This week’s elevator pitch comes from Zumeo.com. The pitch gets points for being concise and presenting a clever idea: a social networking and job site for the Generation Y.
Zumeo.com is a social networking and online recruiting site for college students, recent college grads and first year hires. Users first take a “self-discovery” test that highlights strengths and weaknesses. Zumeo partnered with career consultant Career Key to develop an assessment test to help match a user with the appropriate job. The user then creates a “Live Resume” that can be updated and shared with recruiters, friends or colleagues or even shared with other social networks like Facebook and MySpace.
Zumeo has over 500 users; but only about 15 recruiters at the moment, which seems low for such a large amount of users. Zumeo’s recruiter and business list includes SOS Staffing, CDS Publications, and Consolidated Graphics and the CEO, Jared Booye, said Zumeo has matched many young adults with jobs in the past few months.
Zumeo’s current pricing model lets recruiters test drive the site and then pay if they see talent they like. The cost is $9 per post and $19 per month for unlimited posts. The number of recruiters seems low, even for a poor economy. I remember that I found my internships and first jobs through my college career services department, like many of my fellow classmates. Perhaps Zumeo needs to tap into those platforms to really expand, even in a job market that’s not ripe for employment.
It seems like Zumeo.com has a ways to go when it comes to building up a social and employment network of recruiters and experienced professionals across various industries. Maybe this comes through partnerships with established professional social network, like LinkedIn. Maybe not. But even with its shortcomings, Zumeo has a neat concept and may do well for itself.
Here are some screen shots showing Zumeo’s “Live Resume” :
I really like the layout of the site
Are you kidding? Gen Y is the most useless generation of slackers to date. These people don’t want jobs, they want video games. If you don’t believe me just look at MySpace and what kind of idiots are on there. Or sites like http://www.f2bb.com
(Disclosure: I am one of those slacker, idiotic, Myspace Gen Yers
)*
Beg pardon….but I dont think I agree. We DO want jobs, we DO have goals– in fact much more goal-driven, I’d say, than other generations!
And for the record, I may like social gaming or occasionally MMORPGs, but I DO have a life and I DO want to contribute to society!
Zumeo is terrific. I’m signing up on it!
*however, with heavy preference for Facebook, LinkedIn, and etc;)
good gen-y doesn’t need a site like this. whoever would sign ups probably the left overs.
Are you serious? Gen-Y are the ones who prevented McCain and Palin from getting elected and subsequently destroying the country. Gen-Y: the 18-30 demographic are the most progressive demographic.
But for Zumeo, there is a problem labeling the site Gen-Y because they are setting themselves in a position where it will be difficult to attract recruiters and employers to create a profile and interact with the Gen Y users because of uneducated views that somehow Gen-Y are bunch of losers as evident above.
El pendejo rojo – Get your head out of the sand, man.
Gen-Y are the ones who prevented McCain and Palin from getting elected and (from) subsequently destroying the country.
Sorry, a small error that completely changed the meaning of the sentence.
“Gen-Y are the ones who prevented McCain and Palin from getting elected”
umm, no.
I think its a market that needs to be looked upon during the recession. Zumeo looks good and its a good target market to have. But with all job site, including mine, its a chicken and egg situation here!
cooljobsalways
http://tinyurl.com/7uj5ay
http://tinyurl.com/ahzvtb
I take it back, I think they have been developing this since 2007.
Again, I hope this works out. They do have a good graphic design person. I don’t think it’s all that great of a concept though.
I can see this working. I have personally built a large number of websites for BIG companies (IBM, BAT, a number of major Aussie banks and mining companies) looking to attract graduate recruits to their business and I know how difficult it is for both parties (grads and recruiters) to ‘find’ each other. The grad market is increasingly more competitive and recruiters are constantly seeking more inventive ways of attracting candidates.
I wish you guys all the best of luck!
A few things some quick due dilligence told me.
This company is no less than 2 years old already.
You can tell this simply by reading the copyright on the bottom of the website.
Copyright © 2007-2009 Zumeo.
Next, this website really is 2 years in the making.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/zumeo.com
“LE SITE EST EN MAINTENANCE”
So the person Zumeo is registered to is in Oregon
who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=zumeo.com&prog_id=godaddy
Zumeo LLC
Medford, Oregon
OK, so an Oregon person writes an “under construction” messasge in Franch. Non.
