I’m a software guy.
When I changed schools (because I got married and moved to another state) I had to change majors from International Business to who-knows-what. Finally, I settled on a degree in either accounting or computer information systems. I figured those were the two degrees that would provide me with the best… job security (what’s that, you say? It’s something that belongs in a museum :p).
I figured CIS was the right choice for me. I had zero computing experience, and wasn’t even big on video games.
Fast-forward to today… I live and breath online. I have been a software developer for various companies, and love reading about tech/software companies on TechCrunch.
In my job search I was disgusted that job seekers, who many times feel like third class citizens, had no real software available to them.
That’s why I designed, created and invested in JibberJobber.com. The world had not seen anything like it before — a web-based tool that allowed a job seeker to organize the complexities of a job search.
At that time, in 2006, a job seeker got kicked out onto the curb and had to create their own job search tracking system. Some used spreadsheets. Others used notepads. Many used scraps of paper. All of these were short-term solutions.
JibberJobber, as a job search organizer, became the first (that I could tell) real job search software tool for Joe Jobseeker.
Search engine hits for job search software include job boards… in my mind, that is not “job search software.” The focus of a job board is to get recruiters and companies to pay for postings, or access to resumes. They really don’t care much about the job seeker (for various reasons).
I’m amazed that almost 6 years later there has been very little progress in this space. Job seekers still don’t have many software options.
Some solutions attempt to solve a very thin, isolated slice of the problem. Other problems attempt to solve a slice too big to handle.
One problem that keeps companies out of this space is that it’s hard to create a business model around it (aka, how do you monetize job seekers, who generally aren’t big spenders?).
I can only hope that over the next 6 years we’ll see some significant additions to the suite of software available to job seekers.
Anyone brave enough to venture out there with us?