* broadcast my availability to a group of approved (company) recruiters
* let recruiters propose companies to me (and have me list companies I already have contacts at or was introduced at.)
* let me set up job interviews with the interesting opportunities
* and, most importantly, let the recruiters/companies place bids on me negotiate.
I've found that every time I'm on the market I'm essentially running this auction myself and it's a lot of work.
Given the massive impact it has on my earnings I'd love some tooling that would let me focus on the important parts of this process rather than the administrative minutiae.
I had the idea that it could be beneficial to freelancers/contractors as they do the same thing but usually in much more limited time scales to the x months I took. I'm one to share ideas because if someone makes it, I'll stop building it. As someone that wants to be a freelancer at some point, I don't look forward to the oDesks of the world (no offense to people that do great there) but having just something to keep all of these plates spinning more freely would help a lot of people I think.
Well, the main problem is that companies often don't know what skills they really need, and employees don't get a sense for the work culture from vague job descriptions.
Last, from what I heard was that most freelance jobs go via the personal network anyhow.
Just curious if there are others interested in discussing a better project platform for freelancers, and the way to meaningful work? Have a look at http://voki.me for a rough prototype.
Hi Chris--I completely agree that an engineer's ability to learn is a huge part of their value. With that said, many companies are searching for engineers who are intimately familiar with particular languages or frameworks. Anyone can get comfortable with a new framework over a weekend--it takes much longer to be become an expert.
Your idea for a better Glassdoor is an interesting. In the future we're hoping to build a set of tools for engineers who are interested in getting a job--we'd like to cater to both sides of the market.
Alex and I do not want to increase the volume of recruiting spam in the world. Poorly-constructed, boilerplate emails are the mark of a bad technical recruiter--we're not building tools to help them. We want to give the great technical recruiters a tool to help them figure out if they should be sending an email to an engineer in the first place. Furthermore, we're encouraging our customers to have the C*O's and engineers construct and send the initial emails--an email from the person you'd be working with is much better than another piece of recruiting spam.
If you'd like to get in touch and chat more please feel to email on [email protected].