The Awl Creates a Job Market for Its Commenters

The Awl today posted the second installment of "The Job Board," which is a freewheeling version of what it sounds like; editor Choire Sicha invites Awl readers to post something about themselves and the jobs they seek (or seek to fill) in the comments section. (The first Job Board post went up last week.) We wondered what the heck Sicha was up to, and whether Mediabistro should be watching its back, so we asked him by email about The Awl's headhunter operations. "As you know, people don't often get jobs in the real world through adding their resumes to someone's monster slush pile. People get jobs through other people. I have never even applied for a job in my life, must less gotten one through such routes. And I'm terribly old, and have had a really large number of jobs!" says Sicha. He also says that the site's "weird little job board posting experiment" has netted some leads and interviews for The Awl's readers. As for the potential to turn the job forum into $$, Sicha pointed out that the project is still in its early stages, but that he doesn't see it as a monetizable property. But is it potentially problematic for people to post earnest requests for jobs in the often tongue-in-cheek comments section of an often tongue-in-cheek blog? "I don't mind it being freewheeling and a bit rambunctious!" says Sicha. "I mean, I don't want to police it too much -- community space is what the community makes of it. I trust the people who read our site to behave like human beings. [...] Of course, when it comes to commenters, I don't ever forget that everyone's trailer *is* parked on our land and I'm never afraid to slap up an eviction notice.... to totally overextend a bad metaphor." The Job Board is based on an attractive proposition: A comparatively low-pressure environment that lets people informally talk about what they want to do or whom they'd like to hire. We'll be interested to see how much The Awl can do to normalize the intimidating and impersonal job-application process.

Fishbowl

The Awl Creates a Job Market for Its Commenters

Mike Taylor

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Mike Taylor