OK, so this was a project started 2 years ago that may have been outsourced to the franch.
It took 2 years to develop give or take and the layout is very basic. 4 Tabs. Most development teams could fully reproduce monster in 2 years with it’s feature set.
That tells me that this was a project that was started, abandoned, and recently started again due to something else not working out. FOAF gets a techcrunch article posted.
ok, Gen Y, pushing it like those people are the people companies want to get in. Those with little experience that would otherwise be interns in a down market.
I’m going to give this one a thumbs down. I hope I’m wrong. Prove me wrong. Wall street can’t!
You have to copy paste that link. Here is a deep link to the site in “Avril” of 2007.
http://web.arch...tp://zumeo.com/
Sorry, try copy pasting the link
web.archive.org/web/*/zumeo.com
wordpress filters out * characters
What is your point???
wikibin.org/articles/zumeo.com.html
“As of August 21, 2008 Zumeo.com had spent $50,000 in seed money”
TC stats say:
“Funding: $100k”
So they blew half their budget so far
http://www.alex...tails/zumeo.com
and the 3 mo avg is 1,609,081 which means none of it went to advertising or getting big companies to sign on.
This isn’t opinion, just shining some light.
According to the wiki bin they had “received” 50k in August and have 100k now. This tells me nothing about where the money has gone, or how much they have spent.
http://wikibin..../zumeo.com.html
“As of August 21, 2008 Zumeo.com had spent $50,000 in seed money.”
I take it back, I think they have been developing this since 2007.
Again, I hope this works out. They do have a good graphic design person. I don’t think it’s all that great of a concept though.
Whatever, Columbo.
Chris…just go away. You are wasting space here.
Zumeo design is definitely nice but seems like there is nothing much to the functionality to effectively cater for professional networking.
Function matter more than design. Think Google and Gmail.
Ugh, their CEO looks like a tool and the sign-up process didn’t work for me.
This looks like something that would appeal to high school dropouts in “Gen Y”, but doubt anyone with a degree from a real school would care for it. Their algorithm looks like shenanigans too…
I will give them props on one thing though – their site design looks nice!
load page->view source.
They’re using facebox and a bunch of other free toolkits. You can actually just reuse those on your site. You can Google them. The CSS
http://www.zume...om/css/base.css
A lot of the classes are not applicable to the pages, and it hasn’t been separated into smaller files for fast loading. It’s all in 1 big “base.css”
So you have to wonder how much functionality is inside. I dunno. The JS hasn’t been comment stripped or minified either.
It looks pretty fast built and small. Who ever did it knows XHTML pretty well though. Looks outsourced to me.
Who cares?
Well, count that they got their funding in 2007 it looks like. That they supposedly had 100k and as of August spent 50k of it. If they started in mid 2007 it would mean that they spend an average of 50k per year on this project.
So $4166 a month. So Sept 2008- Feb 2009
4166 * 6 months = $24,996 since
wikibin.org/articles/zumeo.com.html
“As of August 21, 2008 Zumeo.com had spent $50,000 in seed money”
OK, so they would have spent about 75k by now.
That promo video looks like it was expensive too.
So with 25k left, it’s do or die time. The site is extremely light for something that’s supposed to have heavy functionality like Dice or Monster. You can tell that by looking at the CSS and Javascript viewable by the indexable pages outside.
OK, 25k, and they have very low compete and alexa scores so far.
If they were going to get a series of funding they would have done it by now you would think. So it would seem they absolutely need to start selling right now for the money not to run out?
Businesses usually don’t survive under this type of model. The people running it are very young. When businesses do succeed like this it’s because a bunch of old rich people got behind it, ie facebook.
I’m going to give it maybe 8 month to deadpool unless it gets serious funding. New job sites have not done well. Launching in a down economy is not a plus.
You’re making a lot of assumptions here Chris. I think you’re also over-analyzing … for all you know the founders may have other sources of income. Just because they have raised a relatively small amount of money to get going has no bearing on whether they’ll succeed or fail.
You seem quite intent on getting on your soap box about these guys? What’s your problem?
Chris.
Why are you browsing their source files? Go outside dude. Seriously. Get a life.
