Sounds like your idea is to provide "sales leads" to recruiters. The thing is, when I was a job hunter I wasn't interested in throwing my info out there for every recruiter to spam me. I wanted to talk to them first or at least see the job description and then decide if I wanted to work with them.
Suppose you were looking for a car; would you want to give your information to a 3rd party to sell to car dealers so they could call you and try to sell you a car? You might but you'd also be very leery of how that information would be used (you know it's going to be sold to anyone who will pay for it). "Oh, we would never sell it to people that will call you at 9pm from and Indian call center."
You're 100% right about concern over how job seekers' information is used. I know that's why so many developers aren't on LinkedIn - to avoid all the inquiries.
That's exactly why every profile is anonymous on Enlightened Jobs, and why profiles are based on exactly what a candidate is good at and interested in doing, what they want to learn, technologies & industries they're drawn to, and what they want to avoid in their next job. No resume.
The idea is that if recruiters sift through anonymous profiles and find a terrific fit, based on these key factors, the recruiter then shares details of the job with the (still anonymous) candidate.
ONLY then, IF the candidate chooses, do we connect them (a "handshake").
Having recruiters pay a healthy amount per handshake discourages spamming. Ratings of the recruiters by candidates should help too (similar to Google's quality score).
Any thoughts or advice?
So what you're offering is more like an escrow (not a perfect analogy I know). That sounds much better to me as an applicant than the "sales lead generator" as I previously pictured it.
I see a couple of challenges:
1) As an applicant, at the end of the day, it all comes down to trust. When a company harvests something of value from one party and sells it to another, the tendency is to do what the (paying) customer wants. "We'll pay you big bucks if you give us all your sales leads."
2) Chicken and egg problem: For the service to valuable to either party, there needs to be a certain critical mass. Even with the trust and reach that Stack Overflow Jobs has, it might not be enough. I've had my profile on SOJ for a year or 2 and I've never heard a peep from anyone. http://stackoverflow.com/story/chrisbennetcv
I think people think about fixing the "hiring problem" from the perspective of job seekers. The simple fact is if job seekers aren't paying you, they aren't your customers.
I'm getting "page not found" text on your profile at https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrisbennetcv. Maybe I need to be logged-in as a hiring person on SO, instead of just as a user (with my unimpressive 84 rep points).
I hadn't thought about this enough, but you're right about trust being critical and very hard to establish. I don't have a good solution yet, but at least you've helped me see this key problem.
While money matters, I don't fully agree that "if job seekers aren't paying, they aren't your customers." Instead of money, they are paying with their time and coveted profile information, without which EJ's is worthless.
IMO, Airbnb has done a good job solving from both sides of their market, even though (I think) the renter is who pays them.
Thank you again. Please let me know if I can ever help you or your friends (user testing, survey, car wax, etc.) - mgav [at] enlightenedjobs.com