Bellevue-based startup Eggsprout just launched a social-networking job-hunting service, combining elements of Twitter, LinkedIn and Monster.com. What's interesting about Eggsprout is their service strategy - job seekers and recruiters all remain anonymous. Job seekers get compared to other people in their field by a "hotness rating," which looks at education, past employment, skills, and profile views. Eggsprout also recommends jobs based on interests and past searches, and shares the information about which profile is actually contacted for specific positions.
CEO Brian Ma was formerly employed at Zillow doing Program Management (Zillow is still number 1 on the January 2009 Seattle Startup Index), as was CTO Hsu Han Ooi and VP of System Development Agustin Cargol.
Brian Ma believes Eggsprout has gotten it right: "We thought it was just the right mix of usefulness and provocativeness to expose to benefit both career seekers and employers. Does that MBA really matter? Do employers really want to see that internship experience? What skills are most in demand in the job market? What steps should I take now to better prepare for my career and future? Those are all questions we try to answer."
TechFlash's John Cook accurately points out that Eggsprout will need a huge and varied mass of job seekers and recruiters before it will have any measure of success.
Seattle recruiters can still take advantage of the launch special: Every recruiter that signs up gets $30 of free contacts (the company takes in revenue by charging recruiters to contact candidates).
Eggsprout is a Seattle Startup founded on the belief that everyone deserves to be at a job they love. The problem with society today is that there... [more]
Hey Karilyn! Bma from Eggsprout here.
Thanks for writing about us. Just wanted to make a quick clarification that wasn't too clear even on the Techflash article. Our hotness algorithm is based more on recruiter "Follows" then views. We allow recruiters to follow anyone, just like in Twitter. This is useful for if you see a great candidate in your search but don't have an open position for them right now and want to keep track of them. By using these Follows and our hotness algorithm, we can very easy see what makes a candidate "hot" and other interesting trends in the jobs market. (ie. what are the most desired skills, etc)
Again thanks for the article and there will be more interesting and provocative data to come from Eggsprout. :)
Why are Recruiters Going to Follow the Best Talent and share them with their competition. Is the "Goal" to see how Popular you can be
or
Get a Job and Get Paid... I would rather make some dough than be the most "Popular Unemployed Guy" on the site...
Think about It???
By the way the site has been down for hours, somebody should call these guy's and tell them or they might be the next
"Hottest Unemployed Guy's"
on their site.
The only thing is though, who would know...
Hey Jack - Brian from Eggsprout here. We're continuously listening to our users and improving. It's been 4 months since this article and we've actually taken a somewhat different approach to the problem. Take a look at this article on cheezhead: http://bit.ly/iii72.
Per site down: we're aware of the issue and have resolved it. Thanks for the heads up.
