Executing a public job referral model in a down market is a very tough challenge, in fact executing a public job referral model is challenging in a healthy market.

The team at 2Vouch have made the very hard decision of switching this service off for a while whilst we focus our team and resources on building out the new application we have developed The JobGenie.

Jeremy and I would like to say a big thank you to all of those early adopter companies who advertised jobs on 2Vouch and also a BIG thanks to all of you who signed up as referrers on the 2Vouch platform.

We are still very passionate that there is a market for job referrals globally but recognise that you have to have the right business model and funding. We think we are heading in the right direction with the JobGenie.

A few points on what we have learned through the 2Vouch experience.

1. Ensure your start up is well funded to get you through the development phase with enough cash to execute your sales and marketing plan.
2. Focus, focus, focus - build enough functionality in your web application to execute your core offering. We built a BIG comprehensive application that did a lot and it probably did too much. We only know this with the benefit of hindsight. Think Twitter!
3. Venture Capital funding from Aussie venture firms is not realistically a funding option if you are a pre-revenue start-up in Australia.
4. Build the parts of your applications that generate revenue as a priority.
5. Launch early and iterate. If people like your design and think your application is slick at your launch. You’re too late to market!
6. Have the right project management and collaboration tools to manage your agile development. We use Atlassian’s Jira and Confluence. Thanks guys you rock!
7. Make sure you have direct access to your development team. We do now! We didn’t initially and that was a disaster! I will go public with who the Australian Web Development Company was that we engaged first time around but now is not the right time. Needless to say - I would never use them or recommend them!
8. As a Recruiter and then CEO of a tech start-up - I have learned so much. The last three years have been a wonderful ride and I am taking everything I have learned and applying those lessons to the development and deployment of JobGenie On Demand Employee Referral Platform.

All the Best,

Riges Younan

CEO, 2Vouch.

@rigesyounan

Today it becomes even easier to tell a friend about a great employment opportunity: you can refer a job through Facebook. Hopefully the process speaks for itself, but here it is in more detail. (more…)

2Vouch has a new feature: widgets. A widget is a simple piece of code that you can copy paste into your website, so that it shows 2Vouch jobs.

Bloggers and Web Publishers

The widget has been designed to give you an opportunity to monetize your site and provide valuable content to your audience. The way it works is if someone applies to a job through a widget on your site and that person gets hired, you are tagged as the referrer and you get the reward. Simple as that. You can choose what type of jobs you want to show and what size widget you want to display.

Employers

The widget allows you to display vacancies that you’ve listed on 2Vouch anywhere on your site.

To get the widget go to www.2vouch.com, log in to your account and then click on Widgets

There you will see an example which you can modify if you like.

All you need to do then is copy paste a few lines to where you want the widget to go. The procedure is different for each platform, so here are some pointers:

• Wordpress (the important bit is “Text Widgets” at 2:40 in the presentation)
• Facebook
• MySpace

After that, you can just sit back, wait and let the cash roll in. We hope

The 2Vouch system now allows you to post jobs in a wide range of countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Argentina and a range of others. The pricing will also be in local currency for the major currencies such as Pounds and US Dollars.

Referrers will also be able to sign up from all over the world, so the system is now truely global!

During the last week there has been interesting times at 2Vouch HQ.

First up last Thursday 2Vouch HQ moved from St Kilda Rd to Toorak Rd South Yarra, right near South Yarra station. The move was executed by 2Vouch GM Jeremy Samuel while CEO Riges Younan was living it up at the Inspecht HR Futures Conference (Disclosure: yes my conference). Below are a few happy snaps of the new office:

Reception Area

Meeting Room

Jeremy working away

The excitement did not stop on Friday when Riges caught up for lunch with the CEO of Hoojano, Mike Wilkinson. Hoojano is another job referral service, a competitor of 2Vouch. The lunch was arranged by Geoff Jennings from Online Recruitment.

2Vouch meets Hoojano

By Michael Specht, Consultant to 2Vouch on Social Media and Recruiting

Today 2Vouch was listed in Smart Company as one of twelve innovative online organisations in Australia.

We’ve compiled a list of 12 companies that demonstrate the spirit of innovation that exists among Australia’s internet entrepreneurs, and which may go on to become the “next big thing” online.

The full list:

• 2Vouch
• Change2
• Elastic Digital
• ExitReality
• HiiveSystems
• OurPatch
• Portable Content
• RedBubble
• RetailMeNot
• SellMyCastle
• WhoCanDo
• WhatsOnSale

An honor to be included with so many fantastic organisations.

By Riges Younan.

There is something that makes 2Vouch different from existing job boards and career sites you may have used before… The difference is that we try to expose your jobs to the top performers that are still currently employed. We know these “passive candidates” are working away doing a great job but would usually consider a better opportunity – especially when someone they know and trust presents it.

So, 2Vouch uses referrals from our members to get to this highly sought after talent pool.

2Vouch members put skills tags into the system so that we can match up the people they know with jobs. This is important for members, employers and recruiters.

Members

To help the JobGenie match up the people you know with jobs, add “network tags” to your profile. Log into 2Vouch now and add some tags. Fill in the tags that describe people you know (you don’t have to put in information about specific people, just tags that describe the kinds of people you know eg Project Manager, BDM, Software Developer).

Now the JobGenie can send you notices each time there is a job that might match someone in your network. You can review the job and see if you agree. If you pass on the job information and the person gets hired, you get paid… it’s that easy.

Employers and Recruiters

Well, if you include tags when you post a job ad on the system, it will help us to match the greatest number of relevant people to your job. This will help the JobGenie find referrers who know just the kind of people you are looking for.

By Riges Younan

We have had some good success with 2Vouch in Australia over the last 4 months. One of our plans for 2Vouch was to allow the JobGenie referral platform to support multiple countries. I would like to say that we are close to this becoming a reality.

There are a few items that need to be worked out before we can turn on international support, but we need your help. For this we have created a short survey to get feedback from users of the system.

The questions are:

• Which should be the top 5 countries that we support? - While we have made plans for a few we just want to validate our thoughts
• For our major countries what should the salary range bands be?

So please take the time to complete the survey, and if you have some local knowledge or know someone who does any additional feedback, in the comments or 2Vouch Feedback section, would be fantastic.

So watch for the launch of the JobGenie in your country very soon.

Over the next couple of months while 2Vouch will be busy launching new features, you will also see 2Vouch and the JobGenie in other places.

• First Riges Younan, 2Vouch CEO, did a guest post on Phillip Tusing’s blog Destination Talent entitled Use Social Media to engage, communicate and build relationships or RIP dear recruiter.
• Riges will be on a panel about the Future of Recruiter at the Inspecht HR Futures Conference on February 26 in Melbourne. (Disclosure Michael Specht from Inspecht is a consultant to 2Vouch.)
• Riges will also be speaking on social recruiting, and referral programs at ATC Auckland March 18-20 in New Zealand.
• 2Vouch will also be exhibiting at ATC Auckland.
• Also keep an eye out for us at ATC Sydney May 5-7 2009

Sometimes you come across things that are really great ideas and then you find out that the people behind them are also really nice and good to work with…

That’s what happened to us recently when we started talking to “Work At Home Mums” (www.workathomemums.com.au). They have a great list of opportunities for people and are going to be introducing even more cool options shortly.

Soon you will start to see some 2Vouch jobs on the site and they will also be promoting us as an opportunity to their users. Which is great because, lets face it, when people leave the corporate world to stay at home, they still have their networks and we provide a way for them to stay in touch and add value.

If you are working at home - or even thinking about it - go check them out… and keep an eye out for the 2Vouch mentions.