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"The Launchpad is a series that introduces Mashable readers to compelling startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.\nName: Kareer.me\nOne-Liner Pitch: It's a discovery network for finding awesome employers \u2014 LinkedIn meets StumbleUpon.\nWhy It's Taking Off: Company culture attracts the best applicants, and recruiters need a better way to show it off. Job seekers are looking for more than a skill-to-task fit. \nAt some point you may have come across (or written) a job listing entitled: \"The job of a lifetime ... for the right person.\" Jobs these days, especially in digital fields, are increasingly unique. The career ladder isn't vertical anymore; it's often cross-department, as technology creates new needs and companies must hire someone with varied skills and talents to complete a task they've never seen before. \nFor recruiters, finding that person can seem a needle in a haystack-style riddle. \nKareer.me fills in the gap with a new product aimed at providing recruiters with a talent pipeline. Companies create a hub page which captures company culture through a slideshow of the office space, profiles of current employees or managers, press clippings and of course, current job opportunities. On the site, users (a.k.a., talent) can \"Follow\" a company. \nInterestingly, it's a less aggressive action than say, favoriting a job posting (even AngelList's talent vertical initiates an immediate introduction). You can appreciate another company's ethos even if you'e not actively looking to ditch your current position, making Kareer.me a nice fit for those ever-so-trendy passive job seekers.\n \nThis is a much different experience than uploading a resume to a job site, because here, the applicant is able to express interest in a specific company based on its overall image, rather than the fact that they're in need of a job. \nPassive Job Seekers\nA 2012 study by CareerBuilder found that 74% of workers are either actively searching for a new job or open to a new opportunity. The job search is always on.\n\"A good recruiting strategy builds relationships over time,\" says Matthew Wickstrand, Kareer.me founder and CEO. \"You get better talent.\"\nThe site is built for this type of long-term engagement. Once a company on Kareer.me has followers, it can send them messages. Say a large company such as Ogilvy amassed 2,000 followers on Kareer.me and created a new position. The recruiter could send a message to anyone who's followed a the company in the past, rather than going out and posting the job opportunity on the web's myriad job listing sites. \nSEE ALSO: The Pros and Cons of Passive Job Seekers\n\nThe need for a more \"lean back\" job search is expressed by seekers as well. One commenter on Hacker News discussed his process for finding a job: \"I don't look for jobs that have been posted \u2014 my feeling is that jobs that make it to [job listing sites] are all jobs that have been picked over by people working at (or close with) the company ... When appropriate, I tell them about my background and skills and ask who I should be in contact with to learn when new opportunities open up.\" This is a classic profile of a passive job seeker. \nCompany Culture\nThe value in having a company hub page is immediately obvious to recruiters. Alex Schiff,Founder and CEO at TechStars-backed Fetchnotes, says Kareer.me is the \"Launchrock for jobs\" he's been wishing for. If a company already has assets \u2014 the job listings, the team photos \u2014 it can take mere minutes to set up the page, Wickstrand says. \nThe ability to build your Kareer.me page into your own site (i.e., yoursite.com/jobs) is coming soon.\nAdam Kurzawa, who as director of business development at Expand The Room has done some recruiting, notes that small- to mid-size digital agencies such as his own can be overlooked by job seekers. Likely, a developer from Texas who is moving to New York will send a resume to the big name agencies and never find the boutique agencies, although the culture at one of these may be a better fit.\nWhen it comes to jobs, \"it isn't just a job description,\" Kurzawa says, noting the laid back culture and diverse staff as a few characteristics that make his company unique. \"Being able to showcase that in a better way would absolutely be a plus.\"\nA product similar to Kareer.me is offered at The Muse on a subscription basis. Kareer.me's company profiles will always be free, but Wickstrand notes that job postings will only be free for a limited time. \nKareer.me is currently in beta and targeting five tech-centric cities \u2014 San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Chicago \u2014 for initial growth (although he's accepting companies from other locations as well). While there's a pain point around hiring and finding a job in nearly every industry, Kareer.me is built for digital companies, which have something of a reputation for competing for engineers with sweet office space or expansive benefits. \n\"At a lot of these companies, almost 90% of resources is on human capital,\" Wickstrand says. \"They don't have recruiting resources, it falls to the background. When they get to, 'oh we need somebody' \u2014 it's almost too late.\"\nYour company can apply to join Kareer.me's discovery network here.  \nImage courtesy of gerlos and Kareer.me"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/04/03/kareer-me/>