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Send Your Stories Instead of Resumes to Your Client

recroup.com

30 pointshubba27 comments

1. Croup is a disease. The name is DOA. 2. Good idea to integrate with Smarterer rather than trying to roll your own skills verification platform. However, I think the whole badges angle distracts & detracts from your core story. I'd drop it and go for the "better résumé" angle, at least until Smarterer is widely accepted by hiring companies. 3. Get a native English speaker to give your site & app a once-over. An hour of copy editing by a competent writer will go a long way toward helping establish professionalism.

Unfamiliar with Smarterer, I went there and tried a sample question: http://imgur.com/puk2Bav

wat

Actually if the form does not have a method="POST" in it, then the form will be submitted as a get request (with url parameters). Think the search form on google.com, it does a GET with query string args. Forms do not necessarily equal post methods.

Since the answers do not include $_POST, $_GET is the right answer (although arguably, to make the question clearer, one could specify the method it's not strictly necessary in this question).

(disclosure: I'm the co-founder of Smarterer)

Interesting concept. Not going to sign-up though without seeing some samples first or at least a demo/video etc.

A little feedback:

Does "recroup" have a capital "R" or not? It's inconsistent.

In the first paragraph, the first two lines look like headings, so lose the period at the end: it looks odd.

"we know every job seeker is different. We built" -- The tenses are jarring there, you should rephrase that (maybe it's OK in the US).

"a profile that showcase" -- that should be "showcases"

"its your Career Launchpad" -- Ouch! You mean "it's".

If you're aiming to present a professional appearance, you really need to fix these little typos and errors.

I also tend to be bothered by typos. I noticed several missing "a"s:

"unlock the gate to great career" "one profile that gives complete picture" and the "the time recruiter spends" typo already mentioned below

There seems to be a mistake in almost every paragraph...

"How it works?" - either "How does it work?" or "How it works"

"one profile that gives complete picture"

"a resume doesn't do justice with the capabilities of a Job Seeker"

"Signin to find out more"

"Drop us a mail if you want to know anything about us or have queries or feedback. Please feel free to do so."

Lots more awkward English and random capitalization, sentences that would benefit from a comma, etc. Definitely have a native English speaker edit this.

It could be a good idea though. I like the idea of portfolio sites for graphic designers (like http://carbonmade.com/) and this could be something that would fulfill more of a development bent.

Is there like a demo "story" we can check out?

Yeah I'd also like to see a demo.

Explain the name? Right now I hear "Get Croup Again!" when I hear "Recroup". I hear the pun on 'regroup' (although don't understand how it relates to resumes and job seeking)...

Or recoup haha.

As a manager who has hired people before, I don't see how this could replace a traditional resume. Resumes allow for me to quickly evaluate a candidate. I really don't care what my potential candidate's social media history is or any other arbitrary information (badges are nice, but as a recruiter I wouldn't know the scale nor why I should care). I do think something better than a resume is worth looking into, but the execution has to be right.

What I'd really like to see is the output of a resume without having to sign up for something. I'm also not sold on the gray, does it come in different colors?

I've seen this thing before as well (http://www.workfolio.com/), how is this different & better?

I don't have a resume. I got employed to do marketing/customer aquisition for a tech firm on the basis of my blog, where I primarily wrote about local political issues.

Everybody should blog! A resume has unnecessary limitations.

As a designer, this is how I got my current day job(not using recroup). I didn't send a resume, I designed a book that walked the employer through my accomplishments.

Are you a software designer or another type of designer? If a software designer, are you more into the graphics? I've always appreciated how people in creative "non-technical" fields - or those who straddle the creative and techie worlds - present their work history/portfolio in ways that tech folks generally don't/can't. I'm a miserable failure at getting beyond the standard resume/work sample model.

After visiting and signing up, I'm still unclear as to how these challenges help me tell my story?

I loved the initial pitch, after that, I was lost.

How boring is to be a project manager these days... you can't even find "challenges" for you in the challenges section.

Homonym misuse on the homepage. On a resume that means it goes in the garbage instantly, and these people are supposed to represent others professionally?!?

Skipped.

Interesting that you pick up that but not that the main sentence on the first thing you see misses an "a".

"12 seconds is the time that recruiter spends on a resume!"

Can you people critique the concept more than the grammar?

The concept is not well demonstrated due to a lack of demo and vague wording throughout. When the critique focuses on grammar and presentation, that in itself should be a strong hint that more is needed for this to be a viable concept.

In addition, the grammar is fairly critical to making a good impression - especially when creating a service that claims it will help you impress employers.

> At recroup, we know every job seeker is different.

Every recruiter is also different. Every time someone gives suggestions on how to write a resume or apply for a job or things you should do, the advice can be contradicted by someone else in the same position at another company.

Hell, even spelling mistakes! I've known people who don't care (they are bad spellers themselves).

So, while I appreciate the goal, every recruiter is different. The best thing I can suggest is that when you apply, however you do it, do it the way you want. Make it represent you. Changing your style might get you the job if you match the expectations of the recruiter, but it might not be the type of job you want.

I'm really only critical of spelling mistakes for anyone who, in the document containing the mistakes, claims to have good attention to detail.

Essentially it's a job rejections on the grounds of irony.

Hell, even spelling mistakes! I've known people who don't care (they are bad spellers themselves).

Well... but it's never bad advice to try to submit perfect spelling. And it can be bad advice to not care about spelling. It's like the spelling version of Pascal's Wager.

You'd think that, until you meet that individual who insists a commonly misspelled word is spelled incorrectly despite being spelled correctly. =)

Interesting, never came across this, and never contemplated it. I suppose I'd just throw them a dictionary URL, but do it politely. The worst-case is that they refuse to change their mind. That'd be a signal to me that I don't want to deal with this person. One of my top bad sign signals is when someone isn't willing to change their position when proven wrong. Correlated with many, many bad things.

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