I'll add a constructive and (hopefully) creative suggestion and challenge to those who think this is a viable business: There's been a lot of buzz lately about blogs becoming the new niche job boards, or niche boards adding blog components (see Joel's post, for example). I see merit in this, but only if the related entities aggregate their traffic, share sponsorships, etc., AND figure out what kind of content is going to make them engaging (what was called sticky in the Web 1.0 days). As we've seen in various web enterprises, the most engaging online communities appear to be those where the members/users create the content, create it in quantity, and don't require direct compensation in order to do so (e.g., MySpace, YouTube or to a lesser extent in our own industry, ERE). However, I realize that one must have some incentive to post, and the barriers to making one's first post must be eased, or they won't start blogging in the first place.

So my particular idea along these lines occurred to me last week when a recruiter (who also happens to be a job-seeker because his contract is ending) started spouting off interesting insights about what was flawed with the corporate recruiting world's selection process for their own new recruiters. I proposed that he write this up as a guest blog post for my blog (which is forthcoming, after he makes some tweaks I suggested to him) and to feel free to reference his own strengths as a counterpoint to the complaints he raised.

That's when I realized, if these niche board blogs want to start creating some interesting content, why not effectively create an American Idol-type system on their niche job board blogs? Here's how it'd work: individual job seekers (preferably in the same industry niche, so it's easier to compare them) are encouraged to create blog posts that talk about themselves, but that's secondary to the post's main thrust being their viewpoint on a particular industry issue or how they solved a business problem that illustrates in a meaningful way what their talent is. You could call this a variation on the Lou Adler one-question interview, but I'll be more flexible by giving the option to talk about a broader industry issue instead of their own work. In either case, you're getting insight on the person beyond the resume. (Of course, the blog host is also welcome to link to their resume -- which I imagine would be part of a niche board's offerings, even if it is a blog.)

Then you let the blog's online community post ratings of the five candidates who guest-posted that week. (Ideally, you'd pick people who work in the industry of the contestants, in addition to recruiters who handle that industry/function.) Hopefully some functionality that would allow for auto-tabulating and prevention of multiple votes/user would be embedded, rather than the primitive comments system currently in place. The winner gets their info forwarded to all the recruiters who have registered with the niche board as being interested in candidates of that type, in a format calling special attention to them (e.g., starred first result in their candidate search results alert), and perhaps some other sponsors would kick in prizes of value to job-seekers.

If this got any momentum, however, I bet all five finalists would be called in for interviews before the blog even sent out the winner's acknowledgment! Anyone want to take this project on?

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