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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | m |
| Date: | Tuesday, 22nd Sep 2009 13:01 |
| Views: | 92 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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question is ..... how are you making money?
I need to know this before signing up cos you might sell details.
etc.....
and if it is for free... is it really sustainable?
I pay about 25 pounds per month ith all the functionality I like.
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Dave Thomas |
| Date: | Tuesday, 22nd Sep 2009 13:15 |
| Views: | 95 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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Well free is just that - totally free.
How we make money would be mainly from posting your jobs for you to job boards. You select where you want to post your job to (providing you have an account with them) and then our system will post it to those boards. The job boards will then pay us a commission for each job posted.
Every one wins.
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | craig |
| Date: | Tuesday, 22nd Sep 2009 13:37 |
| Views: | 91 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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Dave is it sort of mixing broadbean idea with an applicant tracking system?
And by free is it free forever?
Also what job boards is it able to use and does it post jobs to all at once? |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Dave Thomas |
| Date: | Tuesday, 22nd Sep 2009 14:22 |
| Views: | 95 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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free is free is free ...........forever. No catches, contracts etc - all your data is stored on ultra secure servers hosted by one of the world's leading hosting companies.
The traditional model is about charging the direct user i.e. the agency. Our approach..........if we did it...........would be different.
We would generate a healthy revenue stream from other sources.
This is the way the market will go so it's a good idea to be at the front of the queue.
dave |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Dave Thomas |
| Date: | Tuesday, 22nd Sep 2009 14:25 |
| Views: | 93 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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sorry Craig, forgot your other questions......
1. Yes a mix of a multi poster (like Broadbean) and an ATS but with agency bias not client bias.
2. It could integrate with any job board you want so long as the job board plays ball.
I would stress we have built a direct client version at present and would need to adapt it to the agency market. That's why I'm keen to know what features would need to be 'must haves'.
dave |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Ben |
| Date: | Wednesday, 23rd Sep 2009 12:42 |
| Views: | 89 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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Don't want to knock you unfairly.. or be seen to be trolling.. but as a service provider that has been at the forefront of SaaS in this industry since 2003 (evolve), I have to comment that I don't believe you can make that model work (because there just isn't enough of a market to compete in) without hugely compromising on either:
1. Delivery and reliability
2. Ability to scale and offer functionality
3. Ability to continue compete over time
3. Service and support
Its the old 'fast/cheap/reliable -pick any 2' conundrum.
A front office system is absolutely the key application for most recruitment companies.. if it's offline, they aren't able to work its that simple.
That means that the platform has to be reliable.. really reliable -like banking standard reliable.. and if your customers take things seriously, then they should (and will) hold you to account over that.
For us, that means a 99.999% uptime SLA - less than 2 minutes downtime (including updates, modifications etc etc) per month.
To deliver this, we have a platform designed around what is considered best practice within the industry (there are accepted standards for delivering 5-nines uptime)..
That means we invested a huge amount in a bespoke hardware infrastructure based around 2 datacentres with network interconnects between; 80 or so IBM server blades (that we build/ maintain and own), several hundred thousand pounds worth of SAN storage infrastructure and not forgetting are an ISP in our own right (which means we don't buy bandwidth in from a supplier.. we buy fibre connectivity direct to the telcos and do our own routing.. multiple routes, our own Address space = control that you don't have renting stuff even in 'a leading datacentre'.
All of this costs.. it costs a lot to buy and it also costs a lot to run.
BUT it is the only way to deliver the kind of reliability that a recruitment company should demand from their front office provider.
The reality of course is that lots of smaller SaaS providers don't do this (you'd be amazed how many people make claims for 'xyz' reliability and just 'wing it' because their customers don't know any better).
Pretty much every month we win a couple of customers who leave company a or company b because they have been let down (one recent customer is in the process of suing their previous provider for a few hundred K because of these sorts of problems). We put our money where our mouth is too - Our SLAs guarantee substantial penalties are paid if we go offline!
So, that's point 1 - to deliver a substantial, reliable service costs and there isn't enough revenue to be generated in the way you describe to make this model work... yes you could go the route of banging a server or two into some cheap co-lo space, but it just won't compete for reliability.
