New apps do heavy lifting during the job search

July 17, 2013 Leave a comment

New apps do heavy lifting during the job search

2:56pm EDT

By Natasha Baker

TORONTO (Reuters) – Finding a job is not easy but a range of smartphone and web apps are designed to customize employment searches and even provide information on the competition. Free apps such as SimplyHired, Indeed, and Monster, for iPhone and Android devices, provide job opportunities through a keyword search, and web-based apps, including TwitJobSearch and TweetMyJobs, will scour Twitter for opportunities and send job alerts through the social network. A new free iPhone app called TheLadders takes a different approach and sends a list of job opportunities to users based on their employment profile and career goals. “One of the big frustrations for job hunters is that they go online to apply for a job and they don’t hear back. It’s a black hole,” said Alex Douzet, chief executive and co-founder of TheLadders, headquartered in New York.TheLadders uses algorithms to pick out the 50 best jobs for a user based on location, current title, preferences, seniority, areas of expertise, industry and salary goals.

“By doing this what we’re creating is a new job discovery mechanism that … actually matches you to opportunities that are relevant to your profile,” he explained.

Job seekers browse opportunities by tapping on a listing to reveal information about the position, company and requirements. Premium users, who pay $25, can also see how they compare to other unnamed applicants who use the app in terms of salary and education.

When a user deletes a job opening it helps the algorithm learn the user’s preferences. By indicating they “like” a potential job, the user’s profile is sent to the recruiter.

Last week Nokia released a new job app for Windows phones called JobLens. It uses augmented reality, which overlays information on the real world as viewed through the device’s camera, to show users job openings in their neighborhoods.

“Knowing proximity to a job is critical in assessing whether it’s the right opportunity,” said Bryan Biniak, vice president and general manager of global partner and app development at Nokia.

“We’re all trying to find the right work-life balance, and minimizing your commute is an important consideration. Augmented reality gives job seekers this insight,” he added.

JobLens aggregates job postings from popular job search sites including LinkedIn and Indeed. It also connects with social networks to display any personal connections to the company.

TheLadders’ Douzet advises job hunters to be focused, realistic and to apply early because after 72 hours of a job being posted on TheLadders, the chances of hearing back from a recruiter drop by 50 percent.

Filed under TMT Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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