Looking for a job is a job within itself. Job seekers can spend days on end scrolling through job postings online, filling out applications and still not even receive a call back.
However, one website hopes to do away with the old model of job boards. To help save time for both job seekers and employers, KRAZOOM has eliminated the classic keyword search function on its website.
Instead of typing keywords into the site to find a job, users select which skills they have from a list and the website aggregates a list of job postings they”™re most qualified for. The website collects postings from national job boards and corporate websites and divides them by industry.
“Keyword search is a poor matching system,” said Henning Seip, KRAZOOM founder and Trumbull resident.
The average job posting will have 20 skills requirements, such as “marketing” or “writing,” but people only search one or two terms to find a job, Seip said. Unless they search more keywords, they won”™t be able to find the jobs for which they”™re most qualified. On employers”™ end, that means sifting through a stack of unqualified applicants, making it harder to find the applicants who are the most qualified.
“The problem that we”™re trying to solve here is really complex because it”™s all text based,” Seip said. “Computers can”™t interpret text, which is why we”™re stuck with a keyword search. Google makes it very sophisticated, but when it comes to matching information to meaning, keyword searches with one or two words creates a mismatch.”
The website launched in 2009, but with the state”™s recent emphasis on entrepreneurship, Seip said he”™s hoping to piggyback off the state”™s momentum to grow his business and take advantage of the new services available for startups. He”™s currently working with the Stamford Innovation Center on further developing his business. Additionally he”™s offering classes every week at the Innovation Center to teach job seekers how to use KRAZOOM and identify which skill requirements they can fill.
“It”™s great,” said Peter Propp, vice president of marketing at the Innovation Center. “He can get feedback on his product and help people here in Fairfield County job search to find better jobs and be more successful when they apply.”
Several hundred job seekers are actively using the site now and about six employers are using a trial version of the website to receive applications and rank them in order of who”™s most qualified. In the future, Seip hopes to increase the number of employers using the website and charge them a fee.
Seip, 53, first came up with the idea for the website when he came to the U.S. from Germany in the 1990s and was hired as a hiring manager.
“I got so many résumés and I couldn’t sort them,” Seip said. “There”™s a better way to match job seekers to jobs and employers to job seekers. Employers get a lot of resumes and they don”™t know what to do.”