The second point about SaaS is that the model only works if you can scale up and out with a code architecture that allows you to add functionality easily and manage version control from a single codebase...
Single server models/ 2 tier (like the one I believe you are describing) don't scale and are overly complex to manage in terms of versioning - period! We know because that's how we started out in 2000 before completely re-designing our architecture in 2003.
Today, we maintain a substantial active development team with guys dedicated to individual areas within what is now a big platform (everything from CRM to document and comms management, CV & document search, integration with multiple 3rd party services, job posting etc etc).
We put our at least 1 major revision per year (we've just released V5 of evolve), with update releasese (additional functionaility primarily) around once every 6 weeks. We have dedicated product managers, support, training and back office staff, every one of which is needed to deliver the kind of service standard we need to compete.
We do this because we know that the 6 or so other major providers (some of whom have great products too) maintain similar teams and this is the level of innovation & service that is required to maintain a competitive position.
I understand the sentiment 'keep it simple' and for sure some recruiters will only want a limited feature set (comments from 'm' for example - some people have a view that cost is the only criteria).. but I can tell you from a lot of experience over 8 years that to be taken seriously by the majority of prospects in this market you need a lot of deep functionality within the product and need to be flexible enough to keep up with what everyone else is doing..
Again, this all costs... and I don't think there's enough in it to make it work (bear in mind also that in addition to the 6-10 tier 1 vendors there are around 50-60 other small 'couple of guys in a serviced office' software cos trying to get a foot in this space... several have gone bust during the course of the recession.. more are expected!).
So what's the bottom line?
Well I guess the whole thing comes down to this.. price isn't the deciding factor for most buyers in this market.. value is what its all about.
In the grand scheme of things, £50 or £100 per month isn't a significant a difference in the of a typical rec cos operating costs.. (for the record evolve is somewhere in the middle of these two by the way).
I think if we asked any of the 200 or so companies using evolve today (including lots that started out as 1-2 person start-ups and a few that are large muli-site, multi country & FTSE 100 listed), I don't think many would trade reliability, functionality and support for cost.
That's not to say that the sentiment - to drive down cost is not the right one.. lower cost for the same service = better value for our customers and we are absolutely committted to that principle, but its got to be done while maintaining service and delivery at a high standard! |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Dave Thomas |
| Date: | Wednesday, 23rd Sep 2009 18:01 |
| Views: | 93 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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ah, I wondered when the first software supplier would come ploughing in.
1. Reliability - couldn't agree with you more that's why our servers our hosted by Rackspace, one of the world's largest hosting companies in ultra secure data centres and backed up every single day.
So that's reliability ticked off then.
2. Scaleability
We currently bespoke features for different clients operating off the same codebase so not quire sure what your point is.
We offer the core system then bespoke it to the client's requirements. The feature is rolled out to them only.
So that's scaleability ticked off then.
3. Service
Even as a free service the client can phone or email us during office hours if they have a problem.
and that's service ticked off..........etc.
I don't doubt you've got a fantastic product and we're not going to go after the big or even medium sized agencies but you seem to think that packing more and more functionality into a product somehow makes it more appealing.
I totally disagree.
What small (and especially start up) agencies want is a system they can use immediately and not require a day's training or having to call a helpdesk every week to work out how to do something.
You also make the mistake of assuming that none of this functionality or service can be provided if the product is offered free to the agency. This misunderstands how we would earn revenue. The whole technology market place is slowly moving towards a free/premium offering where a core product is given away free and revenue is either earned from selling premium services or from a third party partner.
We would do both.
You might be well advised to start thinking about that. Look at what the network operator 3 has done with Skype or look at how worried Microsoft is by Google's free online applications.
The future is free my friend and if you don't believe me why have we had 7 agencies contact us directly enquiring about it since yesterday?
