February 25, 2010

Mediabistro offers new job-matching service

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One of the many professional hats I wear in the new part-time economy is that of a freelance writer. Finding new writing and editing gigs is never an easy task, but in recent years the pool of available jobs has been evaporating faster than ever before as media outlets converge and major titles close down. These days, those in the media industry need to cast a wider net than ever to find jobs.

Recently, I heard about a new job-matching service called Scoop Jobs being offered to media professionals by Mediabistro, an online community of writers, editors, producers, designers and publishers for all types of creative content.

Like many other employment engines such as Monster and CareerBuilder, Scoop Jobs allows you to create a profile and input your career goals, job interests and experience. When a job opens that matches your skill level, experience and other customized parameters, the service automatically sends you an alert.

The twist with Scoop Jobs, says Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby, is that the alert that is sent to you also goes to the employer, notifying them that you are among those who met their requirements. "While the number of matches for each job varies, you will be one of just a handful of candidates flagged for employers," she says. "That's a huge advantage when the average listing on Mediabistro.com gets more than 100 applications."

Regarding the delicate subject of salary, Scoop Jobs lets you post a desired range within $10,000. If your range is "in the same ballpark" as the employer's stated salary, then a match is made, Touby says, but Mediabistro keeps your salary requirements confidential. This can help reduce the advantage the employer has in case salary negotiations are brought up.

While the idea of Scoop Jobs has merit, some wrinkles in the new service may need to be ironed out. As some members have mentioned in the Mediabistro Bulletin Board page, the $10,000 salary range may be a bit too narrow and the requirement to provide your "total professional experience" may be problematic for those who have upwards of 20 years in the business and are concerned about seeming too old.

One of the biggest potential problems, however, is that Scoop Jobs does not have a parameter for geographic location in its search engine. After entering as much information as I could in the service's registration page, I quickly received notices for four media jobs that mirrored my skills quite closely--except that they were located in Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago.

Touby says Scoop Jobs is now live, but it is in beta-test mode and actively seeking feedback to make it better. Luckily for Mediabistro, no other group is better qualified than its media-based members when it comes to providing concise and enlightening advice. If you're a Mediabistro member, give the service a spin under the career section of your accounts page and let me know what you think, too.

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.

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1 Comments

Bill Conneely on March 1, 2010 7:14 AM | Reply

Randy,

Hi, this is Bill, Director of the mediabistro.com job board.

Thanks for your post on Scoop Jobs: Mediabistro's new job search matching service. Your comments and the feedback of others is really helping us tweak the service for the better.

Here is what will be fixed:

Location preference: We are adding a filter for job seekers to indicate location preference.

Salary range: we are tweaking the settings to allow for more flexibility, but it will still have relatively tight constraints. As you know, what range the job seeker enters is confidential, as is the range the employer enters. What Mediabistro is doing is mediating between the two so that we can confidently tell both parties that they are within a reasonable negotiating range and therefore should be encouraged to pursue each other if interested.

Stating salary expectations is one of the more awkward aspects of the initial stages of job search and we believe this feature will allow both parties to get on with the important stuff knowing that when it comes time to talk salary, there won’t be any surprises.

As to total years of experience being used as a proxy for age and thus age discrimination, in no way does Mediabistro condone or tolerate age discrimination. We are reassessing the value of this data point and will find a way to address the concerns raised.

Scoop Jobs will be in beta while we make these tweaks. And there are more very helpful features to come as the number of people who use it increases, so we encourage job seekers to give it a try and give us their feedback.

All best,

Bill Conneely, Director
Job Market at Mediabistro

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