Every mission statement says that a company is good to employees but only actual employees really know the truth. That is the premise behind Jobberwiki, a new job site that lets anyone contribute insight on jobs or companies they have worked for.
Jobberwiki launched just a few days ago and has almost no content but we think it has the potential to be useful. It is a lot like Jobster, except you don’t have to login or give any information about yourself to contribute to a posting.
“I’ve always found that searching for jobs online is pretty easy but I’ve made a few career changes and I’ve always found the challenge was to find inside information about what it’s like to work for a certain company,” said founder Michael Zsigmond in a phone conversation on Thursday. “I am hoping people will start to contribute the inside scoop on what it’s like to work on real jobs for real companies. What’s the culture like in the office? What are the people like? Do they really treat you like they value their employees?”
Zsigmond wrote the wiki while he was in between jobs because it was the kind of resource he would like to have. He has no funding, no employees, no office. He’s not making money off of the site right now, although he’s certainly not opposed to the idea. It isn’t a groundbreaking program. It’s written on MediaWiki, with the addition of the ability to filter listings by company or by job.
The problem with this kind of site is that the people who are motivated to contribute may just be disgruntled employees who are looking to vent.
“I think in the initial stages, that will be true,” Zsigmond said. “But people like to be proud of their job so if someone is ragging on their job, they might log in to post something to the contrary.”
Also, there is no way to know that people who contribute to a posting have ever actually worked for the company. And who is to say that owners of a certain company won’t login as if they were employees and sing their own praises?
Zsigmond said that he might consider letting companies sponsor pages on the site so that they can tell their own story about company culture. While sponsored pages might not be taken as seriously as the user-generated content, they may not be a bad way to add actual job listings to the site.
The validity issues are the same that most wikis face. For now, the biggest hurdle for Jobberwiki is its sheer nakedness. It needs content badly if it is to survive.
If this takes off it could be a major issue for Companies to manage the potentially negative chatter. I could see companies asking (nicely?) for current employees to post positive comments etc…
It will be interesting to see how JobberWiki manages it.
See this being a big issue in the future with companies….but at the same time fake posts by industry bigwigs giving praise to their own companies and angry employees ranting on the site just looking for a little attention when at heart the company is not the problem but in all actuality their work ethic is where the solution can be found! nevertheless a different but interesting article
This is off-topic, but I found no other way to contact Techcrunch about this: Is there a way to turn off the “snap preview” pop-up? I thought it was cool at first but now it’s just annoying seeing that little box pop-up every time I run over a link.
Sorry again for having to post this here, but I wasn’t able to find anywhere else to comment about this. I thought the “Contact” page would have contact information instead of “submit your profile.”
Very old idea. When I ran a law-related website, I was developing a section where users can add their law firms and then discuss their jobs. However, the website was acquired before I had a chance to finish this project. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!
Sounds a lot like whototalkto.com but without any motivation to participate. At least whototalkto has a points system that incentivises participation. And all the users there are job seekers, so everyone is motivated. What is my motivation to tell others about my job once I have it?
Natalia, I don’t see what is so great about this company. It’s pretty much a Wiki. Yawn.
Hasn’t this been done before with The Vault out of NYC?
Just happened to stumble upon a similar idea: http://www.trenchmice.com/ . Maybe this is the next idea in social networking.
Don’t know if it is going to be useful. Take for example LinkedIn. Why does someone that just met you, or a recruiter that talked to you on the phone for 5 minutes, think that they ‘trust’ you and want to become a part of their network. Why should I trust any sort of connections on that website? Oh I love the 3 degree away ‘connection’ — you know A. A knows one of B’s friends, and B’s friends know B. Sheesh I think I have that kind of connection to everyone in this area.
Agreed. It’s just another wiki……. with lots of google ads.
Hey Chiashu. How’s it going bro. Remember me??
I agree…that Snap preview is annoying. Same thing happened to me when I tried Browster, then I had to uninstall it after a week because it just got in the way more than it helped. How much money did Snap pay you to do this to us?!
agreed…the snap preview thing is kind of annoying
Another vote to getting rid of the Snap thing.
Why are all of you such sissies?? Always complaining about minor things. You all need to cowboy the f**** up!
This site is a sham. There are hardly any posts or informative content that would be useful and the owner has already put up google ads. You shouldn’t even post a blog on such sites, they are dime a dozen, unless the author of this blog is somehow connected and wants to make money by promoting it. Useless!
Speaking of Google ads – am I the only one who thinks that AdSense made the web uglier?
I can’t stand looking at most Ad portion of most sites… They are just so plain and ugly and mostly never in line with the site’s design.
And I agree – this site has no place on TC. Is the bubble over that we need to talk about these sites? lol
Aviv, I am not sure whether Adsense made the web uglier. But I do know that Adsense saved the Internet and possibly brought on this Bubble 2.0 phenomenon.
