Mrshafrir.com

A great "kudos" came across the wire this morning. What I like is that Mr. Munson's story really flies in the face of the whole "passive candidates don't use job boards" school of thought. Granted, one swallow does not a spring make, but you can be sure that there are thousands of other Eric Munsons out there, both on TheLadders and on other boards. Here's his story (emphasis is mine):

I wanted to share my success story with you and wish you all a wonderful and peaceful holiday season! I have been a Ladders subscriber for about six months and just accepted an offer today for a dream job that I would not have found otherwise. During my search, I was gainfully employed and well-compensated, so I was not in a rush. This enabled me to carefully evaluate many positions before settling on this one. My goal was to apply my sales & leadership background and leverage my healthcare industry knowledge to get into service-oriented sales and away from product-specific sales. I also had two locations in mind that my family was willing to move to. When the company recruiter called me, I knew instantly that I had found my match. Not only did it exactly fit what I was looking for but it will double to potentially triple my income. I am very pleased with the quality of the positions on your website, the added-value services and the overall ease of use. You have a great product and I've been happily recommending it to many of my job-seeking friends. Wishing you all prosperity and happiness in 2007, Eric Munson Highland, NY

Update: Ben Gotkin does a nice job of explaining where he finds value in job boards.

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The news out of Seattle today is looking pretty grim for our old friend Jason Goldberg and Jobster. Well, not actually news (yet...just rumors so far), but it sounds like Jobster is getting ready to axe up to 50% of their 145 person workforce.

What's most interesting to me, as someone who is a keen observer of the nuances of human behavior, is how someone like Goldberg, a well-polished communications-expert (he honed his craft with in the Clinton-era White House), can go from (in my view annoying) confident bravado about his company to condescending and defensive in the face of some bad news and tough questions.

It sounds like, given that the first reason Jason gives for wanting to deliver profits in 2007 is "because I promised I would", he's facing some pretty heavy pressure from his board and the VC's who have ponied up $48 million in investments so far. I wonder if the deepest cut is going to be Jason's job...

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't mean to make light of what's obviously something very scary for all involved, but...Tony Blair flies commercial?

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm a pretty jaded guy. It takes a lot to really get me to say "damn, that's some real bullshit".

I'm not even really sure what to say about this, except, "damn, that's some real bullshit".

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I've got to give credit to LinkedIn. It seems like every time I go to the site, they've got a new feature/section/something to highlight. Sometimes, the new "thing" sticks, sometimes it doesn't. I like to call it the "throw it against the wall" approach (and, you know, see what sticks).

LinkedIn has gained a ton of traction recently in the recruiting space. This morning I go to LinkedIn and where there used to be jobs in the New York area, there was now a section "On Linked In Today" asking "Do You Know" such and such a person. All five people listed were recruiters. Do recruiters pay for this listing (is it given only to recruiters with upgraded accounts)? What is LinkedIn doing on the back end to make this relevant to my (perceived) job search? And what am I supposed to do once I hit the recruiter's profile? Request a connection?

Here's the screen shot:

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear God of Tickets,

If you know where to find two tickets to the moe. concert on 12/30 at Irving Plaza, please strike me with lightning or something.

Thanks!

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Matt Martone, a sales guy over at Hotjobs, runs a pretty nice blog about Employment Branding. His recent post about site traffic to some of the more "known" players in online recruiting brought some of the CEO's from the sites he mentioned out of the woodwork and into the comments section (I'm not endorsing his use of Alexa statistics to prove his point, but that's another story for another time).

But this isn't about Matt Martone, and it's not about Hotjobs. It's about the comment Jason Goldberg, CEO of Jobster left about what they are doing to attract job seeker, i.e. consumer, traffic. He was trying to explain the (relatively) anemic site traffic to Jobster.com.

His response:

at jobster we haven't spent a braincell on traffic yet. my attitude towards consumer traffic is first build a great product, second build a great product, third build a great product, 100th get traffic. we're about in step 2 right now with many more to go before we turn to traffic. which we will soon, just not yet. when we're ready for the world to know about jobster, it will. for now, the fact that every recruiter in the u.s. knows about jobster is enough -- that's who we sell to today and what we sell to them today is not based on traffic at all.

So Jason, how to explain this:

This ad appeared on Rotoworld.com -- a site I use for fantasy sports information -- with the tagline "Find Your Next Job at Jobster.com". It's definitely a job seeker targeted ad, and while it may not have cost Jobster a "braincell", this is definitely spending on job seeker traffic.

Now granted, Jason's comment appeared on Dec. 6th, so maybe by "yet" and "soon" he meant 8 days later, but perhaps Matt's posting ruffled a few feathers over at Chez Jobster? One of the criticisms I've heard of the Jobster service is that it involves a lot of time on the recruiter side to create "talent networks", so certainly attracting job seekers to the Jobster service is good strategy. But let's just make sure the left side of the brain knows what the right side is doing, capiche?

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's a slew of people Allen Iverson could be listening in to right now as he sits idly waiting to be traded.

His mom.
His agent.
His posse.
Himself.

Ron Artest? Umm, not so much.

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A wise man -- Bobby Soffelitis -- once asked "who said average was bad?".

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Welcome to New York.

On your left is the Statue of Liberty. And over there is Times Square.

Hungry? Great! Here's your $55 plate of MAC AND CHEESE.

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is Larry Bird's 50th birthday, which, along with realizing that there are players in the NBA that were born in 1987, makes me feel kind of old. My dad used to carry me in (as in, he only had one ticket so he would carry me in his arms and the ticket-takers would let the two of us in with one ticket. We did that until I was about 7 or 8, by the way) to the old Boston Garden and we'd watch Bird, McHale, the Chief, DJ, Ainge, Bill Walton, hell even Jerry Sichting, kick some ass. There's a good column by Bob Ryan in today's Globe that captures the essence of Bird down to a T (or C as the case may be).

Larry, happy birthday!

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 05:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

According to my sister, err, Gawker, quoting lines from Borat isn't funny anymore.

A few thoughts on this:

1) Dammit.
2) When did my sister see Big Lebowski? And if she has indeed seen it, how many times? Is it 25+ like her little brother? Or 50,000 times like his roommate?
3) I guess I'll just have to start saying "Now I've seen a lot of bullshit... angel dust, switchblades, sexually perverse photography involving tennis rackets... " to replace this void in my life.

Update: I just realized this post banning Borat quotes is a month old. So, I'm guessing it's still not cool?

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

One of my favorite blogs, i.e. one that I read every day, is Fred Wilson's "A VC". His blog is a mix of music, business, Internet, investing, New York City, and anything else that's on his mind. He also updates it daily which is nice (hint, hint MrShafrir).

He always hints that he's had some successes in the VC world (proof is here and less so here), but in general, you'd assume he's your average New York City millionaire (and I don't really mean that tongue-in-cheek).

Except his house in on the market for $37.5 million...good times!

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Great interview in Fortune magazine with the CEO of Seagate Technology (a manufacturer of hard-drives).

Too often, businesses get wrapped up in corporate-speak mumbo jumbo, or they get so concerned with slick marketing that they forget they have to deliver on a great product as well.

Bill Watkins, Seagate CEO, suffers from none of these problems.

At a San Francisco dinner on Tuesday evening, he was candid about his company's ultimate mission: "Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."

Posted by Michael Shafrir at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)