It May Be Quiet - But It's No Secret...

QuietAgent Last week a handful of Fortune 500 companies launched a little program called AllianceQ - with the hopes that it would revolutionize the recruitment industry by establishing a free and generous supply of job candidates to its members. Formed and implemented by QuietAgent this massive push for candidate to job matching won't remain quiet for long. At kickoff it boasts participants such as Best Buy, Starbucks, Wachovia, Entergy and ADP to name a few.

The idea behind AllianceQ is to reduce the billions of dollars spent each year by large companies attempting to find candidates that best match job openings. In an industry that's been calculated to spend over $58 billiion (yes, billion) on sourcing and recruitment with no slow down in site - AllianceQ promises to provide its members with a zero cost solution (yes, zero) for three out of every five jobs. Why so generous? Jason Kerr, co-chairman of AllianceQ and CEO of QuietAgent, provides some insight, "Collectively, the Fortune 500 is the world's largest job board. They have all the jobs, they attract the most job candidates, so it just makes sense for them to collaborate resources and help each other save money." (BusinessWire)

That's great for the companies (Employers can jump here to sign on.) - 'but how does QuietAgent work for the average job seeker?' RecruiterGuy wonders...
It would seem that QuietAgent does all the work there as well. As a fan of anyone that realizes the power behind hiring a passive job seeker, I'm intrigued and a bit curious as to how this will play - to say the least.

Since job seekers are permitted to use this FREE service (that never asks for a name or private contact details) I thought I'd share a few snippets from the official site:

"...continuous recruitment exchange that is always on - bringing you opportunities... while you stay anonymous."
"all jobs are evaluated every day for you..."
"you don't have to search through any postings... receive unwanted messages and alerts... you will only be contacted when employers want to talk with you."

You can sign up as a job seeker here. Downside? I haven't noticed yet from the job seeker's viewpoint - but I'll let you know if my current boss contacts my anonymous account telling me that they've an opening doing exactly what I do now... in my office.

Also posted here - RecruiterGuy.net

Comment by Joshua Letourneau on July 14, 2008 at 10:48am: RecruiterGuy, you've piqued my curiosity here - is this like a "two-dot-oh" version of ResumeRabbit in which paper is flying all over the quantum physical/mechanical universe of HR applicant tracking systems?

Are the profiles anonymous?

It seems to me that the real value here is puffing up the 'internal db' to ginormous levels . . . so that a F500 can go back and say, "Oh, Mr. Orange? Yeah, we had him in our db . . . Mr. Pink is there, too . . . "

P.S. Is the F500 really creating all the jobs in the U.S.? Do they really "have all the jobs"? This is somewhat contrary to popular thought that small businesses (not the F500) create and "have" the most jobs in the U.S. . . . is there new data here?

Comment by Jim Canto on July 14, 2008 at 11:07am: Thanks RG.. this is interesting. Not sure how they think they are going to stop unwanted messages and alerts. And, "You will only be contacted when employers want to talk with you".... how is that different from a resume database?

Please note... I have not even viewed any of the websites linked above. Simply my gut reaction to RG's article... from my personal perspective and gut feel.

I think Josh is making some very valid points as well.

Comment by Joshua Letourneau on July 14, 2008 at 11:45am: Rayanne, "Now, Rayanne" . . . .

You're starting to sound like a seasoned professional with resounding business acumen than just a regular-old recruiter!!!! How dare you!!! :)

"Just a thought: Maybe if these big companies/corporations spent more money on retention and management training, they could spend less money on recruitment. In the rush to save money, they lose, big time."

P.S. On other networks, the flames would come out thinking you were making recommendations that could hurt the 'Recruiting GDP'! :) How dare you tell the truth, Rayanne! :)

Comment by RecruiterGuy on July 14, 2008 at 12:13pm: @Rayanne - I couldn't agree more - across the board.

@Josh - good points and not without basis. Perhaps Kerr could validate his claim. It rings of sales pitch to me - but hey, that's just my humble opinion.

As to it's comparison to RR - I brought up the same question to a peer last week when we discussed the QuietAgent news. Closest comparison (based on memory, mind you) was more polish and a focus on Fortune companies. It's funny you'd bring it up since we spent 10 minutes laughing about ResumeRabbit jokes over lunch.
All kidding aside, I'm not sure that QA does the aggregation that RR does. Would seem more like it's own repository/resource at a glance. Also - I think somewhere in the process that the companies must visually communicate QA use.

I think we came up with ResumeRabbit as a push for job seekers versus QuietAgent as a pull for employers. (simplified a bit, I know.)

Not promoting QA - in fact I've never used it. Just hoping to share the news and get some feedback here on the claims and functionality.
Scary that a few of us may have made the same initial comparison, though. :-)