‘the world’s first Talent Relationship Marketing Platform’. Really? I don’t think so. Nonetheless, Phenompeople has a number of modules to create career sites, manage ad campaigns, do content marketing, and even enable mobile apply.
• HourlyNerd: It’s another freelancer site, but HourlyNerd focuses on providing business consultants that can build business plans, research markets, provide valuations, and create pricing strategies. Hey, this sounds like the JobBoardDoctor!
• Somewhere: Another twist on networking. Somewhere has you create a ‘visual CV’, participate in community discussions, and give up info about yourself. In the background, employers are branding themselves and hunting for new workers. An iffy name, but an interesting twist on existing sites like LinkedIn and GlassDoor.

Well, an interesting launch into the new year. Lots of new recruiting sites! I’m looking forward to seeing what else comes along!

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