iProfile (SkillsMarket) review: dying for web 2.0

I'm not sure how to structure my review of iProfile (note, the URL is www.iprofilecentral.com), given the confusion I experienced while getting familiar with their service. Much of this confusion stems from a fundamental assumption I made at the beginning: that iProfile is a consumer offering. In fact, while it has great potential benefit for job seekers, it really is an HR infrastructure play at this point.

Let me start over. iProfile is a service that allows candidates to create an online CV / resume which can then be kept standard across many recruitment agencies. The service is created by the Skills Market, who also offer related HR services. The idea is that rather than maintaining your CV on many recruiters' websites (databases), you can maintain it once and use it across all compatible recruiters. I found, however, that despite this seemingly wonderful attempt at standardization of data, there are some problems.

The root of the problems is that iProfile does not own the customer relationship - yet. The compatible recruiters do. You would never know about iProfile unless a compatible recruiter's website mentioned it. And you have to use some Google magic to find the registration form on the iProfile website (assuming you know about the website). After I found the registration form, I was told that my iProfile account had been created already - when I, erstwhile, uploaded my CV to some recruitment firm's website.

Now, the problem goes beyond simple marketing reach. After (re)registering with iProfile, I logged in and viewed my iProfile CV details, which were a mess. Personal details were in my objective. Companies where I had worked were missing altogether, etc. Why was it a mess? Undoubtedly my word doc CV was parsed (translated) into iProfile format, relying on CV/resume parsing software which is notoriously inconsistent. So I edited my account by hand.

Most recruiter's websites allow you to upload a word doc or text CV; they don't require users to fill out complex CV forms for fear of annoying potential candidates. Therefore, if iProfile is fronted by recruiters' websites, then most iProfile CVs are probably junky until you (knowingly) fix them up.

Next, I registered with two sites on the iProfileExchange list (preferred-it and lorien resourcing), and saw no initial mention of iProfile -- only a simple CV uploading form. So, there was no way for me to know (if I didn't already) that these firms were compatible. A day later, I was emailed an acknowledgement that preferred-IT was iProfile compatible, and that I could check on my iProfile account, which I did, only to find that my CV was again a mess! It seems my uploaded and parsed CV overwrote the edits I had made a day earlier.

OK, such a problem can be fixed with a programmer and a bit of time, but you can see where this is going. It seems like there's a weak alignment of incentives between recruiters and iProfile, and that iProfile is not leveraging consumer power to drive recruiters' behavior, which is in turn leading to poor implementation.

My Angle

Not all hope is lost! Also, according to various press releases on theSkillsMarket website, the company has 2 million iprofiles, is growing operations, and has just received 3 million GBP more in investment. Among other things the funds will be used to "Launch a new online portal, which will add advanced Web 2.0 functionality for candidates." Perhaps iProfile has been biding its time, building an infrastructure and relationships, and is going straight to the consumer now that it has some market power. With a proper online marketing campaign, iProfile can begin implementing a CV push - where candidates can write their CV once - as structured data - and distribute it outwards.

Somehow, I think the business relationships in place might suffer with such an CV-push offering, but it's the kind of thing we would like to see. (You know, I had an idea exactly like this once that slowly transformed into something else, but never mind that). But I have to wonder, if this is the plan, why didn't they do such a thing all along?

Could the SkillsMarket fit into the Liquid HR market? Clearly, it could. The iProfile is obviously contributing towards the standardization of data as its core offering, and it utilizes HR-XML (I'm pretty sure, as one of the SkillsMarket founders, who I once met, is a founder of the HR XML consortium for Europe). But what role does iProfile fulfill? Well, the forthcoming Web 2.0 frontend could include just about anything. As it stands, however, iProfile is not a Matchmaker (that's done by the compatible websites), nor an Information Provider. And this is where I believe the company is falling down: it is not yet a Conduit, either, because there is currently not enough incentive for compatible recruiters to share information, and candidates are not knowledgeable enough of iProfile or empowered to drive CV updates out through iProfile. Hence, not much data flow about candidates -- not a Conduit.

The verdict? If you're a recruiter or hiring company, check out the commercial requirements for partnership, and if they're not too steep, it's worth a thought. As for myself, I'm concerned about forcing my users into the kind of experience (i.e. profile overwriting) I had. For candidates, my jury is out - it doesn't seem like candidates are yet very empowered by iProfile. If you're an investor or industry person, I could be completely wrong about this business, but I'm wondering whether SkillsMarket has been too conservative in catering to the HR market in its old form to the detriment of its current growth and perhaps its future. I think the big bet is on the new Web 2.0 features. Tell me this company is highly profitable and prove me wrong, but I think these guys need to turn the corner still in order to realize their excellent potential. Otherwise, they're an HR integrator. We'll be watching!

Comments

[James Novak]

Have you review iProfile since it updated? It looks like they have addressed a lot of the candidate focused issues you outline in this article.

[Mark Radoff]

Hey James, second review recently completed (a bit late, but better than never).