The other day I had an interesting conversation with a former colleague Phil Kim about his new company Oncero. It is a social networking company targeting the recruitment market. His idea - connect employers with qualified candidates by encouraging users to share their contacts in a trusted network. Phil wants to enable recruiters to push out jobs in a particular way and track how those jobs get passed around from people to people. So what's the incentive for a person to join the network? Referral money for everyone who plays a role in the referral process. Not a bad idea given how much money there is in the referral business. It would also be a nice change for the referral bonuses to be spread more evenly among all the people who support the hiring of a candidate.
But he has two problems. Firstly, we all have social network fatigue. If I am asked to join another social network, I'll probably scream. I suggested that he optimize his Facebook application and hope that Google's rumored open social network really takes off. I'd rather do more within my existing networks than have to join something new. Secondly, I'm not sure whether I would want a recruiter to know who I am passing a job opportunity onto. Next time round, that recruiter may just spam my contact and I'd have upset a friend. Phil is experimenting with different privacy settings to find the right balance between providing the recruiters with the campaign management metrics they need and protecting a member's privacy.
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