Today, 1,500 people at Yahoo are losing their jobs, as layoffs across the tech landscape approaches 100,000. But for startups lucky enough to have cash to hire, 1,500 soon-to-be-unemployed Yahoos is a recruiting opportunity.
Video chat startup TokBox (which raised $10 million in August) will be parking a taco truck outside of Yahoo headquarters today, handing out free tacos and job applications. TokBox only has five jobs to fill, so maybe they can make room in the truck for other hiring startups.
Unless, of course, they are run off by Yahoo security first. My guess, though, is that there aren’t many security guys left. They should keep an eye out for the Sheriff of Yahoo, but that is pretty much it. He looks like this:
distasteful move, to make fun of a sad day by offering cheap greasy food…
Distasteful? I think you mean delicious.
Delicious, like yahoo social bookmarking
Well all the better for yahoo just doesn’t have what it takes to make it in the long hall. Google is just better at developing new products.
Examples, please?
The people who find this distasteful are likely the kind of people TokBox doesn’t want to hire. It’s a simple and effective filter. After all they don’t want all 1500 applying for jobs.
better to give than receive.
Well that’s a nice bit of consolation. :-/ lol
I wonder if they have a vegetarian alternative…
You say that as if you know they don’t have vegetarian tacos.
You’re right… That was a bit presumptuous of me.
Damn, this is awesome! I already loved Tokbox as a service (I use it to see my kids when traveling) and now I love them as a marketing company. I’d say this is even better than the Boulder Job Fair we put together in October.
Way to go, guys!
yo quiero job offer?
too bad they won’t score a developer.
The taco thing could be annoying/insulting or a nice gesture, depending on how it was carried out. So much is in the delivery…
MMMmmm… taco delivery service. I think there’s a business in there somewhere!
Oh yeah! I’ve got a product that’s sure to sell like hotcakes. They’re called hotcakes.
This is brilliant.
Brilliant… like picking the corn out of my crap to feed the homeless.
By the way, will Yahoo’s CEO also get a free taco?
I have lot of friends working in Yahoo, and now feeling sad to talk to them.
- Mani
Sad that they are using such a sad event to promote their company and brand. Just think of all the people who will be going home to tell their families that they have lost their job, for some, maybe no christmas gifts this year… it’s in poor taste.
you are so right, mark.
instead of a taco truck, they should show up in a waaaaaaambulance.
and instead of tacos, they should hand out rubber gloves and vaseline so people like you can loosen your ridiculously tightly clenched anus.
also that taco in the picture looks friggin delicious.
from american to mexican food…
jajajaj
good choice..
hope they get a job offer as tasty as yahoo’s
This is smart, love it.
Is this a joke?
If I picture this, it would be like mexicans waiting for constructions jobs and being picked up by the truck on highways and streets.
Omg…sometimes people just don’t get serious until they don’t lose the job..
Tacos with radishes in them are awesome! If I got the can I’d so want some of that action.
This is a creative and inventive way to engage the job seeker and get a ton of free press at the same time! Hats off to TokBok! I believe more businesses should take this approach and very cost effective.
Regatrds,
Jessica
http://www.blog...bs.blogspot.com
I disagree this doesn’t have to be seen as distasteful. It should be seen as keeping their spirits up because the minute they leave work today they will be getting offers for new jobs. Nothing can return a laid-off person’s confidence then believing that unemployment will be short lived.
Our thoughts are with the gals and guys that loose their jobs today, probably for no good reason but atrocious management practices. Yahoo is not a startup and is making tons of money for a long time, taking out the self-destructive management approach on staff is terrible but sadly always the first solution at Big & Co.
Cheers to the taco guys – good idea.
booo.
OMG, what a brilliant idea, to hire the people that Yahoo felt were not those they should keep at all costs.
Mmmm interesting Idea, they should have more variety though, not everyone likes tacos
lol… Please tell me it’s a joke ???
um, so can anyone in the valley needing a job show up? free tacos, maybe chat up someone for a job opp… i can think of worse ways to spend the day.
I applaud any company that is trying to hire people these days. Creative Tact(o)ics should get the recognition such as here on Techcrunch.
Yahoo should be holding recruiting days and invite other companies on-site to interview with employees that they have to let go due to economic reasons.
They could also hire some of them to help out inside the taco truck.
That’s awesome. I hope they pick up a few people
Brilliant marketing idea — as evidenced by its newsworthiness and our posts. Who doesn’t like a taco? Don’t answer that.
Have any executives been laid off?
As the CEO of blist which raised $6.5M earlier this year and which perhaps could opportunistically capitalize on Yahoo’s struggles, I just want to comment that I think parking a taco truck outside of Yahoo crosses the line of good taste. A couple of months ago we launched http://landonmyfeet.com, which is a single-page website, powered by blist, to allow displaced workers to let other potential employers know they are ready, willing and able to get back to work. This is a tough climate we’re in. These are good people who can make meaningful contributions. Let’s try to support them in getting back on their feet.
Give me a break (or a taco). How is an opportunity to find a job minutes after you have been laid off a bad thing??? What should these people do, go home a cry about it?
Good for TokBox for capitalizing on an opportunity – it’s called being an entrepreneur.
yet you’re willing to whore out your own site. whatev, kevin.
