But Career Element is drawing attention for its dream job feature, which allows people like Elizalde to name the price they are willing to pay to land a high-quality position.

     If an “agent” helps Elizalde get a job, his $10,000 bounty will be released – 87.5 percent to the agent, and 12.5 percent to Career Element.

     “The best way to get a job is through networking,” Campbell said. “But if you don’t know people, this is a great way to get their attention.”

     Now this is interesting.  I stumbled upon this website and news story the other day while doing a search on bounties, and this thing popped up. The concept is all about offering a cash award to anyone that can get you your dream job! Pretty cool huh?

     I have not signed up with this deal, but this is how it could work for anyone in our industry.  If you are the job seeker, you sign up and you post what type of job or jobs you are looking for in the industry.  Obviously you should be qualified for the jobs, but still, put it out there and put up a sizable bounty that could get you some interest.  In the example above, this guy posted a $10,000 dollar bounty for his particular field. The question you need to ask as a security contractor is how much of a bounty would it take to get anyone interested in finding you a job?

    The other element to this is the agents.  For those of you who are on gigs who pull some weight with the company you are with, your recommendation of a qualified individual that is just trying to get into an industry like this, could make you a little money and help someone out.  Because what the job seeker is trying to do here is get a ‘network’ of agents, fueled by the possibility of collecting a bounty for their work or recommendation.

    This Career Elements website also promotes the negotiation period, which will further allow the job seeker and agent to talk about what is required for the task. The agent can also determine if they even want to recommend this job seeker.

    What is interesting with our industry is that there are numerous types of jobs out there that a guy could be qualified for, but because a job seeker doesn’t know anyone in the industry or know how to navigate it, getting a foot in the door could be rough.  Or getting their foot in the right door could be difficult as well.  An agent could also find that one job that the job seeker didn’t even think about.  Either way, it would be a way of connecting experienced job seekers (agents), with the folks that do not have an established network and want a job.

    The article below also talked about potential drawbacks of a system like this.  That recruiters from the companies might come onto a site like this and go after bounties to get people.  Would this be unethical?  I mean if a job seeker is qualified and is willing to fork over a bounty just to land a job, I would classify that as pretty dedicated. Not everyone can be good at finding jobs, and something like this is just another way to achieve that goal.

    I have noticed that companies already offer bounties to individuals that bring qualified linguists to them.  Folks that are in high demand are worth several thousand dollars in head hunting fees.  Some companies even offered rewards for bringing in special forces types to high level contracts.  So if companies can do this, why can’t contractors offer bounties to agents that could find them the jobs they are looking for?

     Oh, and one more thing.  I am not sure if Career Element has a policy against security contractors using their site.  I didn’t see anything that would prohibit our industry from participating, but you never know. And if they do have a problem, this might be a new thing for someone to start just for this industry? -Matt

Website For Career Element here.

New ways to find jobs: cash bounties, texting

Stop Endless Job Search Trials, Hire an Agent to Land Your Dream Job

New ways to find jobs: cash bounties, texting

By Casey Newton

December 19, 2010

Fernando Elizalde has tried the traditional ways of gaining employment.

He asks his family and friends for leads. He attends networking events. He sends out resumes constantly.

But after more than a year of looking for a job in private equity, and despite a master’s in business administration from UCLA, the 28-year-old finds himself with few leads and a growing sense of frustration.

So Elizalde took a different tack: He recently posted a bounty – $10,000 to the person who lands him a job.

Elizalde is one of the first job seekers to try Career Element, a Palo Alto startup that allows users to post a bounty for anyone who can help them get their job of choice. That person could be a recruiter or someone at the job hunter’s dream company who has inside knowledge on a position opening up.

“I feel like it provides a huge benefit during really hard times,” said Elizalde, who emigrated from Argentina a decade ago and lives in Los Angeles. “It provides more networking opportunities. Yeah, it’s artificial, because in some ways you’re buying those connections. But at the same time, when networking is so important, I don’t see why not.”

With California unemployment at 12.4 percent and the national rate at 9.8 percent, some Bay Area startups are taking novel approaches to helping people find work.

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Tags: Bounties, career element, Job Tips, Jobs, private military company, private security company, security contractor, Technology