Vik,
As a user of the site, one of those who inevitably allow Michael to charge $10,000 per month for a tile ad, I should be able to say what I do and don’t like about the site.
#17. Definitely, I agree with you 100%. But, as another user of this site, I also should be able to tell people that they are acting “sissiesh.”
Nothing personal, I was semi-joking
This site doesn’t even have disclaimers, http://www.jobb...eral_disclaimer. Is this really an internet company?
this isn’t even a company, just a wiki. no employees, business plan or revenue. why post?
Wetfeet.com v2.0?
This is the same thing that Vault Reports (vault.com) and Fucked Company (fuckedcompany.com) offer, but its a Wiki
I don’t think I know you Vik…..
the word wiki is getting more and more propular….
http://www.ezecho.com
#23. Oh sorry. I thougt I knew you from the days I ran 4LawSchool.com. But I could be wrong.
I agree about getting rid of SNAP. I find that if I leave a Firefox tab opened on Techcrunch, my system degrades over time and then ultimately Firefox crashes. So I am now in and quickly out of Techcrunch. Got to go before this thing hangs up once again.
I actually think this site is useful but I am so tired of the model that relies on the “network” to contribute the content. What is my incentive? To help someone else make money off my information?
I do think this type of service could be useful to a lot of job seekers. I agree with the author, Natalie Del Conte, that the lack of policing and the potential abuse might be a problem.
I wonder how big this market can be.
Sorry, Natali. I mistyped your name in the last comment.
Sorry, I can not understand how this project got into TC.
Failure by design to me:
- no long-term motivation to participate
: http://www.alex....jobberwiki.com
- no “social” things (forums etc)
- easy to be manipulated
- no data structures apart from Wiki pages
- who is it really for?
- not really interesting for people looking for a job as a result
- seems like a failure already
Alternatives? Use google.com, blogsearch.google.com, technorati.com if you want to know what people really think about their jobs.
cheers – michal
Oh yeah Vik, I remember you.
I know you vik. You use to hand out at Sitepoint in the Ads & Services sections. I’m codejunkie
What happ to that site of yours?
themed wiki = business?
nope, sorry. yet another example of TC’s lack of serious business insight. sometimes I wonder why TC has any clout out all, but then again the last bubble wasn’t so rational either.
1) what incentive does anyone have to post here? the successful “social” sites are the ones that provide features that are useful on their own, and then extract a community from that information.
2) “has almost no content but we think it has the potential to be useful” – that utterly meaningless statement exemplifies my previous statement that TC doesn’t exactly strike me as business-savvy.
3) once again, if you build it, they won’t necessarily come. “I think people will like this” is not a business plan, nor is “this is an interesting idea”
Definitely can identify and see value in this service. The inside story will reveal alot…things you dont hear about in the formal interviews.
Get all the info you can before making that decision…and this includes financial statements and reports….the whole nine yards.
I had an experience once where I changed jobs and did not look at the numbers. I was about to throw in the towel after about a week. So people…be warned!!
http://www.reva...squarespace.com
Hey mug. How’s it going man? My previous website is sold. Now working on new stuff
How are things with you?
@33:
“what incentive does anyone have to post here?” Exactly the same incentive one has when posting reviews on Amazon or TripAdvisor.com
I think the idea is certainly cool, but Wiki isn’t just the right platform for it. You’d need something like taggable TripAdvisor or something like that.
Plus, who on earth is going to learn MediaWiki’s syntax to post there?!?! The guys who put this up must be kidding themselves…
Can we ban denver wanker from posting…or get together and get a spell/grammer checker for that ’site’ of his?
Site-design and site-success-potential aside, I found the listing of my ex-employer to be dead on. I don’t know who the contributor(s) were for it, but the (accurately) negative portrayal of the firm will potentially and hopefully stave off to-be-recruits from signing on with the company.
http://www.jobb...Biometric_Group
That being said, I agree with most of the concerns with previous commenters; how they are going to manage the site’s accuracy and balance without necessarily resorting to what wikipedia does (”Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled.
Such users may discuss changes, request unprotection, or create an account.”).
Hey guys, check out http://www.peekface.com. It’s a competitor, but has potential.
As a company that provides online career portfolios I am here to tell you that it is extremely important as to what you write on a service such as this. Anything in this day and age can be constued as a form of branding that you can use to truly promote yourself or destroy yourself. What you post on Myspace, http://jobpains...w-trend_13.html“>Protuo,Facebook or this Web site or any of the others with any form of inappropriate behavior or comments about previous employers can now determine whether you get a job. In a lot of ways this is unfortunate, because there is no way a person independently has control over what is posted about them on the Internet. I believe that the Internet should be used as a tool to help promote, but not as a way to eliminate a person from the proverbial running. The question that begs the most attention is where is the divide between a jobseekers personal life and professional life on the Internet? And of course will a site such as this one actually hinder someone’s future?
this site appears to be dead and the domain goes to a generic page for domain sales.