Genotrope Gets Some Ink

We were pleased to see Genotrope receive some positive press in a recent Mass High Tech article.

Hiring strategies shift toward social media

We have been watching the number of positions available at start-ups creep up by about 100 every week for the past month and a half, indicating the end of job depletion and the beginning of a return normalcy.

Our timing might be right on the money for a change. We just introduced the new job posting functionality for companies and user ability to find jobs at companies within their professional graph, as hiring increases but the need to keep costs low is still high priority.

Genotrope a Featured Company for Virtual Min August 12th

Genotrope is a featured company at the upcoming Mass Innovation Night because our focus is Boston area emerging technology companies and entrepreneurs. One of our main features is a database of Communications, Computer, Software and Web companies presented in a Genealogical fashion. The other is a Directory of Boston Venture Capital companies. Both have proven very popular with our users.

Here is a bit about our concept.

The Genotropic approach to recruiting. geno- : genus : kind kin : a group united by a common interest or common characteristics or affinity tro-pism : a natural inclination Simply put, companies are comprised of individuals that share some common traits, goals and backgrounds. They have been attracted to their companies because of these affinities and will be inclined to move to the next company that offers them a similarly comfortable environment.

We hope to improve on the current offerings in the online job market, with an Affinity Job Search tool that focuses on matching you with companies rather than jobs. Matching culture and fit rather than buzzwords.

Community contributions will at some point overtake our editors valiant efforts to populate the company database. When that happens, we will have a micro-chunkable database of much value to the users. Stay Tuned.

Web Innovators 20 was a great event

We had a good time and met some great people at the premier networking event in Boston for web startups.

Web Innovators Group has grown from a small gathering in 2005, of a few entrepreneurs in a bar to the large event it is today. Around 700 people attended last tuesdays WebInno 20 event.

The line up of companies was stellar, and we were fortunate to be a part of the group.

Thanks to David Beisel of Venrock for including Genotrope as a sidedish presenter.

Do we really need better Job Descriptions?

I have recently read a couple of blog posts at some new job board companies concerning the need for better job descriptions. I am wondering if that is really the case?

Do we need job descriptions at all? We’ll leave that topic for another day.

Does a detailed job description effectively target the exact talent being sought or screen them out?

My experience has shown that a significant percentage of the time, the hire that is made does not match the job description. Why is this?

I. The requirement changes over time.

II. The job description was the “kitchen sink” variety that actually described three positions

III. The company hired the best talent not the best “fit” to the description

IV. The great software engineer didn’t apply when they read the term “rockstar or ninja” in the description.

We think about recruiting using the concepts of Attractors and Promoters.

Attractors are what draw people towards your opportunity. The magnets pulling in candidates such as the background of the company including the stories about the founders, the “cool” product, the interesting or difficult problem being solved, the exceptional work environment, the high quality team and the investors. Anything that makes the company attractive to potential employees.

Promoters are the ways you get the word out about your company. Blogs, articles and media exposure, Events, and advertising. Job postings are one of your promoters.

So how do you make your job postings most effective as a promoter of your company?

First of all consider how they will be viewed. Job postings usually come in large groups as a list of results from a search. Therefore, to be effective, bringing the viewer to your site is the primary goal. This way you will have their attention and a much higher chance of generating interest.

So is a long and detailed job description going to the most effective means to get the viewer interested? Maybe not. A job posting may be better used as a description of your company, using your attractors, and a succinct overview describing the position. Candidates already know what the general requirements are for their current job. Too much detail regarding duties and may send a candidate packing because they do not fit that description, even though they could do the job.

Potential employees make the decision to work at your company based on the quality of the people they will be working with (the Company), the vision and problem the company is solving and if what you want them to accomplish is something they will love to do.

Maybe it is a semantics issue, but this information is not going to be contained in a job description. Better to write copy that makes your company interesting and attractive to potential employees. People go to work at Companies, not jobs, so spend your posting real estate mostly on promoting the attractive qualities of your company and less on detailed job descriptions.

Site Outage

We are very sorry that Genotrope has been down for several days. What started as routine maintenance ended up as a confluence of several problems that kept us down so long.

We apologize for the inconvenience we have caused you. Changes have been made so this situations will not happen again.

Sorry for the Outage

So we are back up now. It was a pain in the backside to be down for so long. Sorry for the inconvenience. We actually didn’t accomplish what we set out to do yet, but now that the site is back up, we will address the port forwarding issue and be able to serve up the app without site re-direction.

thanks, ts

We Apologize for being down (back up now)

We scheduled some maintenance for late last nite. New firewall, but the provider did not get around to do it when we requested 2-3 am, so now we are out of commission for a few hours.

Sorry for the down time. We ask for your patience with us, but we will be back ASAP.

thanks, Tom Summit

It’s Official

Since we actually launched to the general public only recently, I am pleased to say we are on our way. Thanks to all the new users that registered. This week Genotrope submitted resumes to various start-ups and will be following up with the hiring companies on behalf of the candidates.

Our goal is to be useful and engaging for our users. If you find a new position through Genotrope, that will be great too.

Let us know if you are having any problems or have some suggestions on features or improvements.

One thing we are considering is removing the defunct and public companies from the Find Company results. Although you can sort the list by clicking “Status” column title to group the early stage companies together, it may not be useful to see public companies on the list since you will mostly be looking for early stage companies. Let us know what you think.

Also, don’t forget to use the help windows by clicking on the question mark icon in the block headers.

thanks again ts add to the database when you can!

Launching Rev 0.1 Boston Startup Career Site

We are excited to send out the first public invitations to Genotrope. The site is fully functional and ready for you to submit your resume to the hundreds of companies hiring for thousands of jobs here in the Boston area. So as we move into the holiday season, after you Elf Yourself , check out Genotrope and let us know what you think.

Let the good times roll

A recent article in the Boston area techblog xConomy points out that the job market is back and the war for talent in emerging technology is waging once more.