Profile – YorZ

Company: YorZ
Founded: August 2004
Launched: March 22, 2005
Location: San Mateo, CA

Overview:

YorZ (pronounced “Y” “or” “Z”, but the founders aren’t uptight about it) is a job referral site that pays bounties to people who refer the person who becomes employed. It is very early stage but nevertheless has an interesting business model and a very smart team of founders and employees.

I spoke with the two founders today, Brian Goler and Kevin Berk, and got a very good feel for their business. Additional features are promised soon.

YorZ allows companies to post jobs (with or without a bounty), people to refer others for jobs, and people to apply directly for jobs. Their listings are available on their site, and they also syndicate listings out to Simply Hired, Indeed and other job posting aggregators.

YorZ for Employers:

Employers pay a $10 fee per listing, althought that fee is waived if the employer chooses to pay a success-based bounty of $50 or more. The bounty, which is paid only if an employee is successfully sourced through YorZ and begins working, is paid directly to YorZ, which then distributes it out to the referrer or referrers of that candidate. The employer is asked to leave feedback (on a scale of 1-5) of referrers and candidates.

YorZ syndicates their listings out to various free aggregators, and will also post the listings on paid sites such as Monster on behalf of the employer (passing on the fees).

YorZ for Referrers:

People who want to refer jobs to others have a couple of tools to use. They can send emails directly to the company and/or the person being referred or they can set up a “Bounty Roll” on their website. The Bounty Roll is a widget that you install on any web page that lists job postings according to filters you set, such as keyword, bounty size, location, etc. You can also choose the number of listings to be shows, from 1-10. YorZ creates an easy to use html snippet for you to use, based on your parameters. If there are any successful hires through your Bounty Roll links, you get paid the bounty (suggestion: add a search box to the Bounty Roll)

Bounties are paid if a person you referred first takes a job and begins working. If your email is forwarded (creating a Referral Chain), the last six referrers share the bounty equally.

If you are paid bounties of $600 or more in a calendar year, YorZ will submit a form 1099 to the IRS.

YorZ for Job Applicants:

Applicants can apply directly for a job, of course. If there is no referrer, YorZ keeps the bounty for themselves.

YorZ is a great idea and could get traction. The service is naturally viral (emails to people you refer as well as the Bounty Roll). We also like that they have RSS feeds and email alerts for all categories and search results. Their competitors include KarmaOne, Mkt10 and HeadlessHunter.

Team:

Brian Goler – Co-Founder
Kevin Berk – Co-Founder
Brian Guan – Lead Architect
Link

Additional Links:

Recruiting.com, DC Recruiters (comparing YorZ to Jobster), Kevin Berk (co-founder’s blog, and a good place to see an example of a bounty roll on the right)