Jobfox, exciting concept, disappointing so far
A while back I wrote a blog "Why Are You Wasting Your Time on Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com, Are You Crazy?". That blog pointed out that less than 6% of jobs found are as a result of an application from a job board. If you have read my blogs and Tweets, or those of any professional recruiter or career development professional you know that none of us are fans of any of the job boards.
So when I listened to an NPR story on "New Generation of Sites Refines Online Job Search" featuring Jobfox I got really excited about this new site. NPR interviewed Rob McGovern, the founder of Jobfox who also created/founded Careerbuilder.com and two people using Jobfox in their job search. As I listened I thought WOW, this is exactly what I have been wanting to do with CareerXL.com and have not had the money or time to do; and truthfully I also thought, oh no, there goes that opportunity, I was too slow and these guys are on it. The experiences of the two job seekers were mixed, one loved the site, the other was still waiting for results and not yet impressed with it. A sample of two people is not representative of how well a site like this may work, but their experiences are interesting feed back. One nice thing is that those annoying adds on Careerbuilder and Monster (and yes, this is the same guy that put those on Careerbuilder) are absent from this site - this is a HUGE improvement and benefit for job seekers and users.
So after listening to the NPR story I went to Jobfox and checked out his team - all of them are top notch people, browsed through the site, and it looked like it really might be a next generation career website. So I thought, OK, let's give this a test drive. I created an account, uploaded my resume and went through the whole registration process (yeah, it is a process and it takes a while to answer the endless questions). After my profile was finished Jobfox recommended jobs that are a match for my skills and experience. This is where it got interesting and ultimately disappointing. The Jobfox software made recommendations off my current position shown, but did not look at my overall background. This resulted in the software making poor recommendations that made little sense for me or the prospective employer. It totally missed the big picture of my experience and background. This is a big concern I have with the matching software; let's say you lost your senior level position and took a lower level job to pay the bills until you can find a position more in line with your experience. Many people have done this and are continuing to do this. From my quick test drive it appears that the matching software is going to match you based on your current position and will ignore, or pay little attention to, your overall background.
The Jobfox profile asks questions about what type of company you want to work for and what type of environment, BUT it only allows one choice or all of the above - a bit crude. This may work well for people early in their career with limited experience or people with career paths that have been linear, no detours or lane changes. And perhaps the software will evolve and improve over time. The bottom line is, it appears to be a very crude and superficial scan of the resume and experience and did not live up to the hype of matching skills, experience, and job environment desires to those of prospective employers.
Next was the free resume evaluation. The next day I received an email from Jobfox Senior Resume Consultant and Resume Expert Madeline Willis. The email was a template with links to the resume evaluation she said she did for my resume. I clicked on the links and realized it was a dynamic webpage that was automatically created. There is no way to know if Madeline or any human actually read my resume, but I can tell you that 90% of the content in that "letter" was generic and it was not very insightful. The letter was obviously created automatically by software that scanned my resume and applied some pretty good algorithms to come up with recommendations. The recommendations were generic with the exception of specific words and phrases the software pulled out of my resume, these recommendations could be made for ANY resume. In fact, some recommendations were actually out of context or incorrect. Madeline said that for $399 Jobfox will improve my resume and fix these glaring mistakes. Now what is interesting is that my resume has been reviewed by dozens of "resume experts" and recruiters and all of them really like it, in fact some have said it is one of the best they have seen; so I find it very interesting that Madeline found all of these glaring problems on my resume that she can fix for $399 or 6 payments of $62.96 per month.
After reading Madeline's review of my resume and the email to me that introduced her as a "resume expert" I wondered what her background was so I looked her up on LinkedIn. I was expecting to see an impressive LinkedIn profile with career development and resume writing experience, perhaps some recruiting or HR experience. Guess what, Madeline Willis is not on LinkedIn! And if she is I could not find her under that name through a LinkedIn search. So the next question is, is Madeline Willis a bot or a person, and if she is a person how can any "resume expert" or career expert not have a LinkedIn profile?
Jobfox also offers an Advantage membership for $19.99 per month. I didn't sign up for the Advantage membership so I can't comment on how effective it is. Jobfox says that the Advantage program offers introductions to employers, tracking for your resumes, being "featured to employers" (Careerbuilder offers something similar to this), a career webpage, expert advice, and insider alerts. If you are a Jobfox user and subscribe to the Advantage program I would like to hear about your experience with it and what your thoughts are about it.
So what do I think of Jobfox? Obviously I am disappointed, probably because I had high expectations. Jobfox is basically Careerbuilder 2.0, but not what I consider a Web 2.0 website. Jobfox is a long way from a career development community and to me feels a lot like Careerbuilder and Monster. Rob McGovern has taken his experience from Careerbuilder, applied it to a new website with some very basic improvements. I give him and his team credit for some very good software and algorithms that do a pretty good job on the resume review. And his vision of matching people and companies is dead on, but just not there yet. It may work for people at lower levels that have had linear career progression, but as I said it does not adapt well to career changes, hiccups, or senior level people. My take on Jobfox is that the organization is operating from an internal perspective where they are the job and career experts and know what is best for job seekers. That would be OK, but based on what I have seen on the site, and from looking at the backgrounds of the executive team, they really aren't in touch with what job seekers really need. They are on the right track and have good ideas, just not quite there yet.
If you are a Jobfox user and subscriber I would really like to hear your comments and experience with the site and if someone from Jobfox happens to read this blog, I welcome your responses and will certainly post them.
As always, I wish you the best and brightest future,
Bill Grunau
PS the bright side of this is that Jobfox has not come close to what I ultimately want to do with CareerXL!
So when I listened to an NPR story on "New Generation of Sites Refines Online Job Search" featuring Jobfox I got really excited about this new site. NPR interviewed Rob McGovern, the founder of Jobfox who also created/founded Careerbuilder.com and two people using Jobfox in their job search. As I listened I thought WOW, this is exactly what I have been wanting to do with CareerXL.com and have not had the money or time to do; and truthfully I also thought, oh no, there goes that opportunity, I was too slow and these guys are on it. The experiences of the two job seekers were mixed, one loved the site, the other was still waiting for results and not yet impressed with it. A sample of two people is not representative of how well a site like this may work, but their experiences are interesting feed back. One nice thing is that those annoying adds on Careerbuilder and Monster (and yes, this is the same guy that put those on Careerbuilder) are absent from this site - this is a HUGE improvement and benefit for job seekers and users.
So after listening to the NPR story I went to Jobfox and checked out his team - all of them are top notch people, browsed through the site, and it looked like it really might be a next generation career website. So I thought, OK, let's give this a test drive. I created an account, uploaded my resume and went through the whole registration process (yeah, it is a process and it takes a while to answer the endless questions). After my profile was finished Jobfox recommended jobs that are a match for my skills and experience. This is where it got interesting and ultimately disappointing. The Jobfox software made recommendations off my current position shown, but did not look at my overall background. This resulted in the software making poor recommendations that made little sense for me or the prospective employer. It totally missed the big picture of my experience and background. This is a big concern I have with the matching software; let's say you lost your senior level position and took a lower level job to pay the bills until you can find a position more in line with your experience. Many people have done this and are continuing to do this. From my quick test drive it appears that the matching software is going to match you based on your current position and will ignore, or pay little attention to, your overall background.
The Jobfox profile asks questions about what type of company you want to work for and what type of environment, BUT it only allows one choice or all of the above - a bit crude. This may work well for people early in their career with limited experience or people with career paths that have been linear, no detours or lane changes. And perhaps the software will evolve and improve over time. The bottom line is, it appears to be a very crude and superficial scan of the resume and experience and did not live up to the hype of matching skills, experience, and job environment desires to those of prospective employers.
Next was the free resume evaluation. The next day I received an email from Jobfox Senior Resume Consultant and Resume Expert Madeline Willis. The email was a template with links to the resume evaluation she said she did for my resume. I clicked on the links and realized it was a dynamic webpage that was automatically created. There is no way to know if Madeline or any human actually read my resume, but I can tell you that 90% of the content in that "letter" was generic and it was not very insightful. The letter was obviously created automatically by software that scanned my resume and applied some pretty good algorithms to come up with recommendations. The recommendations were generic with the exception of specific words and phrases the software pulled out of my resume, these recommendations could be made for ANY resume. In fact, some recommendations were actually out of context or incorrect. Madeline said that for $399 Jobfox will improve my resume and fix these glaring mistakes. Now what is interesting is that my resume has been reviewed by dozens of "resume experts" and recruiters and all of them really like it, in fact some have said it is one of the best they have seen; so I find it very interesting that Madeline found all of these glaring problems on my resume that she can fix for $399 or 6 payments of $62.96 per month.
