#762 Dream building comes a day early

The 2011 Cadillac CTS Coupe in showrooms late June 2010 I keep driving through the local Cadillac dealership (on the appropriate paved driveways) wondering when this baby will appear. Heard today, expect it in late June or early July. When they refined the CTS in 2008, I fell in love with this American Beauty. When it won the 2008 Motor Trend Car of the Year Award, I knew that Cadillac "got it right" for everyone else too! See for yourself: http://is.gd/8Pukd/CTS2011Coupe Counting the days... and this is only Saturday. Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey

#761: RhinoGATOR is Less Filling

www.RhinoGATOR.com Look at that clean, simple (and very effective) User Interface. Makes me want to cry. "Look ma, no tabs!" Check out the official explanation over at the RhinoGATOR blog site, and/or listen to a special episode of the Throughput Press Podcast: blog | MP3 | iTunes Did I mention that we are bringing back an order of magnitude more open job requisitions than any other single Job Board. Beating the Job Aggregators too! ©2010 RhinoGATOR™. All rights reserved.

#760: It's "GO TIME" at RhinoGATOR

What is RhinoGATOR? And why do I care about "Third Party Vendors"? Two great questions. Some might say, SKI, how do you do it? Easy. As they used to suggest on Romper Room, I just "put on my thinking cap!" In the world of Constraints Management, we talk in terms of a system's "weakest link" that prevents unlimited flow or throughput. As you may recall, I am more than passionate about the concept of throughput... in fact, that might even make a great name for a blog. But I digress... When I had the vision for RhinoGATOR™, it was easy to identify two significant constraints in the employment process. Which led me down an interesting path of debating a sort of "chicken or the egg" analysis, leading to the focus on the Job Seeker. Why? In short, there are plenty of open Job Requisitions available on the internet. One challenge is finding suitable openings for which to apply. Enter my solution. Among the reasons a new tool was necessary: Job Boards are not sufficient. Listing only the jobs for which you get paid, does not help the Job Seeker. Hence our Job Search Tool, also known as a Job Aggregator, RhinoGATOR™ But now that we return an order of magnitude more jobs than any other single Job Board on Earth (at least for our target market of the USA), where has the weakest link moved? In other words, now that we are giving the Job Seeker real choices (some might say too many!), in the form of ten or twenty or even 100 open Job Reqs in a given location (go on, compare us to your favorite Job Board, I dare you!), what is next on the radar screen? Third Party Vendors Soon, within a week or so, we expect to announce our first partnership. Any guesses what that first service might be? Give us your best guess over on twitter: To the first person that correctly guesses via a tweet, a free copy of my book, Purple Curve Effect, so you can create your own breakthroughs in the business world. Winner announced when we reveal the actual service. Be sure to follow RhinoGATOR™ on twitter! ©2010 Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey. All rights reserved.

careerbuilder vs. RhinoGATOR

Head to Head Competition: Job Boards Department of Labor Job Search Challenge We made a good run, but it seemed a bit like a personality contest. As the "new kid on the block" (we went live on December 17, 2009), we just did not have enough new friends for our beloved RhinoGATOR™. After the dust settled, we did not make the short list. The key players are featured on the careeronestop web site, and careerbuilder had this nice write up:

"As the global leader in human capital solutions, we help organizations target and attract their most important asset — their people. We use world-class technology, data-analysis, a comprehensive partner network and superior customer service to match the right people with the right jobs."

Compare that with our short marketing blurb (which is still visible on the DOL web site):

"We are not a career advice site. We are not a skills assessment center. We are not a "Dear Abby" forum for those seeking solace from the throws of unemployment or under employment. Unless you count the fact that by returning more "targeted" jobs than the other sites we are helping put America back to work. Day and night. 24x7. RhinoGATOR™ is like your own personal yet virtual assistant surveying the landscape for your next, best destiny. Only better!"