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | annon |
| Date: | Thursday, 24th Sep 2009 11:26 |
| Views: | 98 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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im not a user of Evolve but reading Bens response indicates that he has a clear understanding of what a serious recruitment business needs. I just dont buy in to the whole free software thing at the moment as there is still a hell of a long way to go to see it work. Free software maybe okay for a one man band or a small agency of a few consultants with no plans to grow, but if you are setting your sites a little higher its worth investing some money to get the right product and especially the right levels of support. |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Dave |
| Date: | Thursday, 24th Sep 2009 11:49 |
| Views: | 96 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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But again you're making the false assumption that because something is free to you it is somehow a rubbish product because the company cannot earn any money to invest in developing it.
The software market is moving (slowly) away from charging the direct user a fee, allowing the 'seller' to earn money from other sources. That's the model we're proposing to follow.
Let me ask you a question...........do you use Google? How much do you pay for that?
Ever used Hotmail? How much do you pay for that?
Ever watched a programme on ITV? How much do you pay for that?
Every used Skype? How much do you pay for that?
Get the jist?
Just have a look at what happend to Friends Reunited. They used to charge to join then along came Facebook and offered the same service free...............and which of those 2 is
now growing at a phenomenal rate?
Whenever the marginal cost of production is £0 or close to £0 which it is with software, then the price will eventually fall to £0. Fundamental law of economics.
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Ben Stoneham |
| Date: | Thursday, 24th Sep 2009 16:57 |
| Views: | 94 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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OK, I ‘d like to debate this without making it a big confrontation (which is not helpful to anyone).
To take your points though Dave.
Sure, Rackspace are undoubtedly a good hosting provider (one among many that aren’t).... but in outsourcing in this way, you are beholdent to that one service provider (yes, yes I know they are big, I know they are multihomed etc etc)....but point is that you don't own the address space (you use theirs) or network infrastructure and if their routers or infrastructure supplying you fails (and they do from time to time).. then you have no option but to rely on them to fix it..
It’s bad enough if its just a website that's offline.. but when its your whole front office product and none of your consultants can bill, that’s something else all together!
..And to say this never happens is wrong (even to Rackspace):
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/29/yes-rackspace-is-down-and-so-are-many-of-your-favorite-sites/
http://valleywag.gawker.com/322828/how-rackspace-really-went-down
Point 2 - OK so I don't know the architecture of your product - fair enough.. From what you describe it doesn't sound like its multitenant though..
Multitenancy is the only way to deliver scalable, managable platform with tight staging and version control that leads to stability in an application that is continuously under development.
Its not just us that thinks that either... Multitenant architectures are used by Google, Hotmail, Salesforce and just about every serious SaaS player.. they do cost a bit to implement though (we have spent around £1M developing our infrastructure).
Right now you don’t find it a problem to manage.. with individual codebases for each client though, come see me when you've got 50 clients or 100 - all with individual versions with slight changes .. it is impossible to scale and manage this model.. I know because we (along with all the other SaaS 1.0s in the ealy days) tried it.
It doesn’t work = bad experience for the customers (point in fact, we are about to upgrade 000+ users to V5 of evolve which we can do 1 at-a-time, or all in one go in a matter of minutes as we choose.
With very significant changes in underlying functionality and datastructure we can do this without any disruption to the customer use of the system and most importantly, we are able to roll the entire thing back in seconds (thanks to the SAN storage systems we have) should we need to.
We can do this whether its one of our single user customers, or 100 users multi office customers because of the multitenant platform.
Point 3 Service - Great, I'm sure your guys in the office are really good helpful..are the same guys who do the development and run the company though? Do they also do the sales invoicing and accounts?
I definitely don’t want to knock start-ups at all.
We started out that way too and there is absolutely nothing wrong with being small – you can be flexible, responsive to customer etc.
In terms of your business model though it is all about the impact this will have on your ability to scale and deliver a quality of sevice..
Put simply, you are going to have to get an awful lot of commission selling job posting to pay even 1 more 30K salary when the time comes and you need it.
You only have to search this board to see a couple of recent posts surrounding companies that have scaled quickly using a 'free' approach, that have then not been able to support their customer base.
As to your final points.. there are a couple of things there.
The first is that the services you mention are not representative of the market you are proposing to serve.
Google search is free at the point of use for consumers of that part of the service (Google do charge for business users of their applications I note), but of course that is only one side of the equation..
