#BeKnown: #Monster Creates Potential Competition to #LinkedIn

booleanstrings Uncategorized 13 Comments

BeKnown is good news! There are lots of posts out there with facts and screen shots, so I skip that.

Here some initial thoughts.

1) It’s fantastic to see potential competition to LinkedIn; Moster has been one of the few big players capable of that. LinkedIn’s quality has been hurt by not having competitors. Maybe LinkedIn will now do some fixing bugs, cleaning up user interface, and keeping features up and prices down as a result. Maybe we’ll even see last names shows in full for 3rd level connections again, what do you think?

2) There’s a large crowd of people that are, like my daughter Jane, on Facebook all the time and rarely or never  on LinkedIn. Looking at the statistics, many of those folks seem likely to get engaged in BeKnown. They will be building profiles from scratch. But LinkedIn already has millions of profiles. Will people will have to choose LI or BK, or will there be a way to mix/sync them?

3) Privacy comes across as the largest perceived threat to BeKnown. Monster’s architects have done quite a bit to protect privacy but users may keep privacy concerns up even if you try to talk them out of that.

4) BeKnown carries an attractive, powerful referral functionality, where friends refer friends to jobs. We haven’t yet seen a referral system in software at this scale. It’s interesting how it will evolve.

5) BeKnown allows companies to show a different side of themselves: their working environment, culture, and hiring, as opposed to marketing that was usually fan pages’ purpose.

It’s not yet clear what “sharing” functionality is going to be like. Can I post a job and share outside of BeKnown? It also remains to see what the surface/open web component is going to be like.

Good luck to BeKnown. I have joined and hope you will, too.

Comments 13

    1. Good question! Privacy is important for all. Monster has spent lots of money and resources on beknown. Of course, they didn’t spend that much to build a product to challenge or change anyone’s sense of privacy. They used FB API but they made sure that BK and FB are reasonably separate.

      1. …and that is why we cannot search (but only invite) users for now. OK, it will change soon, I got it. 😉

        You know, Irina, it looks to me like a ‘naked’ LinkedIn version… Certainly, LinkedIn is mostly used for sales/recruiting purposes, however, I like that there are still some other options I can use and which make me engaged (groups, networking, polls, Q&As, different types of posting etc.). So, at the end of the day, LinkedIn is used for OTHER reasons and I am a bit sceptic whether a global job board – at the end of THEIR day! – will want me to do so more than recruiting.

        Will see, no doubt!

  1. I seriously doubt how far BeKnown will go to compete with LinkedIn. Basically the reason LinkedIn is so popular now is because they started with different intention of being a “pure” professional networking. Now they are using it to their advantage by selling recruitment solutions.

    Facebook apps like BeKnown OR BranchOut are different ball game all together. Plus, howsoever these Apps convince their users about privacy… FB never had a good track record in this dept. People come to LinkedIn for different reason and FB for different reason. FB apps has their own space to market jobs but in a limited capacity. LI is a big package and they operate with very different structure. I think FB is a very different landscape and these APPS should create their own space rather competing with LinkedIn.

    BranchOut created a same wave when it entered in the scene.. do anyone use it now? Not me…

  2. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And maybe of capturing revenues. But, I ask, will it do any better at all in getting the right people in the right jobs? Monster is terrible at this, so is LinkedIn, so is the whole system. BeKnown won’t change anything except revenue shifts, maybe, between Monster and LinkedIn. We need better matching, better fit, between person and job and that requires a lot more than a Linkedin-like profile. Matchpoint Careers provides that, maybe others. BeKnown and then what? Get the wrong job, just about half the time. Not good enough.

    1. Paul, thanks for your input!
      IMHO, nobody out there can do matching in software at this time. It’s just way too difficult (and I speak as a former software engineer too). Many charge but do not deliver.

  3. Actually, it is done all the time. Assessments match people and job and they far outperform any other method. That’s a widely published and verified fact. Traditionally, assessment approaches have required consultant intervention and a fair amount of money. But as in many fields of endeavor, technological advances and scientific advances enable technology (even s/w) solutions to replace consultants. It works – job-person matching, online, with assessments. Without that you are right: not doable.

  4. True – the trick is engaging & attracting with people and brands – not so much finding them in future. But also, with a multitude of online profiles which collectively are as one then all is fine as good profiles will inbound attract the right recruiters and jobs find people. Now without getting into ins and outs of how Beknown works I look at the model currently employed in respect of jobboards and largely the era of the en mass CV and poor candidate experience in web1.0 land.. Now the challenge is for jobboards is to be trusted to deliver a great experience of relevance to a recruitment v3.0 model as the passives will disconnect from such channels bombarding irrelevance whereas LinkedIn is a cleaner slate away from the mass JobBoard commercial model (thus far!). However many recruiters still think that LI is for broadcasting and not listening and engaging. Somewhere the Beknown will work in-between now and something else, but is a good stepping stone for a non linkedin user active on facebook to eventually get to linkedin rather than the other way around.. A little sceptical about badges and tokens over referrals and a hiring manager wouldn’t want to miss out on the less notoriety seeking and gaming ilk candidate. However we have to watch this space and get past the hype curve I guess! It’s good to see innovation in whatever form at that deserves 10/10.

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