Anyone have feedback on Doostang?

I'm a fairly prolific user of LinkedIn and Facebook for recruiting purposes. I was just invited to Doostang which seems to me to be a cheap knockoff of LinkedIn for college kids.

Anyone have experience with Doostang, and feedback before I spend forever inviting everyone I know? :)

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Permalink Reply by hans gieskes on July 9, 2007 at 2:08pm

Not sure about "cheap" ,but yes all these social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing and Doostang pretty much do the same thing. DOostang has very active (perhaps bigger) following in VC community, and they have more jobs posted for that indusytry segment than LinkedIn has, or so it seems.

Good luck, regards

hans

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Permalink Reply by Sherry Karr on July 10, 2007 at 4:38am

I like Doostang - there are a lot of young professionals on that site that have a few years of experience, or have just graduated college. It is a great place to get some insight from this group as to what they are looking for. Many in the group will ask for career advice, and many give some really good advice in return.

I have screened a few good candidates last year off Doostang. I am not sure if they were hired, since I went on to a new position not too long after submitting them. My last position was too niche, so there didn't seem to be any one in the Doostang pool. However, I think it is worth a shot. People there seem to take invitations a little more seriously, and perhaps are more reluctant to put people in their network without knowing something more about them than LinkedIn. I wouldn't invite everyone you know just yet. Take some time to bop around Doostang to get a feel for what it is like. Then invite those that would actually benefit from it.

Just my two cents. It can be great for recruiters, candidates, and just those looking for some good advice from other young professionals.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Le Noue on July 19, 2007 at 1:34pm

Sherry,

I'd be very interestd in trying the "Doo" for myself and sharing my findings. Did you mention having invites to pass out? Please oh please...

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Permalink Reply by Noah Roth on July 19, 2007 at 1:39pm

I wound up passing the invite on to one of my candidate developers... Who is now on maternity leave. I'll let you know when she starts to creep back to work.

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Permalink Reply by Rushit Shah on July 24, 2007 at 2:42pm

I tired to open Doostang but it should it is under construction, that was last time i open the link. after month i heard from a friend he had a profile and he closed his account as it was not useful to find anyone.

He was able to find every one on linkedin, facebook and xing.

Please let me know if i am helpful.

Regards
Rushit Shah

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Permalink Reply by Agnes Nichols on February 22, 2008 at 8:02pm

Hi Noah,
I'm currently contemplating subscribing to Doostang and have talked with one of their business developers. I'm always in the market for bright finance major college grad's in the NYC area and from my research doostang has a strong membership in this area. They are also selective in who they allow to join their website which I find to be a plus when your searching for passive candidates. I;ve already invited my quota of friends and find that I still need to become a subscriber in order to be able to view all resumes. You may want to talk to a business developer to find out if it's a fit for your recruitement needs.

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Permalink Reply by Mcbuttons on June 6, 2008 at 5:32am

Fair warning: Doostang is a scam. They require that you "recruit" 20 other people before you can look at and apply to listings. That is to say, prior to receiving ANY personal benefit from the site, you are expected to give away the contact information of 20(!!) of your friends/associates. That's asking an awful lot without any reward, in my opinion. But, you may not have ruined your relationships with those friends/associates for nothing (having just paraded their personal information on the web willy nilly): after giving out THEIR personal information, you are finally allowed to request (via application) membership to professional groups--still no guarantees of benefit. I doubt that I need to say more, but I know that some of you get overexcited about random promises of connectedness and fortune. For this (perhaps small) group of readers here, for your own sake, head my advice: treat the personal and professional information of others as though it were sacred. Few things will ruin your relationships faster than publicly violating the trust of those who respected you enough to give you their contact info in the first place.

Cheers.

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on June 6, 2008 at 10:28am

Doostang has actually been around longer than LinkedIn I think. I'm not very active on it, but I have had success with posting jobs there, the quality of candidates was very high...these were mostly for senior strategy type roles.

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on June 6, 2008 at 10:30am

I'm not sure your perception is correct. I've never had any requirement to recruit 20 people, unless that is a new thing, but I doubt it.

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Permalink Reply by Kara on February 11, 2009 at 11:04am

I was invited also but am hesitant.

See this blog: http://www.successful-blog.com/1/3-reasons-im-sorry-i-joined-doostang/

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Permalink Reply by workaholic315 on March 4, 2009 at 11:32pm

i read through that post as well Kara, and I can't speak for the problems that poster had with doostang, but I can say that the site is completely different nowadays than how it was back then.

it seems that back then it was more of a professional networking site, but nowadays doostang's main focus is on attracting top talent and marrying them to top industry jobs. they have a premium service where you can apply directly to hiring managers and HR personnel (to their email inbox, not some generic corporate inbox you never get a response from) and a contact name. i'm currently checking the site out myself with a 1 month membership, and there seems to be a lot of opportunities. i've gotten a much better response rate to my application submissions than when i submit directly to company websites at least. and i feel like my chances are considerably better when i can address my cover letter to a real person and know it isn't just going to some dark, never visited corner of webspace where dreams (and job apps) go to die.

i'd at least check the site over again now. might have some complaints that you have to pay for premium jobs (i was hesitant to at first), but there are also free jobs they have posted

cheers!

Kara said: