New Site Adds Social Media and Online Connections to Job Search.
As more and more people turn to the internet to find work or to hire for an open position, a new site called SideSkills.com is setting out to help people find work and grow their business through their online connections. For everything from home services to guitar lessons, SideSkills.com aims to utilize online networks to create a perfect match between hopeful employees and determined-particular employers.
Ryan McKenzie, the founder of SideSkills.com, said that his own experiences with hiring prospects for both office and freelance positions online, led him to see the need for a site like this.
“I was running a web development company and was hiring people online that I knew nothing about. After a while, I realized that it was always a gamble with the quality of work I was going to get,” McKenzie says.
McKenzie started sending e-mails to friends and asking for recommendations of people that work in web development, that’s when the idea for SideSkills struck him. “I realized that a lot of my friends and co-workers knew people directly that were looking for work. I found that it was much easier to meet someone through a personal reference then over the sites that I was currently using to find employees. That is what SideSkills.com is all about: using your personal connections, that are now virtually connected through social media sites like Facebook and Linkedin, to find qualified people and to receive job offers that you know are specifically right for you.”
With SideSkills.com, members can share their “Skills” and work portfolios with one another on the site, which will initially be used for jobs, both paid and unpaid. The site eliminates the problem of spamming, which is currently plaguing other online job sites, by making the positions invite only. This allows the person who is hiring to invite people to apply for the job instead of letting just anyone apply. McKenzie hopes people will use the site to turn their hobbies or interests into businesses or careers, and let potential employers know as much as they can about a candidate before making their hiring decision.
