Daype Classifieds

TAMPA — Robin Eads has one of the most unlikely problems imaginable in today’s economy: hundreds of jobs to fill and only a handful of people applying.

Management trainees at Blinds-to-Go. Software engineers at sporting goods company Oakley. Forty-four different jobs at shopping channel HSN, including art director and fitness product buyer.

“We have jobs out there for everything from hotel receptionist to nuclear scientists,” said Eads, who recently started JobShouts, a recruiting Web site. “I only wish more people were applying for them. Some jobs have no applicants at all yet.”

How can Eads have such a categorically improbable problem, especially given mounting layoffs and unemployment reaching more than 10 percent in some U.S. markets?

First, a long-time corporate recruiter herself, Eads formed the company in Tampa in January with partner Michael Quale. So she has a lot of marketing work to do to spread the word about her company.

Second, Eads reached out to scores of her peers in the recruiting world to start posting their jobs on her site for free, building up a catalog of thousands of open positions.

Since her site launched in January, companies have posted more than 2,400 jobs. The vast majority are professional-level full-time positions with name-brand companies. Only a few hundred people have applied.

To be sure, many other recruiting Web sites have much better name recognition, including industry giants Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com.

To try and stand out, JobShouts started with one big distinction: no cost for companies to post a job, no cost for job seekers to apply. And anyone can receive a Twitter alert about a new job.

When a company posts a job, it cascades through JobShouts.com, then to a series of social media sites: Facebook, Craigslist and Twitter. Job seekers can anonymously upload their qualifications and receive text alerts whenever new jobs appear that match their skills.

Sitting at a Starbucks in Tampa, Eads herself grabbed her cell phone when it buzzed with a new job opening.

“There, someone just posted a job for a Web programmer,” she said.

On Tuesday, accounting firm Grant Thornton posted a position for a high-level auditor in Boston. Global wind turbine company KR Wind recently posted a job for a project engineer. Software company Intuit recently posted a job for a Web 2.0 project developer.

Simplicity seems to be a good selling point for JobShouts.

“I am very impressed with the ease of use and exposure,” said Pam Barker, president of RELIA, a Winter Springs-based health care recruiter.

So how does JobShouts make money if everything is free to use?

Eads and Quale plan premium services for the site, including services that fulfill requirements for government contractors, such as tracking applicant demographics and how long to keep résumés on file.

For now, the site is getting traction with the important segment of companies that are hiring. Recruiting site Indeed.com has partnered with JobShouts, so tens of thousands of their job postings are reflected on JobShouts, and vice versa. Other partnerships are in the works.

By Richard Mullins / The Tampa Tribune
May 7, 2009