Note To The Membership of RecruitingBlogs.com

Last Thursday, I received a letter from Lawyers representing Jobster letting me know I had to shut down RecruitingBlogs.com immediately or Jobster would take action. They say that RecruitingBlogs.com is causing damage to their business and that I am in violation of my non compete.

I started RecruitingBlogs.com in its current form while still at Jobster because Recruiting.com was no longer a place that I could see and interact with the Recruiting Blogosphere the way I wanted to.

When I left Recruiting.com, people started writing encouraging and positive things about RecruitingBlogs.com and people started joining. It was not my intent to cause any trouble for anyone.

I believe that RecruitingBlogs.com and all of the recruiting related blogs that are written by Recruiting Professionals help the entire community, Jobster included and I believe the more content that is submitted to Recruiting.com the better off that site it.

I will not willingly shut RecruitingBlogs.com down. The site provides something that Recruiting.com and Jobster never provided. I think it is a mistake for Jobster to have their lawyers forcibly shut down RecruitingBlogs.com. I am a share holder in Jobster and the founder of Recruiting.com and I would love to see both of those entities succeed. My goal is not to mess with that.

I spoke to Jason Goldberg on Friday of last week and he was adamant about me shutting the site down. We did however agree that he would extend the deadline for 7 more days in order for me to show him how RecruitingBlogs.com is not a threat and how the two sites can help each other so that he would drop the issue. This seems like a positive step in the right direction though I have no confidence at all that I will come up with something that satisfies him.

My gut feeling is that Jobster would much rather see the site go away and I am very surprised by it but I am really thinking hard and talking to people to see if there is a way to make everyone happy. I mean, there are over 200 people responsible for making RecruitingBlogs.com what it is and if the site is forced down, all that effort will be lost and I would feel terrible for wasting everyone’s time.

I will continue as normal until there is some sort of resolution. I completely understand if there are any people out there who choose not to participate with RecruitingBlogs.com anymore because of what may be. I am really trying to think of a way for this to be a good thing for everyone.

Comment by Carl Chapman on June 26, 2007 at 3:48pm: Perhaps, you should give the site away to a 'straw' owner.. and thereby bypass your non-compete.

BTW, I can't say that a bone-headed move like this would be unexpected from the idiot, boy who would pretend to be a CEO.

Comment by Bryan Starbuck on June 26, 2007 at 3:50pm: I am surprised Jobster wants to make you go away. You are less of a site trying to make a profit, and more of a site trying to help the community have discussions. This is a very efficient communication tool for this recruiting community. It is sad to see someone try to destroy this community and communication tool.

Comment by Neil on June 26, 2007 at 3:58pm: Sounds like a tough situation, I hope it works out for all involved.

Comment by Rich on June 26, 2007 at 4:28pm: Just when I thought it was safe to go a month without a case study in communication ... Jobster continues to baffle, but not surprise me.

I'm no attorney, but it seems to me, as a worse case Jason, that gifting this network to the membership would remove its closure. However, unless your making tangible money here, it's strikes me as overreaching. I sincerely hope Jobster doesn't go the way of SOC, with its focus mostly on legal action.

Comment by Joshua Kahn on June 26, 2007 at 4:46pm: Goldberg, let it go. The vibe I've always gotten from Jason G is that the best thing about web 2.0 is openness, a sense of community, collaboration, etc. This of course doesn't fit that. I'm a Jobster customer and this doesn't reflect well on Jobster. In fact the impact to Jobster brand/rep is worse because of this, then because of anything else J. Davis would do here. In fact, Jobster could improve it's brand, its presence, its rep with those of here by finding opportunity to collaborate/interact with this community. J-Go, you're stepping in it, step back out.

Comment by www.GetNoticedFirst.com on June 26, 2007 at 5:41pm: I really don't understand the purpose of shutting down this site. What is Jobster afraid of?

Comment by Frank Mulligan on June 26, 2007 at 7:46pm: Even from here on the other side of the planet this seems a little heavy handed......Isn't there an onus on Jobster to prove that Recruitingblogs is competing with them. Difficult to see how.........

Comment by Dennis Smith on June 26, 2007 at 8:26pm: Disappointing. Bad news for the recruiting blogosphere.

Comment by Gautam Ghosh on June 26, 2007 at 8:55pm: I really don't understand how recruitingblogs.com competes with rdc. They are totally two different perspectives.

Really bad news. I hope Jason Goldberg sees sense

Comment by Chris Russell on June 26, 2007 at 9:00pm: I'm with Ragan. Just transfer ownership of domain to a friend. The fact that you started the site long ago should make you exempt from any desist order. Jobster has to know this move will backfire. Once you left RDC the site was without its original voice. Thats hard to overcome.