The job market is absolutely brutal right now in many areas of the country — a fact that’s doubly true for recent graduates whose resumes are still a little light on actual job experience. This isn’t helped by the fact that many career sites like LinkedIn place a heavy emphasis on past jobs and workplace connections. Tonight, Brazen Careerist is launching a new professional social network for Generation Y that’s looking to solve this problem.
Brazen Careerist launched over a year ago as a blog network, and has since grown to include over 1000 bloggers. Now, the site is also launching its own social network that’s centered around Generation Y — adults who were born from the late 70’s through the mid 90’s. Unlike LinkedIn, Brazen Careerist is trying to focus on the human side of these potential employees, offering an environment where users can share their thoughts and activities alongside their resumes.
CEO Penelope Trunk says that neither LinkedIn nor Facebook are doing a particularly good job catering to Gen Y, at least in a professional network sense, and that while there are some other sites that have tried to tackle the problem, they’ve done so by trying to cater to employers first and using them to attract a community. In contrast, Trunk says that Brazen Careerist is focusing on building a community of young workers first, and that the employers will come to them.
The site feels like a mix between Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. When you log in, you’re shown your ‘Fan Feed’ — a list of updates from the members on the site that you follow (the site uses a one-way follow system similar to Twitter, so the people you are following aren’t necessarily following you back). Updates consist of status updates, as well as comments you’ve left on blogs in the Brazen Careerist network and any blogs you write yourself.
Your profile, which is what potential employers are likely most interested in, consists of two parts: “Ideas” and “Resume”. The Ideas section is essentially a feed of all of your status updates, comments, and other actions on the site, which gives employers a three dimensional view of your potential and personality that they can’t get from a resume alone. For example, employers might check out some blog posts you’ve written to get a taste for your writing style and the way you think. Or they might check out the movie review you left for Inglourious Basterds, or the on-site Group you’re involved with that discusses marketing. The Resume section, as you might expect, includes a brief personal note along with your past career highlights.
At this point, there are a few issues I see with the site. For one, users may have a hard time walking the line between writing updates that are personal enough to be humanizing to prospective employers, but not too unprofessional. I’m also concerned that these updates could devolve into endless streams of self promotion, which we’ve already gotten a taste of on Twitter.
My other issue with the site is that HR reps don’t have particularly effective ways to browse through the applicant pool. At this point they can do basic keyword searches (e.g. “Marketing” or “Engineer”), and they can also look through the various job-oriented groups, but compared to the options seen on sites like LinkedIn, they’re pretty limited. Likewise, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of recommending peers or establishing connections, which obviously play a key role in identifing promising candidates.
That said, I think Trunk is right when she says that there is an under-served market for Generation Y job seekers. Brazen Careerist will likely need to continue evolving to find the right mix of professional and personal content, but it’s headed in the right direction.
Sweet knockers, I’m #1!
It seems people are trying to find a via media between social and professional networks and create something that may sound interesting. I have heard at-least 2 other companies in the recent past who are trying the same thing. Not sure if it actually addresses the real problems that are there in the recruitment process, which is where your biggest gap and opportunity is.
The cost of recruitment is still very high. It would serve the purpose of the job industry better if people seriously look at the problems that exist in this industry and try to address them. You still have a fundamental problem of finding the right person faster and for people to find the right company. Bridging that gap will seriously help the cause. Not clear as to how mixing the social and professional aspects will help in finding each other. Again too many s/p networking sites means too much of duplicate content and too much of a pain for all involved in sifting through all this information.
Will be interesting to watch and see how this approach pans out.
Ravi, you are correct, this new inventions dont solve any problems but only add more options for spending your free time. I should point out that we are actually launching a BETA service connecting job seekers directly with hiring manager by streaming the jobs directly from the client’s internal systems. this is a ground up project that is aimed at solving the ‘fake job’ and the ‘lack of response’ problem. you can check it out at http://www.CMP.jobs hopefully we will launch out of beta soon.
Really like the positioning – and believe the market for Gen Y isn’t well served by incumbents. You may also want to take note of Zinch.com. Zinch, founded in 2006, is showing significant traction in helping Gen Y build their first professional profiles…initially to help them get recruited by colleges (note: their tag line “I am more than a test score”) and, eventually, matching them with other career opportunities… (disclaimer: i’m an investor in zinch).
@Christopher Michel:
Are you a typical graduate?
Don’t you know the difference between disclaimer and full disclosure?
Well, that’s college for you. The paper exams
may end, but our education never stops.
How much do you know about the real world? Zinch.
ah yes, i won’t disclaim my disclosure
Interesting concept, I just saw Inglorius Basterds myself and was quite pleased.
It is kind of sad that most of the times employers assume that the potential of a person is what they have done in the past as a professional in their career! Although there are folks who may be interested in knowing the real potential of a candidate and not just work experience. Keeping that in mind this sounds like a good idea with the caveat that LinkedIn itself is evolving which already has 45 million professionals to date!
In my opinion these sites should capture what you are, what are your career interests, what efforts and resources you invest to pursue these interests, what is your career ambition or vision, what is your ideal job role, do you have any projects in mind and help people create groups of people with similar project ideas and eventually see those ideas fertilize in terms of products or services.
Walking along the above mentioned dimension, neither LinkedIn nor the Brazen Careerist web site seems to implement holistic view of a working professional’s profile at this point in time!
Walk the talk.
After you do some real-life walking, then people can see where you are going with a little trust and confidence. Why should we believe anything you say, unless you’ve actually pushed yourself on the trail, and got moving?
They have FB Connect and still ask for email and details. Then why is the FB Connect? #fail
For people like me who don’t have and don’t want a facebook account.
Also, maybe if you want to build a social network that competes even slightly with facebook, it wouldn’t be the best of ideas to let them handle the door, don’t you think?
Very easy. This allows you to only use one login, but for people like me who have a separate email for personal and professional inquiries, I can customize that right from the start. Also, some people don’t use their full name on Facebook (or use a Nick Name) and now have the advantage of being able to ensure this site uses their real name.
They use FB Connect so you don’t have another login to remember. But it shouldn’t limit you to whatever your Facebook says.
Garaduates with no previous job experience always lose out on good jobs.
“Always” is a bitter word.
Do a job first, THEN get hired and paid to do it.
If you’re losing out on jobs, it’s because the jungle doesn’t pamper and nourish the weak and helpless.
You’ll have to take it from the jungle, with intelligent, bold, strong action.
The site has been around for a year and a new UI doesn’t change the fact that the site sucks. Not a single new idea in the entire site, it is just a combination of everything related to web 2.0. No focus. No purpose.
Thanks TC…I’ve been watching Penelope Trunk break her new company in since day one and didn’t understand what it did until now. It sounds cooler than I had first thought.
Thanks for clearing the fog, maybe I’ll give it a go.
Speaking for myself and all of my contemporary acquaintances, I dispute your implied assertion that people with light job experience are not getting a “fair shake”. NOBODY is getting a fair shake. I have a resume to kill for, academic qualifications (MBA from a top school) and loads of experience in information technology and financial services. I don’t even get the courtesy of a receipt when I apply for a position.
Oh, and by the way, someone born in the “mid 90’s” would be somewhere between 12 and 16 — or that the new definition of “adult”?
You need to network. Get introduced by a friend of a friend’s cousin. Not even cafeteria lunch ladies get hired blind.
A. Friend
Ton of opportunity in this space, but the winner is not going to be the one that can “out profile” the other. Students are sick of profiles. What students want is quite simple – do real stuff with employers to get noticed for a job.
The site that can bring employers and students together in a “non-profile” way will win. All others will be just okay.
Please.
The site is garbage. A bunch of 20 somethings giving lame advice without having any real world experience.
Completely agree.
Penelope wrote an entertaining blog by sharing her own struggles as a single mother and entrepreneur. She mixed in controversial or sensational topics such as her own sex life and dating relationships to attract eyeballs. But, she gave out very bad career advice. Then, she created a blog network of 20-something bloggers. How could those bloggers gave out career advice while they’re still so new to their own careers?
