We are very pleased to be pushing the latest version of Climber.com Catalyst! The recruiter tool does all the work for you by instantly created networks of people you recruit.

For instance, if you recruit Software Engineers you will instantly have a network of 300 to 6000 software engineers depending on your needs. You can send a message, a job or a referral request to your entire network with a click of the button.

We also built in some advanced SEO (Search Engine Optimization) features.

Come by and check out the greatest software for recruiters!

Mike

We re-launched our RecruiterRockstar product as Climber.com Catalyst!

If you are a recruiter come by and check it out, it is simply the best recruiting tool on the planet!

Cheers,
Mike

You can follow a link here to view some of our recruiters: Recruiter Listings

Using Old Technology because it's Faster! The case for Papershop. 

We run an very fast development shop.  Our business needs change almost every day.  I used to write mini-business plans which consisted of a business case, tech spec, and visual samples.   These would take me a few days to hammer out and then I would need buy in from all stake holders. 

This worked well in my last well established business which had a large development team, but, on a smaller team it seemed to be overkill.  So instead we now work from Papershop.  

Papershop simply bypasses the need to explain in writing the needs of the product.  This works with a development team that understands the business need.   I simply draw the product on pieces of 8x11 paper with all of the required fields and click throughs.  Then we sit with the tech team to explain the product or tool.   The developers and graphic designer work at the same time, keeping each other informed of changes in requirements and/or limitations.  

The best part is that since it is not intended to be the final product but rather the baseline, it allows for more collaboration  from the team and greater flexibility from the designer.  Since the development and graphic design is concurrent it allows for extremely fast product develoment.   

Some might think this is similar to wire-framing.   The key difference is that the initial Papershop comes from the vision people and not the graphic designer.  For the visionary it forces them to think through the idea in total and draft the first version.  Then once complete they hand off something that is pre-approved and ready to be improved.  It bypasses the back and forth from concept to design which can take weeks.  

In every case, once the development starts we instantly see the areas for improvement to UI and the back end.   We quickly make iterative pushes to meet the needs of the visionary and incorporate user feedback.  

 

It allows anyone with an idea a way to effectively communicate a technical spec.

Cheers,

Mike 

Email Communication

For those of use who communicate with an online user base through email it can be touch and go. I continue to learn the value of timing and message.

As a point of reference, last we started to send a message to our entire user base and after about 5% of the email went out we noticed that it did not have the effect that we were looking for. Our open rate and our ultimate goal login rate both were sub-par. So we stopped the email!

Carefully looking at the message and some of the replies from our user base we realized that we had not done a great job in presenting the material in a concise and easy to understand manner. We spent a full day analyzing the outcome and produced an email which exceeded our target.

In the end, we ended with a better message. But it is the careful study of the initial send that led us to redo it. You only get a few chances each month to communicate with your users, so you need to treat them like gold!

Cheers,
Mike

After some resistance to twitter, i finally gave it a chance. It's early, but so far I love it. From a business standpoint, twitter allows you to follow the "water cooler talk" of your business associates. It is a online tool that allows you to send and receive very short SMS messages with people who follow you or people you are following. You can choose to receive the messages on your phone, IM or online.

Often it is nothing more than "brain farts" ("I'm on the 805 and there is no traffic, weird" or "I have 4 hours near the DFW airport, food suggestions." ) but it is the type of information that allows you to discover the personality of your business contacts who use the tool.

Sometimes its more than "brain farts" it is a clear communication of business need or frustration. Because it is short, unfiltered and quick; it tends to honest and does not get re-written the way a blog might. I like this honesty, plus unlike a blog I feel as though it is written without an audience in mind.

The funny thing is that there is some etiquette, so read up on it before you start blowing people up.

You can see my page here http://twitter.com/mcob

Cheers,
Mike

When you get a minute check out our new tool for recruiters it rocks!!!

RecruiterRockstar.com

Cheers!
Mike

If you want to be a beta user let me know.

I should have written this a long time ago. It was April of last year that we launched Climber.com. As of April of 2008 we eclipsed 250,000 members, each of whom received a career fingerprint that helped them better understand their career goals and work force values!

It feels great to have affected so many people.

Cheers,
Mike

Wow, I took some time off... But I was working very hard. We have some great news, Next week the WallStreetJournal is doing a story on Climber.com! This is huge for us and they understand the value of what we are doing for passive job seekers. Wait until they see what we launch next...

We are the cusp of launching a product that will change the way that active job seekers search for new jobs! Check out two new products that we pushed. These are not finished, but if you add them up and put them together you will understand where we are going. It is a game changer.

• www.searchforjobs.com A new way to search for jobs.

• www.climber.com/company_statistics (this is in final works, we still have to normalize the data) User Generated Ratings on 73K companies!
  

If you need more of a hint let me know...

Cheers,
Mike