Comment On Introducing the Hidden Network

A wonderful idea. Hope it works out as intended.

Alex Papadimoulis:

 In other words, if your blog receives 100,000 monthly page views and four employers post a job through your site each week, your monthly blog revenue would be $900.00.

If I didn't knew it better I'd say it sounds kinda fishy. :) 

But seriously, good luck with that project. 

Can anyone say .com? .com .com .com 

Hey, I want to invest millions in your wonderful idea!

but wait. Aren't there already THOUSANDS of employment agencies and sites like monster.com etc...

 

Phalphalak:

If I didn't knew it better I'd say it sounds kinda fishy. :) 

But seriously, good luck with that project. 

Thanks for the feedback.

And actually, a $5 CPM does sound "fishy" at first -- almost too good to be true. But honestly, depending on volume, we can actually do better.

This is because professional blogs are quickly becoming the new Trade publications - a niche and well defined market. Ever see how much it costs to advertise in a trade magazine? Something like $10,000 for a page-ad that gets distrubuted to about 80,000 readers. Even a $50 CPM is a bargain compared to that.

"We know firsthand how challenging it is to find good talent. Not only are we an
employer ourselves, but one of our primary goals at Indeo"

s/Indeo/Inedo/g

Your SSL certificate is failing validation in Firefox 1.5.
 

But wait!

I've changed jobs about every 6 or 7 years. I've never had an employer pay less than a $10,000 fee to my agent.

Any employer who doesn't use agencies and pay good money up front is not an employer I want to work for.

 

Anonymous:

but wait. Aren't there already THOUSANDS of employment agencies and sites like monster.com etc... 

HiddenNetwork.com is a new type of service. Unlike the Monster.com's, we don't target "Active" job seekers -- only passive ones. Employment agencies also target passive seekers, but they're expensive -- try $20,000+ for bringing in a programmer.

Anonymous:

but wait. Aren't there already THOUSANDS of employment agencies and sites like monster.com etc...

The problem is that anyone can advertise on Monster. I got a job through Monster with some real ass-hat clowns. I knew that it would be a case of style over substance just from the decor. The core application was a J2EE shopping basket which used every conceivable feature of J2EE. It was 1MB of torturous Java source. I'd written something with similar functionality in Perl and it was 20KB.

The money was good but they owe me about US$5000 and I didn't get a reference before they folded.

CAPTCHA: java

As long as it doesn't turn into just headhunters-posting-fake-ads-just-to-collect-resumes (a-la Monster), I'd be willing to use it.

Best of luck with it!

BTW: captcha = perfection (a good sign :)

And this is The REAL WTF.

</joke> 

How You Can Be a Part - Readers
Talk with employers you know and encourage them to post a job. The more of you who do that, the more quality job opportunities there will be. Also, write to the authors on your blogroll and encourage them to join. Although the revenue isn't enough to quit one's day job, it offers your authors incentive to continue to write quality material.

What's missing here?  Hmmm...  I know!  Encouraging Readers to actually look at the job postings and maybe even apply for them.  Naw, we wouldn't want that, now would we?

CAPTCHA: quality (bent and distorted - how appropriate)

I still like the JoelOnSoftware method better.

Anonymous:

But wait!

I've changed jobs about every 6 or 7 years. I've never had an employer pay less than a $10,000 fee to my agent.

Any employer who doesn't use agencies and pay good money up front is not an employer I want to work for.

 

 

Placement services and search agencies don't give one whit for you or the employer. They want to put as many bodies in as many seats as they can as fast as possible and have you stay long enough to get their check. Then they are calling you back seeing if you want to move or if you can refer anyone to them. In general, they have no clue about matching good employers with appropriate skills. 

It's hard to be surprised that people who frequent this site are being a little jaded and cynical in their responses to this.

 For me, this is an encouraging sign. This site has always been the ultimate example of the ultimate bad rule - it presents mistakes and problems in a harsh, sarcastic tone, but it doesn't ever offer alternative solutions.

For just one day, and technically without even interrupting the flow of its usual cynicism, Alex is using this site to say, "hey, here's an actual, viable solution to one of the biggest, overreaching problems that we've seen time and time again in this living compendium of problems that we've collected here. No, it's probably not a perfect solution; but it's a valid one. Let's see if we can make it work, so that instead of being toads who just sit back and complain about how bad things are all the time, we actually, just one time, stand up and try to make things better."

 But then of course he gets a lot of comments from people sitting back and complaining about how he's being a shill, and the idea is stupid. Frankly, there's some people who immediately see "a huge stupid mistake" in literally ANY idea you present to them. I admire their high standards, but not the fact that they'll never get anything done, because they'll never accept any idea, because they'll just sneer at any idea and say "well this has been done before at Monster.com, hur hur hur."

