Announcing JibberJobber Maps!!

I knew this day would finally come and I’m very excited! 

Perhaps you have seen other websites that incorporates Google’s maps with their own data.  Well, for the last several months I’ve had some ideas on how this would be useful for job seekers, and have been working on designing and implementing it.  We’ve had some “setbacks” just because there were other little projects that popped up and delayed it, but we finally got around to releasing the first version of integrating YOUR job search data with Google Maps.  Here are some questions that you may have:

How do you see the maps?

On the front page in the Quickview Stats panel (that is, once you are logged in) you will see a little world icon .  Notice there is one by Prospective Employers, one by Recruiters, etc.  If you click on any of these it filters the data and shows you a map of, say, Prospective Employers. 

Also, if you click on My Companies or My Network you’ll see this world icon, and of course clicking it will result in the map with that data.

Finally, under the Tools drop down the first item is “Maps.”

There are a few things below the map that I should point out:

1.  There are drop downs that filter what you want to show.  This way you can switch the data points without having to go back to the home page or something like that.  You must click the “Refresh Map” button to see the new data points that you choose.

2.  There is a checkbox labelled “Show my address with an icon”.  This allows you to put your house on the map, and get a better perspective of where your prospective employers or network contacts (or whatever) are in relation to your house.

3.  The next line down shows the number of companies or contacts that ARE NOT on the map – this is usually because you don’t have a complete address for them.  There is a link to click that lists these companies so you can quickly add their address info.

Also, within the map there are two icons you should know about:

1. The Help icon (looks like a lifesaver) brings up a legend, so you can make sense of the different icons. 

2. The Save icon (looks like a disk) saves your preferences.

What are Global Companies?

One of the difficult parts of job hunting is knowing what companies you can apply to.  Of course you can find companies that hire through job boards and classifieds, but what about the companies that may be a perfect fit for you but never go through those channels?

Job seekers are all over the place, collecting great information on great companies – even the ones that don’t advertise on job boards.  All of this information is kind of lost since all job seekers aren’t necessarily talking with eachother (hey, I just found this great company down the road…) – but now there is a way to share this information.

When you find a company you can choose to add it to the list of Global Companies.  Notice in the Add a New Company page there is a checkbox at the top that says “Add this company to the global company map “?  This means that EVERYONE that comes to JibberJobber can see this company.  They will not see your personal comments or information – just company name and address!

This is cool for at least two reasons:

1.  For people that are new to town (like I was when I got laid off), this is a great way to find out about companies that you would not have known about, which really opens up someone’s job search.

2.  Now that a company is Global, anyone can comment on and rate the company!  Want to know what others think about a company you are looking at?  Go into the Global Map and see the ratings and comments for that company!  Maybe there will be some contact info, perhaps some praise or gripe.  Its an open forum – keep it clean – but share good info with others.

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There is more to maps than this, and there is more to come in a later release.  I know there is one little quirk when using Internet Explorer (it works, but a drop down looks like it is in a wierd place).

Moving away from maps, the next release will be super exciting! I hope to have it released in about two weeks and it will add tremendous value to you, as a job seeker! 

If you have any ideas let me know – this is for you and we want you to be empowered in your career management.

Oh yeah, one more thing – the maps feature is all part of the free version – so you don’t have to upgrade to get this.