Snaptalent relaunches - completely changes business model (YC W08) | Hacker News Reader

Snaptalent relaunches - completely changes business model (YC W08)

snaptalent.com

48 pointsflavio8742 comments

Cool, this actually looks like something I could use... Could you guys add a way to sign up without an .edu address? My university uses @mail.mcgill.ca.

This is probably pretty superficial compared to the other feedback so far, but I just wanted to say I don't like the photo of someone doing a star jump on the front page. Maybe I'm more jaded than average but it really screams "generic stock photo" to me. I mean come on, is someone really going to be SO happy using your service that they just spontaeneously start jumping?

I suggest a slideshow of handshake closeups or something instead. Never underestimate how impressed non-HN readers are by slideshows.

Handshake closeups, women with glasses wearing headsets talking to 'customers' on the phone, and cute, racially ambiguous twenty-something women sitting in grass being happy.

Yes, it's the office of the future and an ad for PMS medication all rolled into one.

Honestly I'm not sure where this comment is supposed to be going. I just wanted to agree about how stupid stock photography is in certain contexts.

edit: Unnaturally happy-looking couples smiling at each other on a couch. Old couples in bath tubs on the beach. You know what I'm talking about....

Handshake closeups, women with glasses wearing headsets talking to 'customers' on the phone, and cute, racially ambiguous twenty-something women sitting in grass being happy.

This is the visual equivalent of How To X, 10 Ways to Y, and The Secret That Z Doesn't Want You To Know in the field of copywriting. They're used because they work, in many circumstances. Ridiculously well, as a matter of fact. Cosmo has forgotten more about to write headlines than you or I will ever know, and they keep using 10 Ways to Y despite the fact that every time I see one I want to burn all paper in the vicinity.

I so wanted to make a mini-site devoted only to girl-in-a-headset photos, because I thought a) good for a laugh and b) there are some easy affiliate commissions to make there, and the [girl in a headset] SERP can't be that tough. But I held off because, eh, not quite enough ha-ha in that joke to motivate me to do it.

Then somebody actually did it.

http://www.headsethotties.com/

I think this is a business variation of the infamous rule 34: namely, no matter what kind of pure internet business idea you've thought of, someone, somewhere has already tried it.

Hey Guys, this is actually an early prerelease, so a little premature to announce a relaunch :)

We're doing some interesting things inside and out and will let Hacker News members of what's up sometime soon.

In between email me on Sumon [at] Snaptalent [dot] com

It's good you posted this here. I was about to slam on you for not letting me sign up and post my jobs online without contacting sales reps (I'm hiring, so if the price wasn't insane I was going to give it a shot.)

If you want to be one of the first companies to use it email me sumon [at] snaptalent [dot] com

http://twitter.com/sharpshoot -- millions of twits like this:

> Never ever surrender

> Reaching March 2008 levels of confidence again. This is on

> super proud of the progress being made by Imperial Entrepreneurs

> Oh man - so excited by the prospect of hustling again.

You are an animal!

How is this different from the other gazillion job boards?

Snaptalent feels more personal. (That's just the first thing I thought of.)

I would say that Google felt a little cuter, but the fact is it had better search results. I'm not really going to pay for something because it's more personal necessarily (although it helps). I still don't understand how this is differentiated?

Hey, thanks for the comment. We've identified a huge pain point, and have decided to go and build a deep solution, with a minimum first feature set. Expect the obvious differentiation with snaptalent flair to appear over subsequent iterations - homepage doesn't say anything yet

Followup: According to its karma, my comment apparently contributed nothing to this conversation, or was at least a net negative (doing more harm than good), so I'll be sure to keep my thoughts to myself next time.

(Note: I am not complaining about karma count. You can reset my total karma count to 0 if you'd like. I'm complaining about being ridiculed for answering an open question honestly.)

Palish said, "According to its karma, my comment apparently contributed nothing to the conversation, or at least a net negative (more harm than good)."

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I've noticed many otherwise insightful comments being downmodded to zero over the last few months, mostly (I think) because people use downvotes to signal disgareement than incoherence/irrelevance.

And even if your conclusion about net negative contribution were valid,

"So I'll be sure to keep my thoughts to myself next time."

might be a suboptimal reaction.

Just something to think about.

How can someone disagree that Snaptalent felt more personal to me than various other job board sites I've visited? That was literally my first reaction, and was in response to joubert's open question, "How is this different from the other gazillion job boards?"

So it feels like a slap in the face to be ridiculed for answering a question honestly.

(Yeah, I do let my emotions get the better of me sometimes. I view this as a strength in certain situations, such as in social interactions, where apathy is definitely a weakness.)