 Splitting job-boards up so that they appeal to only specific communities centered around a trusted blog is a good strategy. The blog authors already have high credibility in the eyes of their readers; as long as those authors do their job in thoroughly screening the jobs and companies that advertise, then the readers can also say "at least I know of one job board that won't be bloated with crappy 'bait and switch' jobs." And of course the employers are eager to tap into the readership of a tech-savvy blog: they know that thedailywtf.com readership are going to be above-average programmers.

 Personally I think that Alex should put a cover charge on this for the companies to post a job listing: it helps ensure that the company posting the job is one that really wants good programmers, and is willing to spend at least a little more to get their job listings hitting the eyeballs of a community of good programmers. It would also make Alex' job easier as he wouldn't have to screen them quite a much: the cover charge would do some of the screening of crap jobs for him.

 All in all, kudos to Alex for trying to solve a real problem.

Minor nitpick, but I'm not sure I'd want to work at a place that had
severs.  I'm not exactly sure what they'd sever, but it can't be
anything good.  And severing other severs just sounds painful.

Head on over to HiddenNetwork.com and see what we have to offer

 

 Been there. Done that.  Where's my tee-shirt???

 

Seriously though,

GREAT IDEA, Alex!

Nice site.

 ====================================

Please double-check your grammar and spelling on the site (such as "we review all perspective blogs and publications.")  [should be prospective]

 

"I'll return with the rest of Phil's story in a few hours ..."

A few hours! I'm jonesin' over here!

-Wang-Lo.

Alex,

Great idea.
So, where can we see the ad's?

--
FM

Anonymous:

Alex,

Great idea.
So, where can we see the ad's?

--
FM

For that matter, where can we see the job listings themselves, in all their resplendant, stock options glory?

I don't know if you're considering it or not, but Joel's setup where all offers are required to have company names is a real winner. It's the only way to cut the "Leader in their space looking to expand" bullshit, and so people can also make sure they don't accidentally go for an interview at Accenture. :)

Phalphalak:

A wonderful idea. Hope it works out as intended.

Alex Papadimoulis:

 In other words, if your blog receives 100,000 monthly page views and four employers post a job through your site each week, your monthly blog revenue would be $900.00.

If I didn't knew it better I'd say it sounds kinda fishy. :) 

But seriously, good luck with that project.

Are you doing any kind of approval/queue for sites who want to participate? I ask because I would be most interested in converting one of my websites into a blog very soon, and it already gets a fair amount of traffic.

www.writeityourself.com 

At the moment its just a simple blurb I use for redirecting annoying IRC users, but it'd make for a nice tech blog. 

I wish the regular daily WTFs showed up this early and this consistently. That was the nice thing about auto-pilot week, we had a new one every day at 10:00am my time. I loved it!

"Lazy assholes whom have ended up here: 2834"

"Who"* :)

HiddenNetwork.com is officially in Beta. Unlike other company's "beta"
periods, we anticipate launching by the end of next week. I've
dedicated a lot of my consulting company's resources to ensuring that
this product will be a success and look forward working together with
you all to make it happen.

My only question is, is this going to be as generally buggy and unusable as the messageboards here? That is, the Community Server here isn't what I would consider the highest quality software.

Also,  "a lot of my consulting company's resources" means what, you sitting in your basement? Leave the marketing speak out if you want to get a positive reaction.

Alex,

I was poking around inedo.com and was unable to find /any/ contact information.  No email, postal, phone, fax, telegraph, or smoke signal range.

Maybe I just didn't look hard enough.  If it is there, you may want to make it more obvious.  If it's not there, you may want to consider adding it.

I'm just saying... 

client firefox 1.5.0.7 on winxp sp3-- 

https://hiddennetwork.com/Publishers/Default.aspx  has a link to https://hiddennetwork.com/AdExamples.aspx

which is not finding images like

<img src="images/adtypes/336box.gif" />  

or  <img src="images/adtypes/skyscraper.gif" />

yet when accessed directly, https://hiddennetwork.com/images/adtypes/336box.gif  it works great.

I like your service. keep up the good work. 

Hmm, interesting. I'm always up for ways of finding good IT professionals.  Maybe I'll have use of this in the future.

I've submitted an application which hopefuly will pass.

What if there were some way for you to team up with Joel Spolsky and his job board?

 

On the "Blogger Application Form" page the submit button is labelled "Submit Appliation" instead of "Submit Application".

Just a heads up!

 

Beau.
 

Anonymous:

Alex,

I was poking around inedo.com and was unable to find /any/ contact information.  No email, postal, phone, fax, telegraph, or smoke signal range.

Maybe I just didn't look hard enough.  If it is there, you may want to make it more obvious.  If it's not there, you may want to consider adding it.

I'm just saying... 

I, too, was unable to find any contact information. It's usually a link you want to make pretty obvious on every page - if you want potential customers to be able to contact you...

How much do you think Google paid agencies for their early employees?

Anonymous:

but wait. Aren't there already THOUSANDS of employment agencies and sites like monster.com etc...
 

Monster is like the WORST job board if you are looking for a tech job. Dice and CareerBuilder are significantly better, but still a lot of WTF jobs. I like your idea Alex, and I'll be taking advantage of it to try and find a new non-wtf position.

But I have the same question. Shouldn't there be a way for us (as potential employees) to search the job openings?

 

Captcha == batman. Yes. I am... Batman. 

 

Great idea.

Just one question: how do I know that the employers are sensible?
 

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

I was poking around inedo.com and was unable to find /any/ contact information.  No email, postal, phone, fax, telegraph, or smoke signal range.

I, too, was unable to find any contact information. It's usually a link you want to make pretty obvious on every page - if you want potential customers to be able to contact you...

That's exactly why it's not there; we are not soliciting new business at this time. Our existing clients have more work for us than we have resources to handle. Though, with this job-network thingy .. I think we may just be able to find some strong folks to help out :-)

 

As for the job listings -- these will appear in the next day or so as more ads come in. I'd prefer to have a good selection to choose instead of just one or two on the listings page.

Unlike other company's "beta" periods, we anticipate launching by the end of next week.

Are you perhaps refering to the year-and-a-half gmail beta? :-)

 

--doc0tis 

<blockquote>We pay each time the ad is displayed ($5.00
per thousand impressions) and every time you refer a new employer
($25.00). In other words, if your blog receives 100,000 monthly page
views and four employers post a job through your site each week, your
monthly blog revenue would be $900.00.</blockquote>

Am I seriously the first poster to note that
 100 * 5 + 4 * 25 != 900?
 

Will there be Job posting and Resume WTF's.?????

 What a great addition to the site.  I look forward to reading comments on the typical bad job postings or john doe's resume. 

 

 

Alex, just some random additional suggestions:

 -The "close window" button in the pop-ups doesn't match the design, it looks a bit awkward and out-of-context.

-It may sound like nitpicking (actually, it is), but I think that a site focused on professionalism should present professional-looking html code. While the source is mostly ok, it would be even nicer if those style attributes were replaced by classes defined in Styles.css

-A FAQ or something like that would be nice, too. My first question would be: is this a US-only service? I'm interested in job offers but I don't really want to leave the Old Continent. I think, the "let's not waste each other's time" attitude could increase your credibility and success.
 

Anonymous:

Am I seriously the first poster to note that
 100 * 5 + 4 * 25 != 900? 

I believe you're the first to notice that.

The rest of us noticed that 100*5 + 4*4*25 on the other hand does equal 900.   That was 4 job postings per week, not 4 per month. 

Anonymous:

Am I seriously the first poster to note that
 100 * 5 + 4 * 25 != 900? 

I believe you're the first to notice that.

The rest of us noticed that 100*5 + 4*4*25 on the other hand does equal 900.   That was 4 job postings per week, not 4 per month. 

 

Anonymous:

Am I seriously the first poster to note that
 100 * 5 + 4 * 25 != 900?

You are correct, however

100 * 5 + 4 * 4 * 25 != 900

Read again: four employers per week.

Am I seriously the first poster to note that

 100 * 5 + 4 * 25 != 900?

Actually, the text said 'And refer four people a week', which would make it

100 * 5 + 4 * 4 * 25, which does, in fact == 900. 

Hey guys I think it's four per week and not per month

:D

Anonymous:

...one of my websites ...

www.writeityourself.com 

Great idea, but I'm not going to tell my employer about it, even if they are constantly hiring.
They're constantly hiring, because we lose a few every week due to the WTF factor here.

Anyone who reads this site would *not* want to work *here*.

Is it hacker proof, or are we all good guys?

Alex Papadimoulis:

In the two and half years that I've been sharing "WTF" stories with you, I've never used this space ("the article") to promote myself, the products I've developed, or even my own consulting company. So if you'll indulge me just this once (I promise, I won't make a habit of this), I want to tell you about my latest business venture, HiddenNetwork.com, and ask for your help in making it a success. I strongly believe that it will be something that will greatly benefit us all.

Why start now? Though I guess if Google can sell out, so can you... Personally I already block the insidious virus that is "Google AdWords"

You already have the "FREE Trade Magazine" stuff in the middle of the posts; I guess it is just a matter of time until Ads are splashed all over you site ala-Register. Though my guess is that's a clue as to when you have totally sold-out and to stop reading!

Hey Alex,

 

What if my "Dream Job" isn't geographically near me?  Will companies who are willing to relocate people be able to advertize to a wider audience? 

I guess I'm not following how this guarantees good jobs or good candidates.    Last year I spent 2 months doing non-stop interviews to fill 5-6 developer positions...we had recruiters working full time, we had consulting companies shopping their people through, we had people contacting us directly.  What is it about your plan that would have made that job easier?  How do you help to nudge the signal-to-noise ratio in the right direction?   (Why are blog readers better candidates, anyway?)  I already had dozens of resumes, that wasn't the problem....It seems like, if anything, it will make the noise worse...

-cw