And when you come back inside you might want to have a close look at that table based (with spacer gifs!), Dreamweaver-generated embarrassment that is your own site’s source code before you cast any more stones, mmmkay?
Asshat.
chris,
Money has everything to do with the success of this kind of website.
They set a 2 year launch milestone on a jobs website in a plan?
Then met that goal?
I dunno.Again, I hope they make it.
Marketing is like bacon… the more it sizzles, the less meat you get.
Great concept for the zumeo team.But the existenece of this site is depend on the hand of recruiters.so zumeo initially want to reduce the cost per post
Social networking sites can still get funding. Good news.
Excellent content here and a nice writing style too – keep up the great work!
Yawn… another clone of a clone of a clone.
Specifics please? What “clones” are you talking about?
dweq3ere
@ Chris.
Cut these guy some slack and more importantly stop diluting some balanced feedback with your reams of …. well trash talking.
I like the design and the model has some legs IF they develop strong relationships with quality placement agencies. That’ll be the maker or breaker.
ugh. not only does this site implement the “password anti-pattern” in their invite tool, it does not offer an easy way for a user to delete their own account. There might be room for improvement, but it seems kind of amateurish and spammy at the moment.
do not recommend.
okay, Zumeo now allows users to remove their own accounts. +1 for actually listening to user feedback.
Wow, there’s a fair amount of crap in these comments.
As far as the pitch goes, I thought it was very good. Sure, his teeth were unnaturally white and the background music was a bit loud (I mention those because they were both slightly distracting), but the pitch itself was clear enough that I knew exactly what the site did before I checked it out. Well delivered too.
I wound up paying more attention to the surfer in the video than what he was saying. Sweatshirt and silly facial hair and spikes.
At least the GUI designer should be able to get another gig after this one.
Zumeo seems a very good project with a lot of competitive advantages, good luck!
Ciao!
The user-base seems oddly skewed. Recruiters are usually the first off the starting blocks if there’s a new site they can spam.
I only ever get contacted by recruiters on LinkedIn. And Zubka.com has the same problem.
Sounds like they are marketing to the group they understand and failing to pull in the group they don’t
Whilst there’s nothing particularly wrong with entering a crowded space, I do think LinkedIn offers the best networking service for young people as well as older demographics.
Not sure if people will differentiate this site.
I think professional networking is not a crowded space. In the US, the only viable professional networking site is the spam infested LinkedIn. They can afford to have crappy design and lack of innovation for years, because they are the only site that offer professional networking.
On the other hand, you have Facebook, but on Facebook you can’t effectively network professionally because you cannot search outside your network.
So professional networking is not a crowded space at the moment and it is the perfect time for it.
Now job sites on the other hand, is very crowded. I am not sure what Zumeo is, even after signing up for an account. Are they a professional networking site or a job site? It seems like the site has no specific focus, which can be hard for them in retaining users and effectively competing with LinkedIn and job sites.
Well, seems like some people did like that site Chris, it has a concept anyway.
But all what its matter to do it’s service as it should.
speaking as a graduate a year ago I know how hard it is to wade thru all the rubbish and find a job for a graduate ( grads have the grounding but not the yrs of experience or speciality skillsets). Most jobs require a degree and several years of experience ( so it is a chicken & egg situation ).
I do think there is a space for a site dedicated to graduate recruitment & internships and a social network can be built around it (where people can exchange ideas, lessons learnt, CV writing tips etc).
Thus the guy above looks like one of those all american surfer dudes you see on american tv shows.
In all honesty wish the guy best of luck as if he works it right , the site will help alot of students & grads
I do agree with you that students and recent graduates present a great target market. Since you’re a recent graduate check out another site (my venture) nuResume, which is a rapidly growing free resume network with over several hundred employers- http:///www.nuresume.com.
I think Zumeo is an awesome idea. Some of you guys are so full of yourself that you some how get a kick out of tearing another entrepreneurs work to shreds. Offer feedback that can make a service better, faster, or more relevant. If someone wants to hear how bad a thing is go to cnn, fox, or anywhere else pumping out the negativity. What’s sad is someone is going to miss the point because of a misplaced comma, or incorrect punctuation.
Keep it up zumeo i am certain that you are feeling a void, as you can tell from a lot of these comments most people don’t see this demographic as relevant, or worthy for that matter. For your sake i hope that remains.
