Ray’s web 2.0 business minitests: The Blue Chip Expert Network
by
on November 03, 2006,
Theses minitests are purely about real business potential, not about the technology behind it.
Blue Chips Expert
A couple of weeks ago my mailbox was suddenly overflowing with emails by tens of people who wanted to introduce me to the Blue Chips Expert Initiative. The emails annoyed me a bit but also I got interested and wondered what would be behind it so I checked it for you.
Surfing the portal you’ll notice that it’s a portal for jobseekers and recruiters. So I made a few phonecalls to know a bit more about this initiative. It seems that this initiative is ‘in partnership’ with Heidrick & Struggles, Korn & Ferry International, Spencer Stuart & Boyden Executive Search and is legitimate.
The idea is as follows: if you use this hyperlink you get to a login page where you can put down your personal information and resume. There are 3 roles from which you can choose: recruiter, networker or candidate. The portal thus brings together candidates and recruiters and if that works, you get a commission.
So how high is that commission? To make a difficult calculation simpler, it’s about 2% of the annual gross salary of the newly recruited employee. I have uploaded a document to my own Open Networkers Group (Yahoo Groups) to explain the fee system more closely.
Kevin Kramer, one of the people who are leading this, informed me that first they wanted to make some adjustments in order to further the quality of electronic matchmaking. Once that is in place, they want to add some services in order to manage the recruitment process. Having been a recruiter myself I wonder how they will be able to manage and secure their fees, because once a candidate is found what will keep you contacting the candidate directly instead of using the portal and thus saving a lot of money in commissions..
Summary
The Blue Chips Expert Initiative is a promising web 2.0 network initiative where you can make direct money out of your introduced contacts. The Business model seems to be ok, the partners are renowned, but not everything is in place yet. I am looking forward to their next steps to see if they are able to secure their income. Will they be able to bind customers and candidates and will they be able to introduce compelling services?
| Key-web 2.0 factor | Points (1-10) | Remarks |
| 1) Manage and view profile |
9 |
Good: simple user interface, protected. |
| 2) Manage contacts |
5 |
Only one by one, no batch uploading. Suggestion: introduce this but beware of spamming activities. |
| 3) Communication options |
1 |
- |
| 4) Effective business use |
5 |
You get money for introducing people, not ready yet |
| 5) Growing potential |
9 |
Huge, guys get your act together! Invest! |
| 6) Money making potential |
10 |
Depends on the insight of their staff, will they be able to introduce unique / binding services |
| Total |
39 |
Verdict: Very promising but soooo much to do.. |
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Shallow
Bob
Svetlana Gladkova
CopyrightLawSucks 
kinghajj 
Michael Fidler
[Ray] Notchup my Zybka Faceconnect Blue Chips expert
02/02/2008
Did you get those invitations as well? From Notchup, Faceconnect, Blue Chips Expert, Zubka etc. etc? They all have one thing in common: they promise you referral fees if you bring in your network for recruitment purposes. If you visit those pages they seem quite genuine, they offer networking tools and a dashboard of some sort where you can find out how much your referral network has grown. So why not, you have nothing to loose…or do you?
Well it took me a long time testing these networks to find out what seems to be going on. Apparently there is a great ‘grey’ market for CV’s. The price for a resume depends on your years of experience, your expertise and if a phone number is added or not. The price varies between a couple of dollars to hundreds of dollars for e.g. a resume of an experienced auditor or actuary.
That is what all these Portals have in common as well, they offer you the ability to upload your resume.. They also have in common that they probably will not pay you out anything and that they don’t even have a solid payment system in place in order to do that..
So beware, no one knows for sure, but I have my doubts about these initiatives, just be very careful if you come across a company that offers any kind of resume-upload facility.
What I do know for sure is:
- Notchup: no recruiter will pay you anything to talk to you and surely not for someone they don’t know. So that seems very obvious to me.
- Zubka; I tested it 2 ways; as Jobhunter and as a Recruiter. The vacancy I added as a recruiter never showed up in the system. They also have no payment system in place
- Blue Chips; I became a member over a year ago. It seemed possible.. This one was uncovered by people in my network. It seems that they are selling those CV’s for sure.