Match game - Westfair Communications

They used to have needles and haystacks to distinguish daunting searches. Now we have the Web.

YourLeap Inc. of Stamford, Conn., offers a hiring method allowing companies to access the full range of job boards and talent, including culling the many experienced professionals filling the financial industry market.

Founded by former Fortune 500 staffing executives Fred Dimyan and Allan Goldberg, YourLeap goes to all the major job boards and more than 300 minor job boards and sifts through the talent for their clients.

“Four or five years ago, clients began to come to us saying, ”˜I can”™t pay a fee, but I also don”™t have the time or resources to do it all myself,”™” said Dimyan. “Any employer that”™s looking to hire has a couple choices at their disposal. They can do it themselves or go out to search firms and pay a 30 percent fee. But the marketplace out there is overwhelming. The Internet is our world. You have to figure out which board is right for you. There are a number of major job boards out there but there are thousands of niche job boards.”

Dimyan explains that the hiring managers and human resources people of the world are being overwhelmed by the amount of resumes they need to sift through to obtain a high-quality candidate.

“We help you decide in that fragmented marketplace,” said Dimyan. “We take fortune 50 recruiting techniques and package them. Even the best-in-practice companies, who you”™d think have a solid in house process, don”™t necessarily. Very few have a tight process because to have that you need steady hiring and they”™re are very few out there who are hiring large amounts consistently, it”™s usually based on their quarterly earnings.”

YourLeap utilizes industry experts on as-needed basis, enabling the company to have a person on staff that can identify the needs of the trade with great detail, but allowing for YouLeap to maintain a lean cost structure.

“We always have that staff available,” said Goldberg. “We can scale up and down with great ease; it”™s a very cost-effective solution.”

According to Dimyan, the level of search that YourLeap provides runs from clerical to the highest-level executives. He said the company also can reach into the growing world of new talent on the Internet with campus recruiting.

“I met with a college recruiter from Microsoft last week; she”™s overwhelmed,” said Dimyan. “How does she get through the volume talent as the sole recruiter? They do have a recruiting team, but not on the campus side.”

Dimyan points out that this also creates a competitive environment for their experts, which in the end leads to extremely relevant and credible candidates.

“Some people are just bad resume writers and seekers,” said Goldberg. “We can see the nuances.”

“It saves clients a lot of time as well as giving them access to sources they wouldn”™t normally have access to,” said Dimyan. “There”™s a lot going on with the market now. The upside to the downside of what”™s happening is that the quality of resumes and mass of resumes that a client gets when they use the service grows exponentially. Those are a lot of people who have never been on the market; Lehman Brothers has been around for 150 years, but those aren”™t people who have necessarily searched for a job online before.”

According to Dimyan, if employers are only posting on one of the job boards they”™re only capturing a small fraction of the talent pool.

“Our service helps you capture everyone who”™s out there regardless of what board they”™re on,” said Dimyan. “Candidates are definitely filling the bucket; Lehman didn”™t go under because they didn”™t have great people.”

According to Goldberg, on average by the time a person is 38 he or she has had 15 jobs.

“That”™s unbelievable as to how this world is changing,” said Goldberg. “We”™re in the trenches every day. It”™s our job not only to understand the technologies, but the nuances of each site. In the next five years the greatest thing people will be looking for is service.”

According to Dimyan, 120 million resumes are on databases on major and minor job boards today but that does not include the ones who wait for jobs to be posted. Dimyan said that makes the number almost double.

“There are good job candidates, and then there are good employees,” said Dimyan. “A good job candidate will have their resume together, they”™ll have it on all the boards; a good employee is somebody who has probably worked at a company for a long period of time and not been out on the market that much. A good filter will realize that difference.”