Kevin is writing the post to whore his company. There is no bad taste in hiring people. There is no bad taste in offering free taco. The bad taste is firing people.
When I’m laid off, what I really wanted to know is, are there jobs out there!?!
Kevin, if you don’t do any hire, you shut your mouth. Your company will die.
I would have to agree with those who commented on why would TokBox want to hire Y! rejects who then had so little pride that they immediately exited, picked up a taco and a job application?
To me, the only filter this is creating is the “desperate to find work” filter. Also, why do they even need this little ploy. Isn’t it incredibly easy to find resumes for qualified, out of work tech employees without shelling out the $300 for a taco truck?
seriously, i got laid off and i didn’t get any taco(s). i would gladly trade my 20k in stock options for one of those – and i’ll still think i was getting the better deal.
my severance i can promise you was not nearly as delicious as this.
This is a great marketing idea but a horrible recruiting strategy. With all due respect to Yahoo and their employees (present and past), there is essentially no good talent left at Yahoo anymore. And the ones that are left that are good are surely not going to be the ones getting laid off. Great publicity stunt but that will be about it for them.
Peter Epstein
http://www.thewebwar.com/yahoo
This is the most pathetic way to advertise job positions. If tokbox is so much interested in giving tacos to people then they should start taco business instead.
This is the most pathetic way to advertise job positions. If it is so much interested in giving tacos to people then they should start taco business instead.
Why would you want to aggressively recruit a bunch of bottom rung people from a dead company? Fat ones no less.
sad people commenting on such a pathetic sad thing as this. In these times it can mean losing everything for some people. You don’t need to give a shit about anything so don’t bother. The United States seems to be a country of shitty shallow simple people. You are all such fucked up people spreading sick corporations and food outlets, your simplistic views of the world, your wars. You are a sinking nation and the world is not going to miss the real you when you are gone.
Yeah because surely the 40 or so people that have commented here are a perfect representation of the over 300 million Americans… and did I miss something or by you commenting doesn’t that make you just as sad and simple?
What a backwards idiot. How do you even know all the comments are from the USA?
Answer: You don’t.
Former TokBok CEO Serge Faguet would have preferred a truck full of borscht.
Straight from Schrute Farms…mmm, borscht.
All Yahoos should just go and have a tacos and apply for job and get a call and don’t turn up for interview or even better attend interview if you have time clear interview and then dont join. Screw these idiots
Great Move! Who doesn’t like Tacos?
Anyone know where these Yahooligans will be turning to for work? I think I know a company interested in hiring.
Peter ford interviewed me for the YUI team 5 months ago. BOY am I glad he didn’t hire me.
I ended up with a way better job.
Schonfeld, it chris in LA. Find out if blaine cooke got canned. OK?
Dude you got to!!
They’ll probably get a lot of job applications. It might make more sense to use a headhunter, but they might just do it for the publicity.
maybe a bit classless but it is one hell of a pr move and free press for tokbox
Would it be something if the company hired current Yahoo employees, not the ones laid off? Who is to say that this is the last round of layoffs?
I don’t find it distasteful at all, and good for Tokbox. But I would question the wisdom of joining a company that does video-chatting when Google just entered that market. Is there space for these guys?
Tokbox – thanks for the tacos! The carnitas tacos were awesome!
smart move tokbox!
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YaHoO! was suffering anyways before the economic collapse.
I’m vindicated!!!
Not a “burger” van, not a “hot dog” van, not even a “Chicken Curry” van…
Taco! Taco, taco, taco…..
Are you kiddin me? Do you think your cheap gimmicks and tricks will work on me?
By the way, can I have hot sauce on mine?
Love Cholula
taco taco!
OK. — If I was walking out of Yahoo with no job today, I’d like to find one. I know some people say its tacky, … ennh, I barely agree. It is kind of TokBox, or any business for that matter, to attempt to bring cheer to the air in a time like this. — Almost every week I get an email from someone who has been laid off from their job, and businesses are having to cut employees they don’t want to lose, some even try to bargain. (and some just rely on shady VCs too much who eat their lunch)
The one thing that gets me about Yahoo is for YEARS I hear about people being laid off from / leaving this company that all feel they were there when the “good people were still at Yahoo.” Amazing that they left at times staggered over many years, yet I hear the same stories. I’ve worked with someone of this ego and, you know, I was less than impressed. — I just hope that I don’t hear another heap of this bull. I am sure there are plenty of “good” people who still are working for Yahoo as there are “good” people who were laid off due to finances.
For the record, my first email account ever was a Yahoo account & my only activity is to go the home page & then to my mail (outside of viewing their pages for industry research). The site’s content does not interest me. I was, however, thrilled when the upper left corner of the home page included a box for mail preview and other bits. Actually, I do go there for the weather, though only use that box out of everything they’ve made.
Look at the free publicity TokBox is getting by doing this. That publicity will result in a gazillion visits to their site, a huge increase in users of their service, an expansion to meet the growing demand, and very likely, MORE JOBS. They’re not hurting anyone by doing this; they’re not insulting those who got laid off. Yahoo! did that when they issued the pink slips.
“gazillion” … ummm that’s a bit exaggeration. No website has received gazillion visits to date. I would say the website will get less than 100K unique visitors but to say gazillion … oh man, even the most traffic website like yahoo couldn’t get that many visitors.