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Assorted links
1. New blog on Canadian economics
2. New blog on the bond market
3. Markets in everything: how much should you charge for a job interview?, via MV.
4. Russ Roberts podcast with Daniel Klein
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 4, 2008 at 03:50 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
People want companies to pay to interview them for job openings?
Um... do any companies actually go for this? Because if anyone tried asking for this with us, they would be laughed off the phone/out of the office.
Posted by: Jacqueline at Feb 4, 2008 4:25:52 PM
It's about time prospective employees get a little more leverage. The convention of not posting salaries is bullshit.
Posted by: meter at Feb 4, 2008 8:41:14 PM
Who's paying to interview people? Where are the incentives such? Can someone explain why that website isn't BS?
Posted by: Ajax at Feb 4, 2008 9:11:45 PM
Presumably they weed out unremarkable resumes and provide a database of information to prospective hirers. It's essentially just a headhunter that passes on a chunk of it's commission to the potential employee. In exchange, the onus is on the applicant to keep his/her resume fresh and engaging. Or that's what I gather.
Posted by: Geoff Hamilton at Feb 4, 2008 9:23:37 PM
I think part of it is screening the candidates before they get in. Unlike Monster or CareerBuilder, you actually have to pass a quality filter to post your resume. Therefore the resumes are worth more. For the time and effort saved, the savings are passed to you. Most companies pay the resume aggregators, this time the site splits some of the dough with you.
Posted by: Mo at Feb 4, 2008 10:31:49 PM
The target market is people who already have jobs they like, but could be convinced to take a better one. The current methods to attract these employees are headhunters (expensive) and having your employees recruit their friends (unreliable and still somewhat pricey). These employees won't post their resume on normal sites because the volume of response is too high (I was averaging three calls a day while my resume was on dice, and I still get at least one e-mail a week, over three months after I took it down, sometimes for completely inappropriate positions in different states), but requiring the costly signal of paying for the privilege of talking to you indicates a certain earnestness.
Posted by: Mandatory Vacation at Feb 4, 2008 11:02:46 PM
I'm also a Canadian Econ student with a blog. And an occasionally loyal reader. And a shameless self-promoter. http://mjakubowski.blogspot.com/
Posted by: M. at Feb 4, 2008 11:36:59 PM
Tyler
The Canadian blogger always had a really great graphic to go with his posts. A lot of times that graphic said more than the post. Maybe you and Alex should think about doing more 'visual' blogging.
Posted by: Sam at Feb 5, 2008 1:27:39 AM
During the bubble, I heard estimates of cost-per-hire of senior technical positions (>10 years experience, multiple 7-figure systems shipped) starting at $30K and heading up to $50K. For those positions, a successful headhunter will get anywhere from 20-30% of the candidates yearly salary for the placement from the hiring company. Add interviewer costs, fly-downs, signing bonuses, referral bonuses, moving allowances, etc., and kicking back a few bucks for high-quality leads who might not otherwise be on the market makes a lot more sense. Hiring at that level is a big deal, particularly since the costs of a mis-hire are enormous. For executive-level search, increase those figures more-than-proportionally.
The Notchup calculator says I should probably charge $1K for an interview. At that price, I can feel comfortable that the hiring company isn't jerking me around, I can justify spending an off day interviewing even though I love my current position, and it's worthwhile getting the suit dry-cleaned and maybe even getting on a flight. Even at that price, it's probably not worth doing unless the position is actually interesting. On the hiring side, I can be a bit more assured that HR isn't just spamming my in-box with low-quality resumes, and figuring it won't cost their bottom line anything if I have to kick them out in interview (not that that ever happens). As long as there are significant barriers to scam-artists (reputation system, no charge for non-serious candidates, fraud-detection rules), this sounds like it could be a very valuable service.
Posted by: Dave at Feb 5, 2008 9:43:17 AM
Posted by: 深圳翻译公司 at Feb 23, 2008 10:22:50 AM