There are many bootstrapping and startup blogs that talk about the entrepreneurial experience. Some are very successful, like venturebeat which talks about news/deals in the VC industry, others like venturehacks talk specifically to entrepreneurs and offers excellent advice; Eric Ries’s and Steve Blank’s offer advice to entrepreneurs on how to build their companies. (Mr Ries’s blog inspires me to write this as he focuses on problems that confound entrepreneurs but more about that later …). I guess, 37signals would be one that’s more relatable to our experience (and if you are new to it, I highly recommend the book that it has spawned). However, while these conversations serve their purpose very well, they still do not offer any real comfort or insight to people trying to bootstrap a company in their spare time and trying to overcome some of the inherent problems therein.

So, if you’ll permit me, I’ll start talking about these very issues on occasion and try to put forward the lessons we are learning to try to push our company forward. If you have any suggestions of topics for these posts please let me know in the comments below.

Why would we try to launch another service in the crowded job market? Good question – well the answer lies in what we see happening in the job market today. We believe that the job market has changed significantly and irreversibly in the last couple of years. All parties in the recruitment process are seeing changes: employers; job seekers, recruiters and job posting services.

Employers are looking to do more with less; examining the cost-benefit of recruiters and the large job boards; exploring the benefits and pitfalls of social media from a recruiting perspective and looking for employees that fit better within the company. Job seekers are also changing the way they look at their job search and their careers: with the massive layoffs across the economy (I was one of them but more about that later) job seekers now tend to be less committed to a company and more committed to managing their own career; they are becoming less tolerant of the command and control structure of more traditional companies (read: Gary Hamel’s WSJ Blog); they expect more from their employers and are looking for roles they can really sink their teeth into and they conduct their job search very differently than before.

Recruiters too are seeing the difference: executive recruiters maybe not as much as others although there has arguably been less work in this area recently (I’ll get into this more in a later blog post). Recruiters in general though are seeing less work or are being paid less for their services, some have quit the profession and some are moving to be in-house recruiters. Offline posting services have seen huge declines in job posting revenue in recent years and this has contributed to their on-going decline (read: USA Today). Online services too have seen significant changes as employers have pulled back their advertising and hiring or have started looking at other channels. Monster alone experienced a 33% drop in revenue in 2009 versus 2008 (Read: Commentary). Hotjobs sold to Monster earlier this year which in part was due to the changes in the online job market.

So, what does this all mean? It means that we are experiencing a seed change in how recruitment happens and it will effect all of us. Those of us in full-time long-term employment to those in temporary/part-time positions. A job for life is a very rare thing these days and we used to think that a stable career means changing jobs no more than every 5-10 years, is that still the case? More and more employees seem to be changing positions every 2-3 years. And for those new additions to the job market, their expectations are very different than previous generations (Read: Commentary).

So back to the original question: so why are we doing jobspeaker anyways? Now that you know the back story it’s a relatively simple answer – we exist to build tools for job seekers looking for work and managing their career in this new environment.

How do you think we can help you?

I just finished “Crush It” by Gary Varnerchuk. Gary (@garyvee) has become a bit of an icon online with his video blog for wine – wine library tv. Gary grew his own family business from a local wine shop to a hugely successful online business through his use of online media. People follow him, watch him because he is entertaining, knowledgeable about wine and just so passionate about what he is doing. His book explains how he launched his personal brand and why you should too.

He insists that this is the perfect time to start talking about what you’re passionate about whether it’s your job or not. He urges people to “Crush it” – his expression for being truly passionate about what you are into and leveraging it into a business. He cites examples of people who managed to do so (Tara Swiger of blondechickenboutique.com) and made it their full-time gig and others still who are doing so to further extend their brand – even baseball players are using social media to extend their reach.

Of people in employment he asks the following 3 questions:

1. Are you happy with your present job?
2. Do you work for a company that allows you to have a public persona about your job or your passion?
3. If not at work can you develop a public persona during your personal time?

If you answer no to 2 or 3 then Gary’s advice is to get out of your job, it’s not the place for you. You’ll suffocate because you need to be able to build your personal brand. If you are not happy in your job but allowed to build your personal brand then he sees that eventually you can build your brand while continuing to pay the bills and ultimately you can make that your full-time gig.

Whether or not you agree with Gary’s approach it’s hard to argue with the passion that he brings and the success he has had in his own business. For employed or job seekers the message that I get from the book is clear that you should always be developing your brand and that you should follow your passion because life is just too short – and I couldn’t agree more with that statement!

The next book I’m reading is about leadership and how to communicate effectively – more of a management book but it’s really interesting as I try to figure out how best to communicate within our small company and externally about what we are doing.

Can you recommend any other books on social media?

However, most of you are here to read about how to improve your job search and there are a few nuggets of wisdom here to help you as well. The advice in the book is generally pitched at founders or business owners and it speaks to these individuals about how to approach hiring. But if you flip this advice around and think about what it means for you, the job seeker, then there is also some common job search myths displaced. Here is a quick synopsis of what those ideas are:

1. Resumes are ridiculous

– the authors argue that resumes are full of half-truths, exaggerations and are for lazy job seekers that “spam” employers. So in order to stand out from the pack they recommend writing a focused cover letter that shows how you are interested in THAT company

2. Years of irrelevance

- Years of experience in a industry or a particular function is not a good predictor of future performance so employers need to look for how good candidates are at the job. Therefore you as a candidate with or without years of experience need to focus on how well you can do the job and perhaps be prepared to demonstrate it

3. Formal Eduction?

- If you don’t have a formal education from a well known school don’t worry, some employers are looking for those who do not necessarily excel in the classroom. Speaking from personal experience here: some of the most talented people I have ever met never finished any college education. These employers will look for your ability to deliver and your enthusiasm for the company and role.

4. Managers but not delegators

- the authors urge employers to look for people who are used to managing themselves, define tasks and accomplish those tasks themselves without oversight thus freeing the employer up to do other work. They challenge employers not to hire delegators who like meetings, who clog up the system with busy work and who don’t know how or want to roll up their sleeves and get the work done. Executing an effective job search is arguably a great test for this ability!

5. Be a great writer/communicator

– No matter what the job function – clear, concise and effective writing is a core skill that will benefit the employer as writing (via email, sms, etc) is the main form of communication today. So as a candidate use whatever chances you have prior, during or after the job search process to show your own style, personality and communication skills through your writing.

Taking this approach requires you to know what type of company you are applying to, how they hire and whether this approach will work. It won’t work for all situations but there are certainly some that it will help you significantly (particularly smaller companies). But this is the approach that we are recommending anyways as job seekers who are looking to take control of your job search.

Tell us what you think, is this good advice?