After reading Madeline's review of my resume and the email to me that introduced her as a "resume expert" I wondered what her background was so I looked her up on LinkedIn. I was expecting to see an impressive LinkedIn profile with career development and resume writing experience, perhaps some recruiting or HR experience. Guess what, Madeline Willis is not on LinkedIn! And if she is I could not find her under that name through a LinkedIn search. So the next question is, is Madeline Willis a bot or a person, and if she is a person how can any "resume expert" or career expert not have a LinkedIn profile?
Jobfox also offers an Advantage membership for $19.99 per month. I didn't sign up for the Advantage membership so I can't comment on how effective it is. Jobfox says that the Advantage program offers introductions to employers, tracking for your resumes, being "featured to employers" (Careerbuilder offers something similar to this), a career webpage, expert advice, and insider alerts. If you are a Jobfox user and subscribe to the Advantage program I would like to hear about your experience with it and what your thoughts are about it.
So what do I think of Jobfox? Obviously I am disappointed, probably because I had high expectations. Jobfox is basically Careerbuilder 2.0, but not what I consider a Web 2.0 website. Jobfox is a long way from a career development community and to me feels a lot like Careerbuilder and Monster. Rob McGovern has taken his experience from Careerbuilder, applied it to a new website with some very basic improvements. I give him and his team credit for some very good software and algorithms that do a pretty good job on the resume review. And his vision of matching people and companies is dead on, but just not there yet. It may work for people at lower levels that have had linear career progression, but as I said it does not adapt well to career changes, hiccups, or senior level people. My take on Jobfox is that the organization is operating from an internal perspective where they are the job and career experts and know what is best for job seekers. That would be OK, but based on what I have seen on the site, and from looking at the backgrounds of the executive team, they really aren't in touch with what job seekers really need. They are on the right track and have good ideas, just not quite there yet.
If you are a Jobfox user and subscriber I would really like to hear your comments and experience with the site and if someone from Jobfox happens to read this blog, I welcome your responses and will certainly post them.
As always, I wish you the best and brightest future,
Bill Grunau
PS the bright side of this is that Jobfox has not come close to what I ultimately want to do with CareerXL!
Posted by Bill Grunau at 3/28/2010 4:51 PM 
Categories: Job Board Rant, Career and Job Search, Job Search Discussion
Tags: career development job board websites job search
Categories: Job Board Rant, Career and Job Search, Job Search Discussion
Tags: career development job board websites job search
Bill,
Thanks for this great insight and job service review. It's fantastic that career experts like yourself are helping others.
Deepak
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Bill,
This was a great blog topic that exactly mirrored my concerns with Jobfox. As an expert career consultant it is my responsibility to uncover unscrupulous job resources that serve to prey on the unemployed and underemployed. After our team finalized a resume for a client, she indicated that Jobfox had critiqued their resume to pieces. I analyzed their site and decided to begin the process to gain additional insight.
I received a chain of emails from Melanie Howe regarding my resume critique. She had nothing nice to say about my resume. In fact she criticized almost every facet of my seemingly wonderful resume. What was interesting is that her comments were an obvious generic format that in no way applied to my portfolio.
This morning I contacted Melanie directly on a recorded line. Before she understood who I really was, she approached the conversation with scripted verbage that was rather insulting. I suggested that I forward her the PDF version of my visually attractive resume. She agreed. I emailed her and waited, and waited and waited. I called three times, the last time changing my name. Once I reached her we had an in depth conversation about my poor pathetic resume. When pushed, she rated my resume an 8/10 and suggested that I take advantage of the resume refresh for only $199. She said I had a semi-colon issues and she could fix this for me. All for the low, low, price of $199.
I too asked was she on Linkedin stating "I would like to see your resume, Melanie." No sample source of her work was provided. Seeing that I would not be a paying customer, she rushed me off the phone and indicated that she would send a link to the Jobfox resume samples.
I must say that the way Jobfox treats career seekers is demeaning. They lacked the encouragement needed to build the confidence of a down-trotten job seeker. If I felt insulted and inferior and I am not even a job seeker then imagine the broken spirit of one who is. Their confidence is shattered by the personal attacks of potential customers. Career Tier has maintained a value of professional integrity that we are proud of. We don't need to tear down the weak to build up the strong.
Shame on Jobfox for not providing a standard of business excellence that serves to empower their customers. And for $399, their approach should be more compassionate and tactful instead of predatory.
Thank you for this wonderful, wonderful blog!
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Thanks for your post Stephanie. Detailed comments and hands on real experiences are always the best feedback. You went quite a bit further than I did. I just did a quick test drive, you really dug into it.
