Tinkering slightly with its business formula, one Boston area resume
database company launched an interactive Web site earlier this month,
which is designed to provide high tech companies with candidates from
specific geographic areas.
The hope is that this strategy will give Planet Resume, a spin-off of
MTS Group, an edge over dozens of competing online resume database
services, which cater to executives in charge of hiring.
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By allowing client companies to look at resumes available in a certain
geographic area, they can identify those candidates who would most
likely be willing to work for them, explained Ian M. Grant, a co-founder
of MTS Group. So far Planet Resume focuses on four regions: New England;
the mid-Atlantic; northern California; and the Carolinas.
“Most companiesdon’t want to relocate people from more than their
backyard,” Grant said.
Planet Resume also has two other components that company executives are
hoping will help distinguish it from other services.
“Most sites are trying to be all things to all people; our strategy is
to work with only technology companies,” Grant added. “Probably the most
important service that we have, compared to other companies, is it’s
personalized.”
The company assigns recruiters to each client and those recruiters must
learn about the company, he said. As new resumes are submitted to Planet
Resume, the recruiters will compile any pertinent ones and e-mail them
to clients several times a week.
Competition such as the Boston Job Bank, which can be found at
www.bostonjobs.com, already appeals to local consumers by posting only
Boston-area jobs and resumes; but it posts jobs from a number of
industries. Users can search for jobs on the site under five separate
categories, including computer, professional and sales.
It costs $20 to post a job for four weeks with the Boston Job Bank,
according to information available on the Web site.
“On most sites I look at the applicant’s resume and I say, ‘this person
looks really good’,” said Dan Donovan, who is a partner in the human
resources consulting firm, Boston Staffing. “Then they’re from Cleveland
or San Francisco and they don’t want to relocate.”
With the Internet becoming an increasingly fertile area for human
resource executives to search for potential recruits, Donovan said he
typically subscribes to two online services when he takes on a new
client. “It’s like an online job fair in (some) ways,” he said.
Which database he selects depends on his client’s business, he said.
“The national ones become unwieldy you have to do a lot of searching to
get what you want,” Donovan added.
That is particularly true now that job seekers seem to be more
comfortable with posting their resumes. Most online services offer a way
for people posting resumes to prevent their current employer from
viewing their resume.
“Four, five years ago when I was starting to use the Web, I didn’t see
anything out there but technical resumes. It was all kind of new then
today you’ll see legal, financial (job seekers). I’ve even seen an
astronaut out there,” he said. “To me it’s amazing how it’s caught on.”
Grant said they too have seen an increase in the number of resumes being
submitted.
“Four years ago, when resume database services were truly an anomaly
there was hesitation to do it,” he said. “Now it’s a much easier way to
hear about and learn about jobs in the Boston market we get 300 to 500
new resumes a week.”
MTS Group has been in business for about 12 years. Grant and his
partner, Dan Miller, bought the concept rights in 1994 from Miller’s
father. Its headquarters are in Waltham, Mass. Planet Resume is the
second spin-off company for MTS Group, which also operates HotChili
Technology, an Internet resume management service.
Clients pay an annual fee, which ranges from about $6,000 to $8,500, for
the services, according to Grant. As with most other resume databases,
there is no cost to people who post their resumes on the site. Resumes
are kept online for 60 days, then removed.