Advertisers on Google pay a great deal for the chance to be represented and in this sense it is your 'facetime' that as a user of the service you are actually trading.
The second is that the services they offer are highly standardised (the multitenancy thing comes in again here).. Google, Hotmail ITV and Skype offer highly standardised products that don't require significant investment in each customer (either up front during acquisition or post sale) to make the mode work.
The market for recruitment software in contrast is highly fragmented partly because of the eclectic mix in operational models employed by recruitment firms (i.e. from one recruitment co to another significant differences in the way they work can be found.. this is in part often how they differentiate their service).
Of course you could try to provide such a standardised simple product that undoubtedly some would buy (as I acknowledge for some people, cost is the beginning and end of the story)....
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Without multitenancy you can't accomodate this and still scale.. but if you don't you will significantly limit the appeal of your product which brings me onto the second major difference - that of scale...
Underpinning this model that Google enjoy (and this applies equally to the other services you mention) is the scale that they are able to operate at. In simple terms, there is a sufficient critical mass of users to make that model work. A sufficient mass that just does not exist within the market place we inhabit.
What you didn't mention was the huge number of 'also rans' that failed to compete - even with free models.. (who uses Lycos http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/18/lycos-to-shutter-lycos-mail-tripod-on-february-15/ now!!?)
The thing is that might not be such a bad thing in the search engine world (who really looses?), but as a recruitment company putting you critical data and systems's in the hands of someone else, you probably want to make pretty certain they are not going to dissapear!
As to the point about Marginal cost.. your analysis is flawed I'm afraid.
Marginal cost of production for the software that has been already been produced is indeed low.. but then that's not what we are talking about here..
You are confusing two different things!
When we talk about Software as a Service, what we are actually talking about are the very real costs (and as I have described they are substantial if you do it right) of delivering and supporting the service as a whole.
That means yes the cost of the software you have already written, but more importantly, it means the cost per user of the delivery (infrastructure hardware), service and ongoing product development that together form the 'SaaS' product as a whole. The point is that this isn't just a software business ultimately, its Software AND Service!
As I said in my last post, that's not to say that with scale, the cost of delivery, support and ongoing-development cannot be reduced over time; like I said we are absolutely 100% committed to driving it down to offer better value to our customers.
What I am questioning though is the viability of the model you describe for the market you propose to support.
You only have to look at the sheer number of companies (mostly I would suggest much better funded than you) that have failed with this model in the TechCrunch DB - http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/deadpool/ to see that even in a market thousands of times bigger than this one, its very difficult to make it work using this approach.
Not that its a problem for us.. but it will be a bad thing for your customers when it doesn't work out!
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Recruiter |
| Date: | Thursday, 24th Sep 2009 21:25 |
| Views: | 92 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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Of course there's room for a free provider - if they can make money on the side - why not?
Ben - I think you have too much time on your hands ;)
By the way - how much is a single user on evolve per month - I checked you site and there's no pricing - which is a bit odd for a SaaS provider? |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Dave Thomas |
| Date: | Thursday, 24th Sep 2009 23:44 |
| Views: | 91 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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Well I can see you're really busy Ben. You guys must just be fighting the clients off if you've got time to write a mini thesis.
As for marginal costs...........er no. They really are almost £0.
The client will soon be able to self register and build their own microsite which they can adjust as they please - we simply don't need to be involved. In addition the system is so simple to use that we don't need to offer a days training and rarely if ever get any questions from clients. It's not £0 in the sense that iTunes has a marginal cost of £0 but pretty damn close.
Let's just say we have different visions of where the market is heading. I'm not saying that it will be exclusively an advertising funded model but probably more of a freemium approach. Get the core system free and pay for the extra bells and whistles if you want them. I'm pretty confident that's how the market will go, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. We're not planning on developing it till next year so you've got a little while yet before some of your smaller clients jump ship.
Just out of interest.........what do you charge?
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Paula |
| Date: | Friday, 25th Sep 2009 06:34 |
| Views: | 103 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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Hi,
I have been looking at an open source for a small contingent recruitment company based in Cambodia. The firm has 5 users at the moment and they are not planning to expand much more than this. All the databases I have found charge you monthly quotes and this would not be possible here.
