Need Detailed advice and honest opinion of business idea

[Anthony2785]

Hello members,
The basis to my business proposal begins with an online service provided to unemployed students within a college setting. The service involves direct job matching for customers, which would mainly consist of students. This would be done by way of a student sumbitting a brief online resume and I would find the ideal job within the local area according to the students schedule, interest, and experience. A minimum fee would be charged for resume submission, and this would allow a unprecedented convience for students looking for a job. After reviewing the resume, I would contact possible job opportunities and establish interviews, which benefit the company and customer. Companies therefore have an easier way to find employees while customers have an easier way to find a job. The premise is that I eliminate all the work needed to be done by customers looking for a job. Within 2-3 weeks of submitting a resume, I would contact the customer with the best matched options. The reason this is drastically different from Monster.com or jobsearch.com, is that my service is for jobs not careers, and I dont just "list best options", I connect the two. I do the footwork and contact between parties. The profit then comes in turn of the resume fee. Once properly established, word of mouth amongst students would allow for constant business. College students are generally lazy or have a busy schedule, therefore my business plan would eliminate the job searching process.

[Jeff]

Sounds like a really good idea. Would you just charge for the resume to be submited?

I was just thinking you could aslo charge per week/day whatever, you work on the account. Or if they actually get the job.

I dont know just thoughts. The idea sounds awesome.

[jesterno2]

as a soon to be graduating student i think the business sounds great. however for your sake i would rethink the costs unless you are going to charge a hefty fee for submitting a resume. sounds like a lot of work for not much money. would you have a system in place to help you with the business or would you do all the work yourself?

[Anthony2785]

I would probably do a combination of both. I figured, after establishing a steady format, I would add a program to match customers with opportunites. Please give me any more ideas. I know that the profit does not seem worth the investment, so if anyone has ideas to to increase profit please let me know. THANK YOU GUYS FOR ALL THE ADVICE... please continue with ANY advice you can give me.

[jesterno2]

i cant think of anything to recommend for your business but if you want to see another opportunity i have one to show. i could send you some free reports if youre interested.

[Anthony2785]

sure, I would love to hear any other opportunites. I am too ambitious not to take advantage of a real opportunity.

[jimmiejo]

you basically want to become a headhunter. which is a great industry, if you play your cards right. i think the market you're targeting has potential but nowhere near as much as established businesspersons. most headhunters are executive recruits, who have companies contact them with available positions and salaries, and you as the headhunter would go through all of your job seeking clients and contacts and would propose the position to whom you think would fit the role. and i think it's usually about 10% of the proposed salary is paid to you as a finders fee from the company.

still, students could be a great target if you create a system and network to kind of template the process and yield the most profit. maybe offer resume/cover letter writing from pre-created templates, and 3 guaranteed interviews, for $200. Then just establish a network with as many businesses in several industries in your area. Get them to put you at the top of the list when a position opens, and just do what you already said, match the applicable student with it.

you might even be able to find a systematic way, through experimentation, that can look for certain qualities/prerequisites to match a candidate to an industry or level.

theres a lot of potential in your idea, especially if you can create a simple step by step process online, that allows students to sign up, pay, and have the entire job hunting process occuring virtually online. they could submit their current resume/cover letter, and have revised and returned for approval within 3 days, at which time 10 potential companies are listed to see if they meet the students interests. the student can view job descriptions, specs, salaries, location, etc... and then choose 3 of the companies to have an interview arranged. it could all be step by step with progress reports along the way.

and if the student is unsuccessful in landing a job from your 3 provided companies, they could receive another 3 interviews for an additional fee.

keep at it, and think of other features you could add to the company to make it interesting to your market and potential employers. good luck.

[Steve]

I like the idea.

Marketing would be the hard part.

You can go many ways about it -- but there are many jobs that college students fit and many that they don't. So it's easy to choose jobs.

IE: Fast Food part time would work, but not be great (as most college kids are above that).

Valet Parking, Home Depot type etc are easy pickings.

Summer work is also easy. Construction, Hotel type jobs, etc.

If you want to discuss more feel to write me an email.

[Anthony2785]

I thank you guys soo much for your imput and ideas. One major piece of criticism that i recieved for my ideas from my friends is that "Why would they use my service if they can do it themselves?" and "Why pay for it when all I have to do is look in the classified section?" How should i approach this major idea.

[jimmiejo]

simply guarantee your student clients a set amount of interviews, you don't have to guarantee them a job, just the interviews. they can't guarantee themselves any interviews and if you are going to offer the same jobs listed in the classifieds forget about it. there are hundreds of people that apply for one pathetic paying position and any company that advertises a position in the paper has no idea what they're after.

[BetterEdit.com]

Hmm, I'm not certain there is a business model that you can profit from. Students don't have a lot of cash (especially if they are looking for work!) so it would make more sense to target the business (employer) as the revenue source. That being said I'm not certain an employer would pay much to find student labour. It's not a skill intensive are like standard corporate headhunting targets.

Perhaps if you provided a site that allowed students to submit a resume for free, build up a huge database of labour, and then sell access right to this database to employers. The many-to-many principle - usually works best but hard to market and get off the ground.

My thoughts anyway...

[pentupentropy]

I was thinking kind of the same thing. Hard to get college kids to pay money. Headhunter platform is ok, but maybe you could also consider setting up a split test to see which helps you and the students better... you could charge them for resume on one hand or fo rinterviews... or... you could work like a temp agency and charge by contract or by hour... taking about $0.25 -$0.50 per hour per student placed. The companies who hire pay you on top of what they offer the student, and so if you could place 50 students at a time at say 20 hours per week each, that'd be $1,000 per month. I don't know exactly how many or how big you're thinking, but smaller sometimes can help you manage it better and have time to focus on what needs improving.

[BetterEdit.com]

Yeah, good idea pentupentropy.

Provided you got the legals worked properly you could a business one student at a time. Get them to build a resume, get out there and find them a job which you get a percentage of hours worked, and then work on the next student. Slowly you would build up contacts and perfect your systems.

Eventually you would expect the time it takes to find a person a job would be greatly reduced because you know how the system works and you have a huge network of employers to utilise.

Of course it would take time, patience and probably a lot of unpaid hours worked during start-up (but that's a pretty standard story for a start-up).

[evolvingentrepreneur]

Too much work.

Not enough leverage.

Not enough ROI with the investment part being time in this case.

[pentupentropy]

are you kidding? I'm not saying it's not a lot of work.. it definitely is - but I don't know anyone who has started a business, much less kept it successfully running without busting their rump. The people I have known who have done it with the least amount of effort have cut corners and even borderlined illegal or have done things completely illegal, but that's a badly blown balloon.

I knew a guy who owned a company who sold stuff via telemarketing for 10-50x what you'd pay in a store. He got people to buy it because the telemarketers would send free gifts to the purchasers (employees of the person who ended up with the bill). He got busted sending someone a TV for a 5K order and now he's being sued left and right. I bet the legal fees alone bankrupt him AND the company.