Sites like this commoditise the recruiting business and, for that reason, will not be allowed to prosper. The recruiting industry will ensure that it dies.

Just another 'Gimmicky Recruitment Company' in order to get some PR..

Check out this joker - www.flicktheagent.com

Its just under-cutting and discounted services hidden behind 'smoke and mirror' new recruitment ideas...

will go bust or revert to well proven recruitment methods.

I mean look at www.jobs.com.au - what a joke. I bet the guys who pumped money into that are reeling.

start a website where employers and candidates can hook up - nothing new there - but this one allows your peers to accredit you

so as a developer you build up a rating - 61% for instance.

how can employers have confidence in the rating?

if each peer in your network is willing to be phoned up to give you a reference (IM'd, etc) then the system of peer review would replace the agent

it's up to the advertiser (me, you, etc) to select peers that have some influence. eg. a manager at Macquarie. clearly the system would be subscriber/pay based so that the details would not be openly available.

bung on a skills filter at the front end to narrow the candidates down

the success would depend on contributions by the members of the network - in the same way as eDonkey works etc

i've been thinking of doing this...i don't want to make money out of it...i just want the pimps to go out of business

Guru.com has been doing this for seven years

Traditional employment agencies are on death row.

Sure, it seems easy to replace traditional employment agencies with a job-board. But the agencies also perform another function in the case of contractors.

Contractually they put themselves in the middle between the company and the contractor. The company has a contract with the agency and then the agency has a contract with the worker. This solves a lot of potential legal problems for the company, eg. the tax office might deem direct contractors to be employees and require the company to pay payroll tax, super, work-cover etc. etc. Also, it protects the company from legal hassles from the contractor - eg. if sacked the contractor could claim they were effectively an employee and claim unfair dismissal, discrimination, redundancy payments. Having the agency involved allows the company to say "we never knew anything about them, they were employed by that agency". The agencies of course have legal teams to deal with these issues, funded by the fees from the companies.

So I dont think that traditional agencies are going to go away soon. Possibly they could be replaced by a combination of the new job-boards and some umbrella companies - but I dont think that most companies want the hassle.

you can all work for me if you like

i'll set up an umbrella company and do all the hassle, take the risk, for a small margin that is put back into the company

all profits are shared equally as dividends

guru.com is great!

Stand-Alone Job Matching and Pass-Through Agencies are new models on their way in.

Marketing agents do stand-alone job matching. They introduce their customer to prospective end users. Once a match is made, the marketing agent backs out of the loop.

The contractor is then free to negotiate a direct contract

with the end user, or alternatively to employ the services of a separate, third-party employer of record. Marketing

agents might charge a flat rate, but like other talent agents

they will probably charge about ten percent of the billing

rate.

We have seen that the contractor recruiting industry is completely upside down when it comes to ethical and professional standards of conduct. The industry operates

with a built-in conflict of interest that pits recruiting firms against the contractors who are their real customers. Unlike all other professional talent agents, indeed all other professional service providers, contract employment recruiters are the only professionals that hide their rate structure. The contractor recruiting industry is the only industry that operates under the premise that their real customer is always wrong.

Fortunately, environmental forces are rapidly converging

that can put this industry right side up. That’s the good

news. The bad news is that the convergence of environmental

forces is not enough. Contractors themselves must create the market demand that will reform this industry.

Contractors must first break the enfeebling shackles of their

former masters, and reclaim control over their own careers.

What are the converging environmental forces that will

help bring down the predatory recruiting firms? Here are

the main ones as I see it:

1. Corporate HR departments are getting more aggressive.

2. Career pages on corporate web sites are getting more

sophisticated.

3. The rise of hourly-paid contract recruiters.

4. Contractors are getting smarter and more assertive.

5. Online forums and discussion groups.

6. Agency-supported job-posting sites are discovering the client.

7. The rise of free agent portals.

8. Readily available online rate and salary information.

9. A new breed of contractor-friendly recruiting firms

and employers of record.

Source: Contract Employee's Handbook

do standard laws apply inside the office environment?

Sure does!!!!!!

Guru is good, but it's better if you can find your own clients!

Anyone want some pocket money doing freelance website reviewing? Just go to http://www.sitecritic.net/author_sign_up.php

Guru is good, but it's better if you can find your own clients!

Two weeks ago I started a job that was just offered to me out of the blue. I am now working in an Internet Cafe.

In addition I have made mself known in the neighbourhood as the IT Guy available for SOHO clients and home visits and now have several clients. A bit like Geek Squad - 24 Hour Computer Support Task Force

I have recently joined unwired.com.au and wireless enabled all my PCs. I can't see Joe Blow being adept enough to install this stuff and sort out security issues and a wireless router without reading tons of manuals and technical references.

This is then income to pump back into growing the Network Marketing business and nice residual income.

I have started a new project. I was approached by parties in the agricultual industry in the US to develop software to drive a device that counts cattle when they are being loaded onto a truck.

I estimate 4 weeks to complete the project - rate is $100 per hour. Plus for each unit sold I get a $100 royalty and there is a potential for at least 400 units.

I keep the copyright!!!!!

that sounds like a nice little earner

Just the beginning I think.

If they want the source it will cost them another US$50,000 but then there are no royalties.

Well done Hawkwind. Nice to read you're a neighbour of mine in Sydney (Bligh) too.

Hope you still have a little time for debate on these forums from time to time...

Well done Hawkwind.

Thanks Topdown.

Going to run on this: Raon Digital Vega

I wrote a library that manipulates this RS232 ports some time ago. I'll bet the kids these days wouldn't know how write code to handle RS232 let alone write this application in 4 weeks. LOL

Hope you still have a little time for debate on these forums from time to time...

Is the Pope Catholic?

Nice,

Take it you're writing in "what you know" for now... but would be good to do it in .NET if you can. Get that all important experience of the new stuff under your belt.

Do you get to keep the Raon? :)

Nice

Very nice

Take it you're writing in "what you know" for now... but would be good to do it in .NET if you can. Get that all important experience of the new stuff under your belt.

In reality there is nothing new. Writing it in C/C++ (my choice) as I have done for yonks for this type of application. this is because of execution speed and better hardware control because of the motion detectors that plug into the com ports. Needs to be fast.

I already have a comms library I wrote a long time ago in C but just needs to be modified to cater for WinXP threading and priority which it tries to control and no win32 libraries will be used.

Actually I am thinking of putting the comms library on the market as well. Almost forgot I had it.

Do you get to keep the Raon? :)

I will have it for a while because at some stage after the first release there are enhancements planned. So far there is talk of remote access to the device and the use of RFID instead of motion detectors.

At the moment the only way I have to test things is that the motion detectors set up in the hallway at home and I am rolling tennis balls down the hallway to see what data is comming through the com port. This should be near enough for simulation but of course we all know things happen (Murphy's Law) so client testing is critical which I have made very clear both verbally and in software development contract.