I came across RecruitPro, they say they have an open source but when it got to download the files, they "forgot" to include the execution file.
I was also recommended ResumeFox, cheaper than the average recruitment software application, no added monthly cost.
So, answering your question, an open source recruitment software would be interesting
Thank you
Paula |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | m |
| Date: | Friday, 25th Sep 2009 09:53 |
| Views: | 99 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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my two pence, I hate evolve.
They tell you all these things about data backup, secondary backup, tertiary backup allllll these backups..... done for you because they host your data and all that...
when I had a demo and asked what about my other documents that are locally on the computer (such as business contracts and other correspondence) they just told me to make a company record and bakcup everything into that (manually) what a rubbish...
Either go the whole nine yards...... with a remote desktop solution , or dont do anything with these so called webbrowser based providers.
I still like the local computer approach, got myself a great software product, I pay 25 quid per month, for sql server and all that. and its get backed up via jungledisk every night. I use exchange for emails so that is not an issue either.
The funny thing is all these providers tell you that in the case of fire, you can be up and running within 30 minutes...
well I would like to know where I can get 30 pc's, 30 phones, 30 desks a new office space from within 30 minutes,. It is a false promise.
So either remote desktop with your software on there. Or go for www.catsone.com which also has a free section.
The fact that the product is free for the op is not a new idea, there are other providers out there already.
Perhaps rdbpro is also a good solution as it has the remote desktop solution too, albeit a bit pricey but then again it seems to do the trick for their customers.
just my two cents worth.
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Ben Stoneham |
| Date: | Friday, 25th Sep 2009 14:12 |
| Views: | 104 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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'm' wrote "when I had a demo and asked what about my other documents that are locally on the computer (such as business contracts and other correspondence) they just told me to make a company record and bakcup everything into that (manually) what a rubbish... "
Not sure that's a cricism of the product per-se.. is it though?
I mean there are doubtless many things that you have on your PC that one might reasonably say fall outside of the remit of what a front-office system is designed to store - music, video any number of miscelaneous items (we don't offer an MP3 players as part of the product either ;-) )
That said, whomever suggested that solution to you was, I think offering an option that might address this (and if the documents related to clients, contacts, vacacies or anything to do with the process, then evolve is specifically designed to store them anyway).
.... but as you say if you are looking for a general offsite backup solution for your workstation, then we'd agree that a 3rd party solution like Amazon S3, Bingodisk or any one of many others that are out there would be one way to go (though this wouldn't scale for larger customers very well).
You also say.. "The funny thing is all these providers tell you that in the case of fire, you can be up and running within 30 minutes... "
Again, this is a criticism of the product because...?
For the sake of debate though.. We have had a couple of instances where clients have been broken into (one in which the thieves chainsawed their way through multiple partitions in serviced offices and stole over 50 PCs).. in I think both cases, the client had new workstations in place next day (thanks to Dell) and with all of their primary data stored in evolve, we able to get back to work within 24hrs.
On the other hand, had they had to re-install servers & download several GBs worth of data from an online backup service, they would have had more than a couple of days unable to work..
The point is that if you really absolutely had to be back up and running in 30 minutes no matter what, then at least you could make provision (serviced offices with DR desk solution for example) to do so without being restrained by whether the vendor/ solition could support it.
Time to recover is not for most people the most important reason for outsourcing however..security of data is.
So 'm', I'm quite open to critical comment.. and wouldn't suggest that evolve has the absolute solution to every situation or requirement you have, but I don't think we need to feel too bad about either of the two criticisms you make here!
Now.. time on my hands Dave ? I always like to debate things ;-) and I have writtent a couple of thesis its true (including a Master's research piece for University of London on development methodologies, licensing and commercial models as it happens ;-) )
It does take time to formulate a response, but what I do know is that it's a good way to learn and refine one's views - hopefully not above admiting if I/ we are wrong when we need to -or changing my mind if new evidence/ good argument is presented..
I do note you didn't respond to any of the key points of yours I countered though.. maybe you need some more time, or perhaps you feel deflated over the reality of Rackspace's downtime (you shouldn't feel too bad though, they are one of the better hosting cos as I say ;-) )
I do have to point out that you seem to have changed your position between your first and last posts though..
