True, but you have to take into consideration the type of job she wants.
Very few, if any, entry-level jobs in media and publishing pay 70K.
Plus I'm not so sure that $12/hour is so ridic. An entry level job at a consulting firm is ~70K but you work ~80 hours a week which results in a whopping $18/hour!
I disagree though with your idea about a database of applicants thats searchable by skill.
I think your system would fail without a means to authenticate and validate people's credentials, plus without a validation layer it'll only encourage people to exaggerate or lie about their skills.
The other problem from the perspective of an applicant is submitting resumes and cover letters to online postings often feels like all work for no gain. Most of these postings feel like black holes. You submit something and (typically) never hear back.
Maybe an improvement to your idea is some carrot/stick mechanism, that at the very least, incentives both parties to stick to good behavior (timely submissions of RELEVANT resume / cover letters and timely responses from the companies that listed the original posting). This would solve for some of the frustration these sites illicit.
Yeah, validation layer was one of the many, many issues with the system. Maybe a dating site type system...have an index of jobs and applicants. Free to send messages back and forth, completely anonymouse. Messages are "request for application", "application", "denial of application", "denial of request for application", "application accepted" (not you're hired, but the application was received and we're reviewing it), "request for screening" and "accept/decline screening". You can't send a message if you have one pending a response. Make it 100% free, charging money to increase the number of pending responses you can have and still send a message.
Don't mind the rambling...this is literally typing as I think.
"Look under your foot, do you see a twenty? No? Well, thats because someone already took it."
The point was a generalization of the fact that in a free market, arb opportunities don't exist because market inefficiencies are corrected in real-time.
Thats not always true, but the general point is.
The problem with finding good jobs on Monster, CL, etc. is that, more or less, there aren't any. Good jobs fill fast, most often through backdoor channels - networking, campus recruiting, etc.
The jobs that flow down to sites like Monster and CL are those that smart, skillfull people don't want.
Think about it from your own perspective. If you wanted to hire someone for a job, chances are you would turn to your circle of friends and trusted advisors and ask them if they knew anyone. You branch out from there like a ripple, with each ring being less focused and more general, until you hit mass market sites likes Monster.
I think this is why the majority of jobs on these sites are usually low-paying admin type work or one-off small business contractual work.
LinkedIn attempts to solve for this, but they I don't think they have a direct enough of a mechanism for doing so.
Other sites fail too because most operate under the assumption that they can do better by improving usability and don't really address the underlying problems, so they suffer from the same issues (namely no good work).
The sites that I think do a better job are those that are niche industry focused. Niche sites help job seekers find relevant (to them) jobs and job posters find relevant hires to fill those positions. This helps both parties filter down, which I think is their value-add.
Ultimately whatever improvement that hopes to be successful needs to focus on ways to either change or divert the current way most employers find employees - word of mouth and personal networks.
Perhaps better mining tools for LinkedIN would solve. I think some functionality that lists job seekers by skill (profile, resume) weighted by in-network relationships may help.
Another idea is scaling the head-hunter model for public consumption. Something where as a job poster, I could send a request out to my network on linkedin, and there would be some sort of incentive (money or otherwise) for those in my network to recommend people the know. There is already natural incentive to do so... having a solid network is a good skill to have by itself; knowing good people says good things about the type of person you are.
Just some thoughts. I know relatively little about this space, so my opinions are just based on my own experiences.
That joke actually reminds me of a more common counter-joke: when an economics professor sees money on the street, he doesn't pick it up, because it can't really be there
We've explored analyzing the impact that coaches bring to teams and athletes and have found some interesting results.
The big problem though, is that with the NFL at least, there are just wayyyyy too many coaches a player touches and that makes it hard to model to a degree.
Very much so. I've been going through The Book[1] trying to work out some of the calculations using clojure as an exercise in learning both topics. Baseball has an incredibly rich data and deep knowledge ecosystem that is fascinating (and sometimes profitable, just ask Nate Silver).
At my day job[2] we don't do much in the way of advanced analytics, but it's on the wishlist. I'm veering into shameless plug territory now, but if you are interested in this stuff, please check out our Saber blog[3]. Also if you are a smart dev, come work with us :)
Yeah - I play in fantast football league - it was a way of helping family keep in touch when my grandparents passed away. My dad, brothers, uncles and cousins are pretty in to football. I didn't really know much at all (probably couldn't really name more than 2-3 current players at the time), but the stats and numbers and everything keep me pretty interested. I get interested in the math behind things and trying to predict future performance (which is very difficult but fun to analyze nonetheless).
I won the league last year and was destroying people this year until the playoffs when my cousin had 3 players put out some of their best numbers of the season (combined they scored more than most teams of 8 usually do) and stop me in the playoffs. I am in the top 3 highest scoring teams every year. I find it alot of fun actually.
Yep. I also created my own analysis algorithms, which I planned to turn into a small subscription website a while back until I found out that the data services I needed were too expensive for me to turn a profit.
If you're interested in sports analytics, feel free to send me an email and we'll chat.
Plus I think you would be inundated with a bunch of unique one-off problems that while technically could be solved/improved via a tech solution, lacks the footprint to make it worth anyone's time.
I don't agree with your assertion that China is this manipulative siren and the googles and microsofts of this world are naive innocent suitors.
For all the talk of corruption, censorship, and privacy, the Chinese government is surprisingly transparent at the macro level.
Gates and co knew going into China that the government will not budge regarding issues that even remotely threaten their political legitimacy. This point extends itself naturaully to the economic arena as well, as it forms the foundation of CCP's legitimacy for the past few decades.
So all the IP frou-frouing in your post seems off-the-mark to me, not to mention that blatant copying can be found in really any developing economy. Before the rise of China, recall that the centers of piracy were in HK, Taiwan, and Korea. Innovation is derivative and when you can't you copy until you can.
This is a natural phenomenon of economic growth.
Anyways thanks for trying to be at least more nuanced in your analysis, instead of casting blame only on one side.
