Couple of days ago I came across a blog post about VentuRocket, an alternative way to find a job. This is a neat little startup that is hoping to change how people find jobs and how companies find good employees.
It works very much like Google AdWords, you specify how much you are willing to pay for a particular keyword that advertises your skills to the world, or at least, the world of companies looking for new people.
I thought I would give it a whirl, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Who knows, maybe I will find some cool start-up that is willing to make me an offer I cannot refuse.
Sign-up was easy, and within minutes I’m listing out some of my choicest skills and how much I am willing to pay, AdWords-style, to get those keywords in front of someone who is hiring.
Now I consider myself a world class software developer — who doesn’t consider themselves that, right? – I have 30+ years of commercial product experience, over three-quarters of a billion dollars of shipped entertainment products and commercial websites.
I’m a serial entrepreneur, I’ve personally started five companies, two of which I’ve sold, the others, well, not everyone rolls a natural 20 every time.
I’ve worked for Fortune 50 companies and little two man start-ups.
I’ve lead technical teams of a hundred plus people and managed multiple multi-million dollar projects. I’ve been lowly grunt programmer, project manager, director of business development, director of development, lead engineer, chief technical officer, chief executive officer, managing director and also chief bottle washer.
I’m published.
I’ve got multiple awards.
I teach at colleges.
I speak publicly.
That’s my resume and work experience in a nutshell.
Now VentuRocket is a neat concept, you put down money of how much you think your skills are worth. You get contacted by employers who are willing to spend the same amount of dollars to talk to you.
As they claim on the VentuRocket website, “no resumes!” Awesome! Pretty much every job I’ve ever had that I thought was worth a damn didn’t involve the usual resume submission process.
Now imagine my surprise when I get contacted a few hours later by an interested company, “Holy Hell! This thing actually works!”
A little less than $20 spent and someone is wanting to talk about a job and it hasn’t even been 24 hours since I created my VentuRocket account. I even got to talk to the main decision maker at the hiring company a few hours later after the initial contact.
Awesome and fast!
On VentuRocket’s FAQ they address the question of “What if I am not interested in working for the company?” with the answer “It’s great you can be that picky.”
Unfortunately, I and many other people are going to be that picky but not for the reason VentuRocket thinks.
It just cost me $7 to find out that someone is trying to hire me, and is willing to pay the glorious sum of $30/hr.
Well, see, that’s the problem right there.
I cannot afford to work for $30/hr.
I wouldn’t even consider it.
Why would I work for $30/hr?
That yearly sum won’t even cover my monthly expenditures.
I think I can state with some certainty that this company, which will rename nameless, they meant well after all, will not be the last company to offer such a low rate of pay either. Any look at Cyber Coder or Monster or Craigslist will tell you that.
The fundamental flaw is that it will cost job hunters real money to be offered jobs that are not even in their ballpark price range because there is always someone out there willing to try a low-ball to see whether someone desperate enough will take it.
This is the fundamental flaw in the VentuRocket plan.
I don’t think VentuRocket can fix it with a “job must offer this minimum amount of income before I am willing to talk to the company” either because I have been through actual in-person interviews where they know up front what I am seeking as an hourly compensation, the person on the other side of the desk is eager to hire, but when it comes down to negotiation, the offer opens at less than a quarter of what I am seeking and doesn’t move up very much from there.