Well, there aren't too many CEOs I can claim to be buddies with. However, Jason Goldberg comes very close. I admit I haven't ever met the man, but you do build a connection with some fellow bloggers and Jason is one of the many people I consider my 'blogging buddies'.
So when I read Julian's post and thence to Cook's blog and GigaOm, I hope that whatever pressures are on Jason as CEO, and whatever decision he and the rest of jobster management take, I really really hope that layoffs are the final resort to achieving profitability.
Stockholders who've given you millions of dollars can be ruthless in their demands, and disgruntled employees and wary competitors (who are Jobster's real competitors? Not Monster or the big job boards, that's for sure. Neither are vertical search engines like Indeed and SimplyHired) can use the weapon of social media to really turn on the heat. The comments on Cook's blog post are quite personal in nature and don't throw any real light on the issue.
Jason is the blogging CEO of a web 2.0 company. I hope he can use the power of social media to clearly spell out Jobster's focus in the coming weeks. He must address the issue of rumors of layoffs with more clarity.
Jobster's tools promise employers to reach the right people for the right job, and for that reason I wish it becomes profitable in 2007 and reaches the shores of Asia soon. We need such tools.
What I would like to see more is less focus on becoming the 'myspace of recruiting' to more enterprise focussed tools for recruiters.
Good luck, Jason and the rest of the team.
Update: Seems like Jobster is one of the top searches on Technorati. Wow ! Did I talk about the power of social media?
Update 2: Jobster employees and their parents leave comments on Jason's posts. While one of them accuses Jason of lack of transparency, he/she conveniently forgets that for 99.99% of companies such a level of conversation is totally unheard of. One can yearn for absolute transparency, but in organizations with fiduciary responsibilities and legal minefields it's not going to happen.
You are absolutely right on the 'jobster should not try to be the next myspace' observation. From my limited experience, I have noticed that it is very hard in the recruiting industry to duplicate the popular social networking sites. I think LinkedIn has had some success but they also were the first to market. Can Jobster be the next facebook or myspace? I dont think so. Can Jobster be the next SalesForce.com ? certainly. Consumer oriented websites can make you an overnight success but their memory is also very fickle. I think Jobster has a great set of people and a dynamic CEO, I am just not very sure about their long term strategy. To me, it appears to change every few months.
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