Plus, although there are differences between generations, I believe it’s very dangerous to over-generalizing, and creating generation-specific career advice. We’re still facing many of the similar challenges in workplace. Corporate America is still Corporate America!
Also, I agree with an earlier that the winner in this space isn’t going to “out profile” others. Rather, it’s about connecting the right candidate with the right employers.
Great Points. I completely agree
Hm. I’m a fan of Penelope Trunk’s writing and so want to see it succeed. But as someone who’s hired a lot of Gen Y’s over the last year or so, I’m actually looking for waaay less profile-type info and more proof that they can do the job at hand. We actually won’t even look at a resume or other info about someone until they complete an online job application that presents them with real-world scenarios about the job.
Than again, BC apparently is aimed at job seekers, not employers. And especially not startups where one employee can represent 5-10% of the entire company.
Completely agree with you, Derek. Love Penelope’s writings; in terms of BC’s model here, I have to say, quite frankly, I don’t care AS much about someone’s potential as I do about their experience. I’d much prefer to hire someone who has already gotten their hands dirty in the work – which can just be via an internship. Potential/eagerness/etc are important but not without something concrete to back it up. Just too busy these days for anything else.
Nice new UI, can’t wait to test out what’s new
Why would I use this instead of LinkedIn?
Your way to get a great job:
Get Accepted to Stanford / Berkeley / Harvard / Wharton.
Alternatively, do something amazing – something that makes people genuinely go “wow”.
If you can’t do either, no site in the world will help you. You are doomed to be average, and you will just spend tons of time trying to build all kind of profiles in all kinds of places. (Most) employers don’t care about your life, much like you don’t care about theirs. You and your employer are both focused on how much money goes into your pockets and how you can make that sum grow.
Interesting!
This is similiar to what GrouperEye is doing ( http://www.crun...pany/groupereye )
Both sites have potential. Innovation in the recruitment sector (especially right out of college) is non existent.
Someone has to monetize social networking and copying facebook, mySpace and LinkedIn and slapping ‘gen Y’ on it sounds like a winner to me!
Very cool! Just what I was waiting for
There’s a reason there aren’t any job sites in the US created to cater to age groups such as Gen Y. It smacks of age discrimination and is illegal under both federal and a myriad of state laws.
from http://www.kmbl...now_Your_Rights
The ADEA prohibits the printing or publishing of any notice or advertisement indicating any preference, limitation, specification, or discrimination against older workers. 29 U.S.C. § 623(e). Additionally, employment agencies may not refuse to refer an applicant for employment because her or she is an older worker. Id. Nor can an employment agency classify any person on the basis of age.
How to interview is what is missing today. Employers need to hear the answers to questions of “what will you do for me?”
That is a question that needs to be answered in every interview even if the employer isn’t asking it in that way… That is what they are wanting to hear.
Experience can be gained and the first step is to “up the enthusiasm” level. Do research on the company, find out in advance or on the spot what the company is wanting to accomplish with filling that position, how that position impacts the bottom line, etc…
And then, get excited about being THE PERSON to “get the job done”! All positions, from the janitor to the receptionist to the person in charge of (you name it) has an important role to fill or they wouldn’t be going through the hassle of the ad, interview, training and so on.
Business owners buy “solutions” to problems. Understand the problem and BE the solution and there will be no shortage of opportunities.
Pat
But isn’t starting a site that caters to the last hired, first fired group rather self-defeating? I thought BC was supposed to be job site for Gen Y–but no companies ever listed jobs there. Then, it was a league of bloggers–all trading misinformation and opinions. And now–it’s social networking!
Trunk’s entertaining as hell, but who keeps throwing money at this thing?
What I think she should do is set up a virtual mentoring system so that the gen-Y types could get some hand-holding by people who have learned some lessons in the School of Hard Knocks.
Lots of older folks feel sorry for a well-meaning kid who just doesn’t know quite how to get their act together. And Trunk already has this mix of older and younger people reading her blog that she could recruit from.
Not sure how you’d monetize that exactly, but hey. This and $1.50 will get you a latte.