Agreed Chadwick. Have they defined the problem they are trying to address clearly? yes. Have they targeted a specific market that they can easily identify and reach? yes. Is this addressing an existing problem, or creating and opportunity that is real and important to people. yes. Based on this, I think this is pretty cool concept – and it looks good to boot. Good luck guys. If you can work closely with some firms/organizations that recruit en-masse from this demographic you could be filling a real need. I also believe this is the perfect market condition for this type of service – - recruiters can be picky and job-seekers need to do a little more to stand out.
Agreed as well. Best of luck, Zumeo team.
Having been around for various versions of Zumeo, I can say that the site has made huge strides. The features have had the excess fat removed and now it functions as a very easy to use site with good graphical layout. They do have a ways to go, but any good start-up would. I’m a fan and I look forward to seeing where the site goes.
The problem is not on the job seeker side of the equation, it is on the employers. Employers are inundated with resumes. Until someone figures out how to narrow down and fine tune the number of responses employers receive, you are wasting your time and adding more spam to the planet.
The model should force users to pay for submitting resumes to companies, which through economic incentive, naturally creates better matches. You could even add a bidding process if you really desired a particular job and wanted to gaurantee your resume was reviewed.
Gen Yers will quickly find it un-cool when the job search yields more friends and no job….
Zumeo looks great! I wish you the best of luck.
I don’t see software engineer/programmer under “Discover My Strengths”
… wtf is this.
Thanks for all the feedback. Many of you have offered some great perspective. We appreciate all of the suggestions and encouragement. We are excited about helping Gen Y integrate into the work force using tools they are savy with. Regardless of how employers feel about Gen Y, they are the future. Baby boomers are retiring at the same time over 90M Gen Y job seekers are flooding the market. They are bright, enthusiastic, and in-tune to their world. Companies like Adidas, Nike, and Cisco understand the importance of sourcing and retaining this generation of talent.
@BB. Great insight. I can’t agree more. This is definitely something we have seriously considered. However, at this stage in the game–with all of the free options out there, it is hard to convince people to pay a startup to post their resume. The state of the economy will drive job seekers to become more aggressive and strive to standout.
So what about the recruiters:
Our team is working closely with corporate and contracted recruiters to offer a totally tailored experience on Zumeo–allowing them to use tools they are familiar with to filter, source, and collaborate on reaching the younger demographic. Companies are spending time and money sweeping through college campuses trying to find motivated and skilled up-and- coming’s. Zumeo offers an effective venue for this. We are going through the campuses for them, providing filtering tools and assessment modules to connect them to the talent of Gen Y. Our marketing efforts thus far have been focused on job seekers, as we grow, our focus will expand.
Zumeo: Come for the jobs, stay for the networking
Nice work Jared. Hope it works out.
I’d watch out with doing an extreme number of “tailored experiences” for recruiters though. Might be better to offer a limited number of packages, 3 or 5, that they can choose from. Otherwise you’ll run the risk of not being able to fully meet everyone’s needs and you’ll find yourself kowtowing to the highest paying recruiter. My two cents anyway.
And ignore Chris. That guy has been around for years pitching a new Ponzi scheme every few months.
I was driving today and thinking about you guys. Have you all considered connecting with university career service departments? I think by connecting with the cs departments you have a filter to screen resumes, and act as a “staffing” company for zumeo. Also you relieve them of some heavy lifting, by providing a job searching alternative directly suited for the generation they serve. career service departments act as a walking, talking, billboard.
Just my .02
Nice pitch but in the end, people will go where the jobs are. You should be selling to the employers not the employees. That doesn’t change your mission is just changes your marketing.
Someone who opens a new req will get more resumes than they can imagine these days. If I posted on LinkedIn, facebook, Monster, you name it, that I was hiring, I’d have no problem getting tons of people in your target market to apply. But if you could tell me, an employer, that you can systematically select the best of the best of the up and comers, then you’ll get my attention. And once your site has jobs, you’ll get people don’t worry.
Find me those people who are going to out-deliver their fellow graduates, which translates to a lower cost high productivity hire, and you have a real winner (wait a minute, did I just suggest yet another Field of Dreams idea??? Noooooo…)
Great point Bob. Because of this very reason, we have partenered with Job Central to offer over 2M quality jobs. The unique thing about Zumeo is our tie with Career key (.org) to connect people to jobs that match their personality. Career Key has 25 years of research backing it up. This system is only set to get more precise.