You originally said:
"our software would be totally free without any usage restrictions.." "No catches, contracts etc " "We would generate a healthy revenue stream from other sources..... mainly from posting your jobs for you to job boards"
Which then became:
"Get the core system free and pay for the extra bells and whistles if you want them"
So which is it? Are you thinking that actually, maybe you might need to charge for something other than seeing commission from advertising?
That's a bit of a different position from where you started!
The point here is that I question the validiry of original model you proposed.. I simply do not believe that the business model can work given the context as I described in my earlier post..
In contrast the 'pay for what you use' / pluggable/ flexible pricing model is an entirely different proposition and most principally is something that we subscribe to as it is founded on the basis that people are happy to pay for things that offer them good value.
Put simply, if you can allow your customers to pick and choose according to their individual requirements, then it offers greater utility value vs a static product solution. Everyone is happy!
In keeping with this, pricing of evolve is dynamic, falliing typically between the 2 figures you mention, depending on what feature/ service set the customer wants and how many users they have.
'Recruiter' - no we don't publish a price list online because it does depend on the detail of each customer's needs.
We do talk about it quite regularly though, but aren't confident that we can translate the range of options into a meaningful 'a-la-carte' menu that would allow pricing in this way (just because lots of them are quite detailed in terms of what they actually do/ offer)..
To be fair, we don't exactly hide behind our pricing either as per my comment above! If we can satisfy ourselves that we could represent it in a digestable format online without sending everyone to sleep, then we're open to doing so for sure. |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Ben Stoneham |
| Date: | Friday, 25th Sep 2009 14:33 |
| Views: | 102 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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Just to throw something else in the mix... I wonder what the recruiters here think about thge same approach of 'low to no hands on" (fixed low fee) recruiting?
It has some bearing to the discussion here because it shares the general principles of disintermediation using technology i.e cutting out the middle, connecting (in this case candidates to clients directly)..
I know that quite a lot of recruiters take the same sort of position over this that I've been promoting in this debate i.e. that recruiters should be able to charge a fair fee for the value that they add for their clients and that simply charging a client a fixed fee and having them substantially do the work to trawl through your candidate DB devalues the professionalism of the industry and (as importantly) leads to poorer quality hires & results for the people that matter - candidates and clients!
I just ask, because I notice that your company Dave 'http://www.zodo.co.uk' has just that model!
"Because our model is ultra low cost we don’t meet any candidates face to face. Occasionally we will phone them if we are unsure about something and we regularly email them to ask them questions about their cv. Each cv we put forward to you has been read and checked for suitability with your must have skill requirements for the role."
" addition we let you communicate with the candidate once we've sent you their cv. So you arrange your own interviewing and offer management process."
My feeling (and I may be wrong of course) is that not many would think it was the way forward for an industry that is keen to demonstrate the value it adds though..
Not least of all because if you take it in that direction, you are one step closer to the Job Boards (good value or not) putting an end to the industry as a whole.
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | lll |
| Date: | Friday, 25th Sep 2009 18:02 |
| Views: | 93 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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Dave, dave, dave.....
tut tut tut....
"In fact we have access to so many cvs that we are able to fill around 40% of all vacancies sent to us (a typical agency fills about 1 in 12 jobs sent to them). "
Where do you get these statistics?
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Recruiter |
| Date: | Saturday, 26th Sep 2009 00:52 |
| Views: | 95 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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Ben - are you saying that your pricing is too complicated for us to understand?
I think that if you are going to'criticise (at great length) a competitor for their pricing model, you shouldn't then wriggle when challenged to provide your own numbers.
If your approach is to charge as much as you can on a case by case basis, then of course I understand why you cant publish.
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | erm |
| Date: | Thursday, 8th Oct 2009 13:47 |
| Views: | 95 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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So Dave, you claim to be the next Google?
Let me ask you a question...........do you use Google? How much do you pay for that?
I pay a lot for adwords.
Ever used Hotmail? How much do you pay for that?
Hotmail hacked.
