For those of you who are unaware, this week saw the inaugural launch of an exciting new initiative, sponsored by our very own Future Talent team. Graduate Answer Time is a series of debates based on the Question Time format that brings together key figures from the graduate and Higher Education sectors to address some of the biggest issues facing graduate recruiters today. The inaugural event, held on Wednesday 6th April at Vinopolis was chaired by Channel 4 news presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy and seems to have gone down a storm. In testament to the industrious efforts of Cathy, Caroline, Karen, Cassie, Helen and Alex I thought to dedicate this week’s mail to the relatively new phenomena of peer-to-peer information sharing that is a staple amongst students and graduates who are desperate to get on the career ladder.
Enjoy!
A
An industry oldie (by virtue of being around more than a year), Glassdoor is one of the most popular P2P review sites on the web. Users can anonymously comment on the organisations they work for (or have worked for) giving advice to senior management about how things should be improved – a useful pulse survey for firms and researchers alike. They can also post their salaries and questions that were raised during interviews. Whilst this does raise a challenge for recruiters, levelling the playing field in terms of salary negotiations and making it difficult to get under the skin of the people they are interviewing who have had plenty of time to pre-prepare responses to questions they are likely to be asked, my view is that this should ultimately be a good thing. I’m curious as to what will happen to Glassdoor – will it become just another job board, or is it a hot prospect for a takeover. My suspicions say the latter, as the content it owns is far too valuable. Time, as they say, will tell.
A new contender on the block, the Job Crowd sounds curiously similar to an award winning TV comedy. However, the content and features it contains are no joke. Targeted at graduates and early stage workers, there are plenty of articulate and useful reviews about a range of jobs and industries, with added features like ‘Similar Reviews’ (akin to Amazon’s ‘People who liked this also liked’ feature) and a surprisingly large following. The business model is nice too, as every review added generates a donation to the Shaw Trust, a leading employment charity.
The brain child of a couple of entrepreneurs from Loughborough University, Rate My Placement has been firmly establishing itself as THE favourite contender for Graduate advice. Its business model has it working closely with employers, careers advisors and university placement officers, generating input from students that will hopefully provide real-life insight into what students and graduates can expect from working in a company. With competition forcing employers to start the engagement process earlier and earlier in the student lifecycle, it is easy to see why this site continues to do so well. It’s first-hand knowledge and experience of the student placement and internship process, aligned with a dedication to relevant, up-to-date, student generated content that has allowed RMP to identify and fill a growing gap in the market and understand the needs of our users and clients. Another hot prospect for takeover.
Talking of early stage recruitment, I thought to take a look at an early stage P2P site that allow students to rate teachers and schools. Rate My Teacher is an intriguing prospect although I’m curious how long such content will be allowed to be posted without accusations of libel and slander (reading today’s news about Google being successfully sued for the way that its search algorithm can place negative words next to an individual’s name is a stark reminder). However, the site does have plenty of content and uses Facebook ‘Likes’ to extend its reach across multiple channels. As a parent who is seriously considering about investing in education, it is reassuring to see that some teachers can still generate a hugely positive response.
Finally, I saw this site and had to post it as a great example of opportunistic capitalism. Faced with a throwaway society, where having the latest toy and gadget affords children playground status and a consumer cycle where ‘latest’ can now be expressed in months and weeks, rather than seasons, it is no wonder that an exchange marketplace has risen, phoenix-like from the ashes of a discarded toy mountain. Stork Brokers is a trading exchange for parents who want to get some vestige of value from barely used toys. It’s similar to eBay with more targeting and a much better moniker.