Can’t we all just get along?
Here is the thesis of this post, Recruiting.com and RecruitingBlogs.com are not competitors. For this recruiter and for this blogger, they serve two distinctively different parts of my daily activities.
Recruiting.com:
1) For me, Recruiting.com is not a social network, maybe it once was a loose and informal one. It is a place I go to for information that my blogging colleagues are promoting Digg style. I also go there for John Sumser’s daily “Five” where he points out interesting blog posts. RecruitingBlogs.com does not do this.
2) Career related articles found at non-blogger sites, Forbes.com or CNN.com as examples, are linked at Recruiting.com. RecruitingBlogs.com does not do this.
3) John Sumser is starting his Recruiting Roadshow with us here in Minneapolis on July 20th. An informal gathering of career related bloggers who will share experiences with HR, recruiting, and search professionals. RecruitingBlogs.com does not do this.
RecruitingBlogs.com:
1) Serves as a social network for me. Sort of a MySpace with pictures, RSS feeds, and general conversation between colleagues. I have a MN Headhunter profile on the site. Recruiting.com does not do this.
2) Groups can be formed within RecruitingBlogs.com. I started Recruiters on LinkedIn that now has 41 members. Recruiting.com does not do this.
Both sites have a similar Blog Roll. The Recruiting.com list has a cool feature where the most recent post first is listed by blog with their last five blog posts. A nice feature if you have been away for a while.
RecruitingBlogs.com has the traditional roll but it seems that there are more feeds available. More voices can be heard (seen) here.
Getting away from non-competes, whether sites are creating revenue, and traffic statistics (I will leave those debates to the “smart” people or those who think they are) for this participant (for this consumer) these sites are different.
I must say that my frequency to Recruiting.com started to slow down shortly after the Jobster acquisition and the change to a Digg style format. I liked when Jason Davis and the other main contributors used to pick out was going on in the blogs. They added insight into why it was important. They picked up the good content and promoted those writing it.
The new Digg style format has become a show of who can get the most votes not the best content and it is not moderated. For me, instead of going there multiple times a day I go once. The site has not changed much if at all so there has been nothing new added to re-grab my attention.
Please note until now I have not yet mentioned much the players in this game because for me they are not relevant. As a consumer their sites are relevant.
Here is my disclaimer on these guys as individuals:
As best as my memory serves I have never been in contact with Jason Goldberg. I have no opinion of him at all. I could care less about what people think of him. I have a profile on Jobster that I estimate I have visited less than 10 times. For my daily activities here in Minneapolis my belief is Jobster will not provide a candidate flow compared to other sources so I spend no time there.
Jason Davis and I spoke last week about domain name usage following a post he had on the subject. I would bet in the past two years there have been a total of 5 email and 2 phone conversations.
John Sumser and I never were in contact until about a month ago via email regarding the event we are working on here in July. I have been a more frequent reader of his daily article on Interbiznet since he took the reigns of Recruiting.com.
I have no dog in this fight. I own no stock in any company. I am not competing against anyone involved.
Seems to me the goal should be for Jobster to provide a service to its customers. For John Sumser and Recruiting.com to make some sort of change to the site and find it’s place on the web. For Jason Davis to continue to have a site that allows me and others the ability to further know our colleagues.
I did a last minute call in to The Recruiting Animal Radio Show to share the above opinions. My Canadian colleague Recruiting Animal had my friend Jim Durbin on talking about this issue. It was my debut on a radio show or pod cast of any sort. Complete with references to “Minnesota Moose Headhunter”, Prince, and my local blogging colleagues.
TechCrunch picked up the story yesterday with More Drama For Jobster and includes a response from Jason Goldberg. Honestly, I do wonder why this was not posted at Recruiting.com since it has allegedly been wronged.
ERE.net has Battle of the Blogs: Two Recruiting Websites at Odds with some interesting quotes from Jim Durbin and John Sumser.
More from Jim Durbin who had gone quiet but now saying how he really feels, Breaking News: Jobster Tries To Shut Down RecruitingBlogs.com and Analysis of Traffic Patterns in Online Employment
RecruitingBloggers with Don JGo Attacks JayDee
I made an honest effort to find a blog post supporting Jason Goldberg and his position. Other than a few comments on blog posts I was not able find any.
Hopefully this all ends soon and each site goes forward doing what it does best and my colleagues and I can get back to work.
Hey Moose, I was happy to have you on the show yesterday. You're good on the air. Just a little too polite. You didn't have to send me an email asking me if you could jump in especially I'd invited the peanut gallery to speak up a number of times. This is the Animal Show we're talking about isn't it? Need I say more?
Now, what you said about Rblogs in comparison to Rdc is true but you focus on details that don't change the overall nature of the site.
The real issue lies elsewhere. In non-enforceability and bad publicity for Jobster. And perhaps in the silliness of a non-compete where no trade secrets are involved.
This case is like hiring an entertainer and telling him that he can't perform at any other hotels after he'd done with you.
He might sign on but he's very unlikely to honour the agreement in the end. Because he wants to work at a job he likes. This is the key issue.
And it will be especially true if he thinks that you didn't market him properly or didn't hire a good band to back him up.
He will say that, aside from issues of pay, you didn't honour your agreement to back him up and rather than allow this to damage his long term credibility he will try to prove his worth on another stage.
It's kind of like paying a prize fighter to take a fall or simply retire early so your boy has a chance. If he thinks he's got a chance at the big time, he probably won't (see Raging Bull).
Regards, The Recruiting Animal
Posted by: Recruiting Animal | June 28, 2007 at 08:25 AM
Too nice? I call it being diplomatic. Besides, you guys had the legal specifics all talked out. And the players themselves, you all had that covered too.
That and I know better than to try and talk over you and my friend Mr. Durbin.
I will make my presence on your show again soon...
Posted by: MN Headhunter/Paul DeBettignies | June 28, 2007 at 11:01 PM