Do you sense the difference that I believe makes RhinoGATOR™ the right choice for the Job Seeker? Dare I spell out the target of each job board? Here is the other board's focus: "we help organizations..." What about our focus? Consider this carefully crafted statement: "RhinoGATOR™ is like your own personal yet virtual assistant..." Just in case it is not as obvious as it seems to me, after all, I am nothing if not biased! The other guy is talking about helping organizations. Everyone can certainly agree that "the business of America, which is business" can surely use the help. But what about the Job Seeker? That is our focus. 24x7 all 365 days a year (366 days during leap years). But there is a much larger concept in play behind the scenes. Let's just call it "technology" to keep it simple. careerbuilder is a Job Board. RhinoGATOR™ is both a Job Board and Job Search Tool (also known as a Job Aggregator, for the techie looking in on this conversation). We don't just show the jobs for which we are paid to post. Our focus in on the Job Seeker, so we look under most every hiding place on the net, and bring back all the jobs we can find(1). Is that what you would do, if you were trying to help, "Put America Back to Work?" Thought so. I just did a quick search on the other guy's board for a "php mysql" position in the 44720 zip code. My former life's vocation near my old stomping grounds where I started my technical career after college. It returned one job. As you might guess, I ran the same search on RhinoGATOR: Best Job Search Tool on Planet Earth™ and it found twelve. Where are you going to perform your next job search? Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Chief Technologist www.RhinoGATOR.com (843) 564-4754 (1) Footnote: All searches are free. You may do an "instant job search" from any page at anytime on RhinoGATOR™, however, once you get a query that you like, you must create a free Profile (aka Account) and click on the "Get email updates" link to put us to work 24x7 charging the internet on your behalf. ©2010 Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey. All rights reserved.

#758 Yahoo sells HotJobs to Monster

Is that good for RhinoGATOR? You bet! One less Job Board standing between us and the finish line. I had jumped back into the recruiting world in the Spring of 2002, working on a great "workforce procurement" app (Open Source web database application), in the Bay Area. Amazing app. The UI guru hit a home run: you simply could not tell it was browser based. It was that smooth. Today, most everything looks like a desktop app. I touched on some of the adventure in Purple Curve Effect. But I digress... Bottom line: This is good news for almost everyone in this space. Forget the "news" about selling off for half the price they paid. Consider the revenue that thing generated all these years. Smart move Yahoo, both times. Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Founder www.RhinoGATOR.com (843) 564-4754 ©2010 Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey. All rights reserved.

RhinoGATOR gets Visual Effects nod for an Oscar

Photo by Alan Light Caller id: "Identity Blocked by Caller" To answer? Or not answer? That is the question when one is unemployed and the calls from collection agencies outnumber your (former?) friends by at least an order of magnitude. Maybe two. "It's great day, Jeff here." "Is this Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, founder and Chief Technologist at the Job Board RhinoGATOR dot com?" Indeed it is... although it takes a lot of energy to stop myself from correcting the caller and pointing out that our application is more of a "Job Search Tool" (also known as a Job Aggregator; to which most people simply say, "What ever"). My mind races ahead to the fact that RhinoGATOR is fully funded and debt-free after almost a year of operations, culminating in the public roll out on December 17, 2009. So it cannot possibly be a bill collector. But I digress... "Yes. How may I help?" "This is Steve Jobs and I am calling for The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. RhinoGATOR has been nominated for Visual Effects this year. By the way, slick move launching before the end of the year, so you could make this year's Oscars nominations." Well, first, I must admit some disbelief. But then I wonder if he knows that I borrowed that move from his release of the original Apple Mac commercial, "1984" which he aired the last day of December 1983. If this is thee Steve Jobs, he knows that I know. He absolutely knows. So, I try to get some composure, "Yea, right. Who is this, really? Who put you up to this? Crazy Willie?" "Yes." D'oh! Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Founder www.RhinoGATOR.com (843) 564-4754 ©2010 Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey. All rights reserved.

#756 Life as a Job Search Tool Programmer

We could use some help! Startups often provide a great environment for those seeking to hone their talents, all the while pursuing a dream. What if, there was this cool Job Search startup that needed some programming help? What if you (or someone you knew) had the chops to contribute... contribute in a big way? Would you? RhinoGATOR: Best Job Search Tool on Planet Earth™ www.RhinoGATOR.com Give us the once (or twice) over. Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Chief Technologist support@rhinogator.com (843) 564-4754 ©2010 Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, All rights reserved.