Late in the summer of 2005 I wrote a few blog entries on a new job board called Market 10 (a.k.a. mkt10). At the time I was fairly critical of the site and their strategy to match candidates to jobs without letting employers search resumes or candidates search job postings. Instead, Market10 would match candidates to jobs based on the skills a candidate claimed on their profile and the skills listed on the job posting. When a strong match exists the candidate and employer a notified and given the opportunity to show mutual interest. If both are interested then the share contact information. At the time I complained that it was far too difficult to create a profile or posting and that there were not enough skills available to capture all jobs or candidate strengths.

 

Market10 just sent out emails asking candidates to update their profiles. When a candidate logs on they are asked to upload a resume and add content to their profile that expands on the skills they have listed. It appears that market 10, or their customers, have determined that skills alone are not enough to match candidates with positions. While the skills matching remains the cornerstone of the site, Market10 is now adding more traditional data collection around the skills. This way, once the site matches a candidate and a job, there will be more candidate information available to the employer.

 

In short, I think Market10 needs to generate a LOT more data before the model will work. The best way to get that data is to make it less painful to enter it into the system.