just landed in my mailbox
A nice little email from http://www.notchup.com - a candidates-search site that not only sells candidates to recruiters, but shares proceeds with those said candidates. A calculator pop up offers to figure out your 'suggested' interview price - mine is mid-triple digits.
Sounds like a fairy tale, but it is certainly a nice idea.
- Jane Prusakova's blog
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The site appears to be
The site appears to be down.
Sounds like a crazy idea... It may have made sense in 1999-2000 when there was a healthy job market, but in today's market that is totally glutted with massive numbers of underutilized people who are educated, skilled and experienced it is totally backwards. Who would pay someone to interview when job postings on craigslist get hundreds of excellent resumes? It would be a better business model to have a site where candidates could bid on a chance to get an interview with an actual hiring manager so they could have an opportunity to sell themselves and bypass the HR/recruiter gauntlet. The hard part would be qualifying companies that are really honestly looking to hire someone from all of the non-jobs out there.
I was finally able to get
I was finally able to get the page to load after about 1/2 hour of trying... They suggest $330 for me. Hah! I think I have to sign up just to see if this is for real. I fully expect they will reject my application.
good luck!
good luck!
I was accepted to NotchUp,
I was accepted to NotchUp, apparently because of being "invited" by several people. One time that my "open networking" connections on LinkedIn paid off I guess. People who are "invited" don't have to go through the manual screening process apparently. "Invitations" are done by uploading people's contact lists. I did decline to upload my LinkedIn contacts because I'm not comfortable selling my connections out like that, at least not the connections I value more. I sort of worry what NotchUp might do with them, although I would suspect its mostly so they can spam them with invitations to join. Given how this thread started that seems likely... but who knows what else they might be doing with that data.
Anyway, we'll see if anyone actually is willing to pay me to show up for an interview. I would suspect not, or at minimum that it would be people from out of town, which I'm not interested in doing even if I was paid.
Oh... having said what I
Oh... having said what I did about uploading contact information... if you WANT to get invited to check NotchUp out, go ahead and let me know (check my LinkedIn profile if you want to know how to get ahold of me), and I will be more than happy to send you a referral on NotchUp.
thank you, that's nice of
thank you, that's nice of you to offer.
I did get an invite yesterday - that's how I learned about this site.
Not holding my breath for paid-for interviews, though.
The offer is open to anyone
The offer is open to anyone on the site. I agree that getting paid to interview seems too good to be true. What I've heard from people lately is that companies and agencies located in downtown areas often don't even reimburse candidates for parking anymore... If they won't pay $7 for parking, why would anyone believe they'd pay a couple hundred bucks to come in and talk to them?
I've completely filled out
I've completely filled out my profile over there, set my price to the recommendation from the site... So far no response, but its been complete less than 24 hours. I guess if I don't get any responses in a few days I will try lowering my price and see if that generates any nibbles... Then if still not, maybe I should try really raising it, just to see if that makes anyone curious... Kinda doubt it, but who knows, sometimes this sort of artificial 'marketplace' can be quirky.
Sounds like a good
Sounds like a good plan.
Please post on how your pricing strategies are working out.
Well, nothing so far after a
Well, nothing so far after a few days of having my profile on the site completely filled out. If I don't hear anything tomorrow I will try lowering my price down to $100 and see if that generates any interest. If not, then next week I will try raising it to $900 and see if that piques anyone's interest. If there is still nothing after that then I guess I will have to conclude that either I'm personally just not marketable (which is quite possible) or NotchUp's business model doesn't work (also possible), at least not in today's weak job market.
I'd be interested in hearing what other people's experiences with NotchUp are, especially someone who is in a high demand field (read that as not in IT or software development)... if anyone wants to try it, my offer of an invite still stands.
O.K., I've lowered my asking
O.K., I've lowered my asking price to $100... It will be interesting to see if that gets any interest or not. To clarify my previous post... it would be interesting to see if someone who is in software development that has, say 3+ years of Ruby on Rails or 5+ years of .NET (which seem to be about the only skills there isn't a big glut of around here) gets any play from NotchUp...
You might put an asterisk by
You might put an asterisk by your $100 fee, and then apply sub-charges, including gas, convenience fees, and shipping & handling.
What do you think I am, an
What do you think I am, an airline? :-)
Seriously, I don't really think anyone is going to pay $100 to interview me. My resume has been out on Dice, Monster, etc. for the past 6+ years and have had very little interest... As I said, that could mean the job market flat out stinks (which I believe to be true) or that I'm just plain unmarketable (which is also strongly possible) or both. I honestly am highly skeptical whether NotchhUp's business model will fly in an employer's market.
Has anyone else signed up that is willing to talk about it? What is your background? What are you asking? Are you getting any interviews through NotchUp?
Maybe I'm the only person who finds it interesting enough to put everything out there...
O.K., a week at $100 and
O.K., a week at $100 and absolutely nothing... So I am increasing my asking price to $600 to see if that makes anyone curious. I decided $900 may be just a little over the top... $600 is almost twice the NotchUp recommendation, so it should be good to test that theory...
Have you considered that
Have you considered that maybe you are not getting any takers not because the price is wrong, but because nobody is there?
I did not find any way to figure out how many eyeballs NotchUp is bringing to your profile.
Have you?
No, I haven't. I would
No, I haven't. I would really like to know how many prospective employers actually viewed my profile. Sites like Dice.com, for example, let you see that. Actually I think you are probably right about no eyeballs being there... I said from the beginning that in a weak job market I think their business model is backwards and that with huge gluts of educated, skilled and experienced talent available to interview for cheap if not free, why would an employer or recruiter pay? Of course it may also just be that nobody wants old geezer software engineers like me at any price.
Actually, a cool idea and
Actually, a cool idea and thanks for sharing!
After a week at $330 (their
After a week at $330 (their recommendation) a week at $600 (almost double their recommendations) and a week at $75 (the lowest they will allow), I've come to the conclusion that either:
As I've said before, it very well could be the latter, so if someone who is actually "in demand" (like not a software engineer or in one of the few niches that isn't completely glutted) has different experiences with NotchUp I'd love to hear about it.
A person who was less than
A person who was less than honest might test the system to validate which conclusion is correct. For example, you might suddenly become a new graduate who has low expectations on starting salary, and see who bites (I mean to use the fishing metaphor).