----

Edit: I just realized I didn't say "Snaptalent feels more personal to me", which is what I meant. Damn. I said "Snaptalent feels more personal," which is valid to downvote because you can certainly disagree with it.

This is why "letting my emotions get the better of me" is probably more of a character flaw rather than a strength. Being emotional can sometimes be a strength, but you have to be sure you know exactly what you're reacting to, which I didn't. Sorry. I'll leave these two comments up because otherwise it would feel like I was running away if I deleted them. We don't get to take back our mistakes in real life, so I won't take back mine here.

fixed that for you.

Now for every moron there is someone who will weigh in on the other side, but it might take a while, so unless your comment is days old I don't think you should take a downmod that serious.

Simply do the same, whenever you see a comment moderated down unfairly mod it back up again. Assuming there are more decent people than jerks I think in the long run the decent people should win out.

cheers!

Thank you. Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. (To be clear, my comment was fairly downmodded, because I misspoke. But what you're saying is certainly a good thing.)

Hi, Jamie from Snaptalent here.

The approach many companies take to hiring students is significantly different from that of hiring people later in their careers. We don't feel like that has been modeled appropriately yet online.

The end goal is the same, match students with companies (and vice versa), but the method by which this is accomplished is significantly different. Once we are able to get the more developed home pages of the site up (one for companies, one for students) we hope it will be clearer how it is significantly different from post a job, get candidates.

There is something not quite right with your form handling in the signup process. I had to refresh a few times to get through it. And the next button should stand out more.

But, otherwise, very well done guys. The presentation is beautiful and the economics of the business are mouthwatering.

I have been toying with a (presumably) very similar plan, but I have been busy with other things and other schemes. Maybe I'll see you on the field. Good luck.

Great idea. Appealing to employers who want to hire was more relevant 1 year ago. Now they are appealing to job seekers. The best part is that when the tide turns again, they can simply re-launch their original idea!

its probably still bad throughout. Why hire some fresh college kid who you have to teach everything, when for the same money you can get someone with experience who is desperate to find a job and will take a paycut?

That problem (or lack thereof) is not what they are addressing now. Companies who are hiring have little to complain about right now, because there are tons of candidates and little competition. Who does have stuff to complain about? Candidates. Who is going to be complaining the most? Recent college grads.

By shifting their focus, they are once again addressing a pain.

Spot on. You made some good points. Def email me on sumon [at] snaptalent [dot] com would love to catch up

The logic is as follows: the college graduate is out of work because he or she has just successfully finished a degree, whereas the 'someone with more experience' is out of work for an unknown reason.

I thought their old idea had merit...what went wrong?

I think the last quote I got from them on it was, really roughly, "good idea; bad business."

The "Online College Career Fair" is brilliant. It tells you exactly what the site does in four words.

The only thing I don't like is that there isn't a screenshot gallery. I'm not going to make an account on a site like that unless I can see screenshots of what each company's page looks like, what my resume looks like, etc.

I want to know that A) The site is useful B) The site is trustworthy. Without being able to see what the interaction looks like I can't do that, so I'm not going to sign up. If you want me to put out, buy me a drink first; asking for all my information right away is too much too fast. I need to know more about what I get out of it.

Hey Alex, thanks for feedback. For sure - we didn't anticipate anyone seeing that page. So look out for iterations over the next few weeks. Hard to optimize when you didn't anticipate being "hacker newsed!"

Checked out the site briefly today but still not sure how I feel about posting my whole resume online - I suppose that's the way technology is heading though. Would be cool if it was like Pandora or something and you could give recommended companies a thumbs up/down and then the site got better at finding companies you're interested in.

good feedback - working on it. Thanks

I like the idea, but there are quite a few errors.

I had to try 3 times to add my degree to my profile. Furthermore, I keep getting internal server errors when browsing companies (happens whenever I look at a page other than 1).

would be great to hear your story of why you decided to change model...?

I hope to write a post on this sometime in the near future. I'll be sure to post it here.

This hits home pretty well - I'm a recent grad looking for a job.

Just wondering, why did you guys decide to relaunch it with a different model? The original idea seemed good too.

I try to enter my college as "LeTourneau University" but it defaults to Lasell college. WTF?

Also, help@staptalent.com is bouncing back.

Sorry about that Drew, we'll look into it. We may have an incomplete list of schools. Like Sumon said earlier in the thread we didn't expect this to gain too much early attention.

I just created the help@snaptalent.com email so you should have no problem with that anymore. If there are any other issues feel free to email me directly - jamie at snaptalent

Good stuff Sumon and the crew. Being able to change and adapt is key and seems like you guys got it down.

Go get 'em

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please be the Google for Resumes.

An an employer, I'm stumped. What do I do? Call?

Looks very cool! Can you add hyperisland.se ?

Well done guys!

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