Experteer Update

  Yesterday I spoke with Torsten Muth, MD of Experteer.

Torsten had made contact after reading my blog post and wanted to put his side across.

He firstly gave me an overview of the Experteer brand...

The concept comes from Germany, where it was first launched.  Experteer now has sites across a number of different European countries.  They target the executive/senior manager market (ie, those people earning c£50k plus per annum).

One of their fundamental beliefs is that senior job seekers should have the opportunity to have a full picture of all available jobs and information on the job market to help them make a decision on their next career move.

Obviously a part of a complete and comprehensive picture of the job market would include information on job salaries.  Whilst Torsten understands some companies do not wish to provide information on the salary he believes that the jobseeker wants to see a benchmark; even if this is just an average of what this job, in the market, would pay. 

Their focus is strongly on the jobseeker rather than the recruiter.  Their key revenue streams are from these jobseekers although they do offer a "premium" services to headhunters (they can pay for more advanced placement on the site).

I mentioned to Torsten that one of the key issues Emma at Sky (and now a number of other members of the FIRM) had was around the inclusion of incorrect salary detail.  Torsten readily admitted that benchmarking salaries is bound to result in some inaccuracies.  However, if this is pointed out to them they are very keen to correct them.  If a  company contacts Experteer to say the salary information is wrong then they will amend the job because  this is also in the interest of their target audience. 

However, and this the other point that has annoyed some HR recruiters, What they do not want to do is to remove jobs from the site. They are happy to take them off once they have expired, but, if a corporate phones saying they don't want the job on the site their policy is to not remove it.  The reasoning being that otherwise they can't provide a comprehensive service to jobseekers. 

Torsten confirms that legally they can link to jobs from other sites.  This is where I need to amend what I originally wrote; they do not actually copy and paste or edit the text in any way.  The jobs are not scraped.  They are linked to (the reference to the site is a job title, company name, post code, level, function and salary benchmark).   A candidate who applies will do so via whatever application route is advertised on the originating site,which Experteer considers the channel of choice companies provide for applicants.  This also means that if a job has expired and you have removed it from your site the reference link is no longer live.

The other issue Torsten wanted to raise when we spoke is the feedback I posted about his behaviour. He wanted to make it clear that being rude or offensive is not his style.  I have to admit that in all my dealings with him (three phone calls in total now - including a long one to create this post) he was a pleasure to deal with.  Even when he first phoned  he wasn't complaining about the blog post - merely keen to get his point across too.

So, my summary..... Experteer doesn't scrape jobs; they link to them.  I have no problem with this.  It's a shame they don't inform all the companies involved that they are doing this (however, I get that this is probably not a viable option for an organisation of their size). I understand why they want to include salary information (to match up jobs and applications that fit to the salary range and stop un-necessary applications).  I also understand why many companies don't publish this on their adverts. It's unfortunate that this will sometimes result in misinformation.  Finally, with regard to my previous "bad behaviour" comments - I really don't think I can say anything more than I think I know Emma well enough to say she hasn't got a fiery temper (will update you if that changes!!) and Torsten was more than reasonable on the phone.  Sorry - but I'm going have to step back and sit on the fence on that point!

Comments

[cat]

be entertained

[Gary Franklin]

I am confused by some of his comments in his response. If as Mr Muth claims he doesn't scrape job postings but simply provides a link to where the job is posted, why do so many of the Top 500 companies in the UK who are members of The FIRM claim that their jobs have been scraped and salaries misrepresented? I know who I would believe.
In addition I do not believe that they have a policy regarding job removal as claimed above. We know that when members of The FIRM from top name companies (and BskyB is just one of them) have complained and asked for the jobs to be removed, Experteer has complied and removed the jobs, but complaints from smaller or less known companies have been ignored and the jobs have not been removed. This leads me to the conclusion that they have a selective “policy” based purely on the size and potential influence a complaining company has or is perceived to be able to exert within the market.
What he and they need to realise they are creating a misleading perception in the market that will cause confusion and dissatisfaction that many of the companies affected cannot afford and will not let happen.

Also as they are applicant focused all applicants using their service need to be made aware that they should not take for granted that the salary information on their site is accurate or in any way representative of the advertised position or the market. After all the market is 100% driven by the salaries paid by the employing companies and not statistics, averages and benchmarks gathered from select few.

Gary Franklin
Owner
The FIRM – The Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers

[P Tosh]

I would be interested to see how robust the legalities of Torsten's service are. The Database Protection Act protects the owner of databases from their being copied without due authority.

If Experteer is taking data without permission and then using the data as a hook for user subscription they could be on shaky ground - maybe not in the States, but certainly in the UK where this is case law (see Racing Post vs British Horseracing Board)

[Anne Curtis]

Be very careful if using this service. They make cancellation almost impossible and then refuse to issue a refund for unused services. They are not reputable online and should be avoided.

[sall-ann]

I'm glad I'm reading this blog. I've been curious about experteer for a while and I'm not surprised to see that they only want to swipe peoples money, why else would you make it hard to cancel?

[Karlo Novak]

Recently I was offered 7 days free 'premium membership' by Experteer. Even though I'm not actively looking for a role right now, it had been some time since I'd used the service (I'd cancelled all the weekly emails the site had been sending me since I had not found them useful).

I therefore thought I would spend a few minutes browsing the site to see what was different about the premium offering.

From memory, I was struggling to see what was immediately different. A jobseeker is presented with their own profile, a list of lots of headhunters, and the ability to search for jobs.

And this is on the back of a minimum monthly £5.50 fee (12 month contract). Full details: https://www.experteer.co.uk/payment/career/header

Although, I note that "...Experteer includes jobs that you may also find posted on corporate websites, but also many that are posted by headhunters and not available on regular, “open” job search sites..." I am somewhat just how many of these unadvertised jobs there really are. In short, I am still really, really struggling to see why any potential employee should pay for this service when there are the likes of Efinancial /Monster etc, all of which give job-hunters the ability to post their own searchable profile. That said, I know Experteer raised €8 m of VC capital, so perhaps am I missing something, and people do think this is a viable business model and a useful service?

[Niall Sullivan]

Nothing emanates from this site for job applicants other than continual e-mails urging me to upgrade to "Premium" membership....at a fee.
Once bitten.....