Several other blogs I read had the same experience and interestingly, nearly identical comments on their resumes, the same sales script, and the same letter. It is nice to know that there is an actual person there, but I am still not convinced anyone actually reads the resumes. As I said in my blog, my theory is that they have software scanning the resume and then perhaps a human giving it a cursory once over before they hit the send button on the auto-generated email (hence why it is sent with links to a dynamic webpage).
I asked Jobfox to post their response and explain their future plans. If they respond I will post all of their reponses.
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Bill,
I plan to retweet this article. You have provided a great starting dialogue on our industry standards. Jobfox appears to be less credible despite their enormous visibility. I am convinced that their software scanner actually drives their business. They are lacking human appeal. I too plan to blog on this topic and wish to link to your article.
Keep me posted!
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I picked this up through your mention on Twitter, and I'm very impressed with the run-down you've given the situation. I was an Advantage member for a month, and there really wasn't any difference in service. The emails I get selling resume services come from Melinda Wickham and Peggy Patelino, but I am certain these are just auto generated names/emails.
My biggest complaint about the site as a functional job board is how user unfriendly it is. There is no place to look for other postings that they haven't auto-matched to you.
The site lacks any credibility, the process is tedious, and the availability of jobs is pitiful.
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Thanks for posting your comments and sharing your experience. Perhaps with feedback Jobfox will fix these issues and change their business model. Comments from Jobfox users are nearly identical in their complaints about the resume review and resume service as well as the complaints about the Advantage program.
I like the concept and vision of the site, and as blog says, really disappointed in what it is actually doing. Sooo close and yet still soooo far. Looks like somewhere along the way they lost touch with the ultimate goal, helping people get jobs and becoming a career community and started to chase the $ too quickly. My suspicion is that it was probably pressure from the VC investors to deliver profits prematurely. Facebook and Twitter made nothing for years, now Facebook value is estimated at $35 billion (with a capital
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I cancelled my membership with JobFox today. After receiving a somewhat harsh critique on my current resume, I paid to have it “professionally” written.
When I received the resume, I was impressed with its layout and content. It looked and read much better than the original. In my case, I am happy with the resume writing results. The customer service was good also. I communicated via e-mail with my writer who replied to my questions, made revisions or corrections to the resume within 72 hours. My writer’s replies seem to come from a real person and not a computer.
I signed up for the Advantage membership. However, I was not receiving tracking or inquiry activity that I had expected based on how JobFox advertised. In fairness, it may be due to the fact that employer are not hiring in my field due to the economy.
In hindsight, my feelings about FobFox are 50/50. I was pleased with the resume and customer service but disappointed with the Advantage membership and the job leads it promised to deliver. Overall, I can describe my experience with JobFox as exciting but below expectations.
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Thanks Greg for sharing your experience. Yours is the first comment from someone that actually used Jobfox's resume service. I'm happy to hear you are happy with the resume. Your comments on the Advantage program are pettty much the same that I have seen on other Blogs, again, valuable feedback when it is from someone that has used the service and has first hand experience.
I wish you the best of luck on your job search and hope you land a great job soon!
Bill Grunau
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Experimenting if Jobfox is both scamming seekers and falsely advertising the Advantage and Resume Writing:
via Jobfox email:
"As an Advantage Member you could be receiving these alerts 48 hours before non-members".
Me and my brother decided to do an experiment. We answered questions exactly the same and uploaded the exact same resume (names changed) with one of us joining the Advantage membership and the other staying a Basic Member. The one of us that joined the Advantage program did not get any matching email alerts 48 hours before the non-member. We did not get identical matches even though we both uploaded the exact same resume and questionnaire.
Our resume critiques were almost exact but one of us was "pudding in a cup" and the other "cold dead fish". Of the emails containing promotion offer: a one time payment of $324 ($75 off) or 6 installments of $59. If you multiply $59 by 6, you are not getting the $75 off at all. In fact, you pay MORE at the cost of $354. Therefore, Jobfox's cheaper $75 off is only for the option of a one time payment. It doesn't say that anywhere in the email. At every turn they offered the resume service "one time only offer" emails.