Good point.
Seriously? Well that was objective. You strike me the real positive, go getter type.
Their website is very aesthetically beautiful – really enjoyed their start-up video. The concept seems cool, but as a member of generation X, and as someone who is NOT looking for a job right now, I’m not joining.
I loved Linkedin and use it to keep a good network with people I’ve worked with in case I decide on a job change or move. I guess since I’m not their target audience, they don’t care if I join. But I do think that they will need to move beyond just the message they’ve got now to include the networking opportunities their site could provide.
Zumeo, I like you layout and design. We here at GuiasLocal.com wish you Buena Suerte! . We hope to see a Spanish version down the road.
props to this company for its business savy. its not a breakthrough tech company so i dont care if its a clone of a cone of a clone. if they dont try to be social-networkish- i think they can bypass the network effect and grow. aside from product judgement – good goals, objectives, and direciton.
The only problem I have with comparing this site to Linked-In is the fact that Linked-In is a nightmare to navigate. I’ve talked with countless 25-35 year old professionals in the NYC area that despise using Linked-In but have “profiles” because it is the tool of the older generations. In order to attract the Gen Y, a recruiting site needs to incorporate the buzzwords and eye catching graphics that they have become used to. Zumeo is the first professional site that I have come across to realize this unfulfilled need and capitalize on it. With some more fine-tuning and financing, I think that Zumeo has the potential to set the bar going forward.
What about doostang? Aren’t they three steps ahead of zumeo?
Doostang should be in the deadpool long time ago. Check their traffic and you will know.
sign up now and get a free limited edition soul patch.
Nice design!
my advice/comments to Jared.
1- Dont listen to bitter assholes trying ti dicorage you here.
2- Why only Generation Y, why not everyone? Linkedin is hard to navigate and imo have many negatives. why not go after them… Facebook did it to myspace and succeeded.
keep at it guys.. good luck
My only qualm about this video is about the terms on which it was allowed. The actual terms for uploading are that video, among other things, must not be edited. So why was the video approved?
Video for http://www.Beat...ngAddiction.com @ http://pitches....ating-addiction
Lets get to the real point here, is Zumeo a good idea, and is it a good website? I think so. I really like the ease of use and its nice layout. Great work Guys!
Someone may have already mentioned this, I didnt read all the comments, but Zumeo started in DECEMBER of 2007 and it is now February 2009. That makes a year and 3 months, not two years.
What? Because Gen-Y is so underrepresented in social media?!?!
Zumeo is an interesting experiment, and I will be watching carefully. Most businessmen I know are concerned that the millennials (Gen-Y) are a trainwreck waiting to happen in business. I have written several articles on millennials and how to best work with them on http://blog.sta...ofessionals.com.
Marty Zwilling, Founder & CEO, Startup Professionals, Inc.
“Zumeo Tries To Be Gen-Y’s LinkedIn”; ha, i thought Linkedin was Gen-Y’s Linkedin; in any case, not very interesting to me, i need to be able to connect with people that matter to me and to my work, and linkedin is FANTASTIC for that (i am a 24 year old ex-investment banker, now biz dev at startup, so def within the “Gen-Y” category)
I just did the survey and it produced the exact opposite results than what I was expecting. I am a creative leader, and don’t really enjoy science. It said I avoid leading and that science is basically my favourite thing ever.
Also, it calls the survey “StrenghsFinder”, which I believe is Trademarked by Clifton (www.strengthsfinder.com).
I think the name is a bit confusing. There seems to be a lot of start-ups with the letter Z and then a bunch of vowels. Its sounds like Vimeo. While I think it is good to create a resource for early twenties graduates, I don’t know how lucrative it can be because these salaries aren’t that high. There may be a large pool of potential employees, but there are just as many recent grads on the big job board sites and you get the more expterienced late twenties workers as well.
Also, if Facebook got its act together and put a job site up, it would beat the pants off any other site. It would be too easy to partner up with a big job company like monster and even have recruiters connect to Facebook apps. Of course all the Facebook users will need to clean their profiles before submitting their resumes.
can you stop stealing people’s comment everywhere you troll…
Hello, are you the owner of joolwe? nice site.