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Ask HN: Help with my 'chicken or the egg' problem

4 points by brandoncordell ↗ HN
I'm starting a for profit job board dedicated to the IT world in my area. There is a decent IT industry around me and it seems they are always hiring. I plan on offering fair rates, and eventually I would like to be able to offer a guarantee to the employers.

But for now I'm facing an oh so familiar issue. The old chicken/egg problem. Employers aren't going to want to pay for a service (even at the price I'll be offering) if there are hardly any users there looking for jobs. I've considered offering a large number of companies X amount of free listings to try and get potential job seekers to the website but I'm just not too sure how many companies will agree, and then actually spend the time to use the site.

I was also thinking of building a scraper to go and grab IT jobs from companies in the specific area that I am serving, but I'm not sure if this is really ethical. Could I get in trouble for scraping sites like craigslist, or monster.com?

I'm in the mindset now that I need to work on getting employers with little job seekers, rather than job seekers with little employers.

What do you guys think?

8 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 30.3 ms ] thread
pbreit
One successful strategy I've seen is establishing a following first (stakoverflow, 37sugnals). It wasn't clear from your post if you are offering anything unique. that would be helpful to understand. One way to start out is to offer to operat a company's careers page. String a few together an you might hav a service.
toumhi
Hey brandoncordell,

you could populate your site from listings from indeed and simplyhired. They have APIs for you to do that, so you don't have to scrape them. Plus you actually earn money when people apply for a job. Also, you can check out jobboarders.com it's a community of people hosting job boards, you'll find plenty of advice about starting a job board. Good luck :-)

anigbrowl
Market research. Contact IT firms in your area and network/develop some rapport with senior people. Invite them to lunch (at your expense obviously) and ask them what their biggest recruitment headache is. After you've implemented the feedback you get, ask them if they'd be willing to take part in a closed beta/pilot project.

Everyone I know has a low opinion of IT recruiters, largely because they don't listen. Be the person that cares about their needs will be refreshingly different.

chaplibm
I think this is a great way off attacking it. Establishing a rapport and learning how you can set yourself apart from the other sites out there is crucial. Getting this info directly from the source and getting them involved in the process will be able to help you bring them on as clients!
staunch
Why start Yet Another Job Board? What differentiates it from the many others?
brandoncordell
Well the thing that differentiates myself from the competitors is local edge. My job board will be for my local IT industry. All there is now for IT businesses in my area is Monster, Indeed, and Craigslist. All of which, I don't think are great solutions. Craigslist is very generic and full of spammers and scammers. Monster and Indeed are just large money making machines. I'm really just looking to make something a little more simple, and a lot more cheaper.
staunch
So your competitive advantage is that you can actually meet the people in your area.

Go to every single technology meetup of any kind and promote your site. Network with any and every person in your area that would be able to use your site. Build up awareness on both the company and employee side.