The one of us who signed up for the Advantage program:
Jobfox FAQ states that a seeker may cancel at any time. After 4 months of receiving little to any of the promised advantages (maybe 1 or 2) we decided it was time to cancel and emailed Jobfox to request that they stop taking money out of our account monthly. No answer. We called and left a message to an answer bot to request that they stop taking money out of our account each month (got charged for 3 months after cancel request). Nothing. Last ditch effort was an email and call to Jobfox saying that if they didn't stop charging the credit card account we would be forced to call our credit card company to have payments stopped, get our money back and direct the credit card company to do a fraud investigation. That got their attention. Miraculously the account was cancelled stating that there must have been an "error" in processing the cancellation. As an aside, it's noteworthy to say that both of us (member and basic) kept getting emails offering the Advantage service. (That's bad)
Resume emails during experiment totaled over 35 with several "offers" for discounts that must be taken advantage of before midnight even though we got the same one 2 days later.
Not sure if this helps this forum but it is our conclusion that Jobfox COULED be a scam that practices false advertising and illegally charges credit cards - and in our case until we threaten action against them.
Thanks for letting me share our experiment!
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Thanks for posting your Jobfox Advantage experiment. This is a very objective test of Jobfox's claim vs. the actual performance. A number of people have complained about the results and stated they didn't think it was a good value, but this is the first actual comparison of a regular account vs. the paid Advantage (maybe they should call it no-real-Advantage) account.
Thanks again for sharing your experience.
Bill Grunau
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Jobfox is launching a new way to charge seekers which, in addition to their resume services, is costly. It's called "Break Through" Here is the email I received from Rob McGovern (noticed his address is "resumecritique@jobfox.com".. hmm):
You're a strong person who has solid experience, but you need to beat intense competition. Here is a way to revamp your job search and dramatically improve your ability to get hired. There are two parts to my proposal:
Significantly improve your job search by going far beyond job listings. Only 13% of hires happen from online job listings. I want you to outsmart the difficult job market.
Rewrite your resume to make you a better and more appealing candidate. You'll get far more interviews with a professionally written resume.
Try two free months of our new Break Through service as a bonus with the purchase of your new discounted resume. Break Through is a comprehensive service designed to cover every base in your job search. It will be introduced in two weeks and cost $30 per month. If you purchase a professionally written resume this week, you can save $100 on your resume rewrite and use Break Through for free. That is a savings of $160.00.
Here's an overview of Break Through, which is included with your resume purchase:
Leverage your personal connections to find jobs. Confidentially identify job matches where you know someone. Networking doesn't mean cold-calling or attending uncomfortable gatherings with strangers. You'll be equipped with smart, inside information in seconds.
Use Facebook and LinkedIn to get hired. 71% of companies investigate candidates on social networks before requesting an interview. One of our experts will review your social networking profiles to make recommendations on how your social pages can make you more appealing to employers.
Impress employers with your connections. Employers want to know you are connected to customers, vendors, and business partners. With Break Through, you can share parts of your social network connections with employers. Rest assured that you decide what information is shared.
Establish an online presence. Jobfox will create an exciting "About Me" web page for you that will make it easy for employers to learn about you, your skills, and your experiences.
Know how you compare. You'll be able to see how you compare to other candidates who have applied for the same jobs.
Be Smarter Than Your Competition. Receive weekly job search advice from a leading job search expert. A job search is a lonely place, and receiving advice is critical.
Break Through will officially launch in two weeks so we will notify you when your service begins. In the meantime, get your resume professionally written so you are ready to take full advantage of the program. I'm confident a new resume and Break Through will dramatically improve your chances of getting the job you want.
Thoughts anyone?
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Thanks for sharing the info on JobFox's new Break Through service. I haven't seen any comments about this service yet. The feedback from Jobfox users on other services from Jobfox have not been favorable. Maybe they will get it right this time, but I am skeptical since their track record has been very poor so far and they have failed to even come close to delivering what they promise.
My experience has been that problems like this are systemic and a result of a poor corporate culture and lack of leadership. Jobfox seems to have leadership and culture problems as they have serious issues that they refuse to address and continue to rationalize (at least publicly) that they are doing a good job.
Thanks again for sharing this. We will see if anyone has any hands on experience with this new program/feature Jobfox is offering.
Bill Grunau
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Good article...I will use some of these interesting principles myself...more great info please...
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Thanks for posting a comment and the kind words of encouragement. Comments and feedback are always appreciated! I have a couple of new blog posts in work right now, not sure which one I will post this weekend. One is about Linked in, open networkers vs selective networkers. The other is on developing your social media/network profile and online presence.
best regards
Bill Grunau
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I just book marked your blog on Digg and StumbleUpon.I enjoy reading your commentaries.
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