Ever watched a programme on ITV? How much do you pay for that?
I have no choice or control over what I watch on ITV
Every used Skype? How much do you pay for that?
2p per connection. Ever tried to get a response from customer support at skype??
I have to agree with most of the others on this forum, free does not mean good. All of the 'free' services I have used in business have turned out to have a sting in the tail. Extracting myself out of a 'free' recruitment software package a few months ago was a nightmare.
How many recruiters here offer a free service? As recruiters we cannot offer a free service as we all of a cost of sale. You also have a cost of sale- and good luck to you if you think you are going to make enough revenue from some strange aggregation model- what happens to your clients a few months down the line when you decided you have to fold?
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | Dave Thomas |
| Date: | Thursday, 8th Oct 2009 23:41 |
| Views: | 88 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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oh for goodness sake. What a non argument.
Google......................free to the user
Hotmail......................free to the user
ITV............................free to the user
Skype to Skype.........free to the user
You're missing the point. The point I've been trying to make is that over time business models evolve and the once sacrosant approach of " it's a product/service therefore you pay for it" is no longer true. All the examples I have listed are perfectly valid but operate in different ways but the key thing is that each is in its own way free to the user with revenues earned from alternative sources.
All I'm trying to say is that there is no reason why that approach can't work for recruitment software - the core product is essentially given away free of charge and revenues earned from either agreements with job boards and/or from selling premium services that a small percentage of agencies might want.
If you don't believe it's coming to the recruitment software market then you are just not aware of what is happening in the online software market. Specifically for client side systems we are now 1 of 3 companies that give away an ATS absolutely free and make money from a premium version of it. It's already making inroads client side and it's only a matter of time before the same thing happens for agency products. 2010 in fact when we release our free agency version which this discussion forum has persuaded us to do and thanks to all the agencies that have contacted us. We'll update you in about 6 months time once we have a release time line for you.
As for 'conflict of interest'........it's called a contract. Your data is your data - we don't go anywhere near it.
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | erm |
| Date: | Monday, 12th Oct 2009 09:23 |
| Views: | 98 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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this is my point exactly-
Google......................free to the user - a good search engine whose revenue comes from ads and reselling data- where is your revenue stream coming from?
Hotmail......................free to the user - a very basic webmail account. No professional organisation would use a free webmail account?
ITV............................free to the user - old hat TV. TV has moved on from this some time ago.
Skype to Skype.........free to the user - again, professional companies need skype out to call non-skype phones.
These free services are fine for domestic use.
For my business I want a reliable, serious product, for which I pay for. I worked for a financial software firm some years ago, the investment they put into product development, support etc was a major part of their revenue. I would not be comfortable having my business critical systems given to me for free where the provider 'hoped' they would generate revenue from other channels.
Show me where in the SERIOUS business world where CRM, finance, logistics, software is given away for free?
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | web recruiter |
| Date: | Monday, 12th Oct 2009 15:18 |
| Views: | 82 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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I would have thought that recruitment software companies would not be allowed to also run an agency?
I noticed your comment Dave about it not being a conflict of interest, but what is actually stopping a company likes yours seeing my data other than your goodwill?
One final point I see you are comparing yourself to google, hotmail and skype. all of them had huge investment which allowed them to set up the infrastructure needed to support customers. How many people in dedicated support do you have? If I used your product how confident can I be that I will be supported? |
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| Reply To This Thread |
| Re: Free recruitment software |
| Author: | beware free software |
| Date: | Monday, 12th Oct 2009 17:44 |
| Views: | 87 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds) |
| Category: | Recruitment Software | | URL: | http://web.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum/Forum/read.php?i=192431 |
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I run a small recruitment business and used free software for a while. I did this purely on the basis of cost and thought it had the basic features I needed to run my business.
I was left with poor support and a product that did half of what I needed it to do. All promised upgrades never materialised and the cost to extract my data was extortionate. The whole time I was with this company they tried to upsell me other products and were happy enough to talk when they thought they would have more money out of me but would ignore me whenever I could not get the free product to work.
A shortcut that almost cost me my business.
Just my own experience, I am not for one minute suggesting your product is no good. |
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