Leo Shvartsman sees the growing number of unemployed Americans and sees possible customers. Call it career opportunism.
The former Jackson Heights resident launched jobmound.com, a Web site connecting users to company’s job listings directly.
With jobs varying from McDonald’s burger flippers to a scout for the Boston Red Sox, Shvartsman has created the off-the-beaten path stop for job seekers.
“I’ve posted jobs that people might not think to find. You’d have to think to search for it to find it,” he said. “It’s the advantage of having a directory.”
The site itself remains sparse for now, a byproduct of Shvartsman hands-on approach to culling listings and posting them on the site. He’s currently scrounging 1,500 hospital Web sites, gathering links to their “job opportunities” pages.
The task itself has consumed the better part of Shvartsman’s days (for the time being, he ironically remains unemployed). From searching, to the copy-paste tedium, he says he keeps a steady clip for a majority of his day and puts in more than the requisite eight hours.
“It’s 20 entries an hour if you’ve had three cups of coffee,” he said.
The relative novelty of the site itself isn’t lost upon Shvartsman. Nor is its utility.
From journalism to the financial industry, nary a job option hasn’t been explored by the Baruch College graduate.
“You wouldn’t believe the jobs I’ve applied to in the past few months,” he said. “I even applied for a Special Agent position with FBI. I passed three or four tests. They said my reading and writing in Russian was good but my speaking wasn’t sufficient, which was odd.”
The timing of the site couldn’t be better. The U.S. Labor Department reported a jump in weekly unemployment claims to 627,000 nationwide, and in the City faces a 9 percent unemployment rate – the highest in a decade.
“I figured there would be growth in certain sectors of the economy,” Shvarstman said. “I think there’s room for another jobs page. If it saves users an hour a day looking for jobs, it’ll work.”
The tragic truth behind jobmound.com remains its dependence on a negative need of the populace. But it fits Shvartsman’s business model, and he believes he’s providing a needed service.
“If I came up with a good idea for luxury car buyers, I wouldn’t invest in it at the moment,” he said.
By Joseph Orovic
July 6, 2009
source: queenstribune.com