When someone tells you they’re CEO, President, or VP, you’re either intimidated, impressed or both. All that matters is, they’re in charge, right? Wrong. Do you ever stop and wonder how they got there? Not all paths to CEO-dom are predictable. These are three stories who took an unlikely path to an executive level job.

Amos Winbush III was on his way to becoming one of the artists we hear playing from our radios. Winbush had just signed a record deal, and was ready to record an album. In the midst of his new career, his iPhone crashed which resulted in the loss of tons of valuable information. It also resulted in a change of direction for Winbush. When his iPhone crashed Winbush dedicated himself to his new venture: CyberSynchs, automatic backup software for mobile devices and computers. Today, he’s CEO to a company with more that $13 million in annual revenue. From music to tech? Anything’s possible.

David Williams was in semiretirement and transitioning out of the workplace entirely when he took the job at Fishbowl, an inventory-management software provider. After experiencing a lull in product development and sales, Williams was hired as CEO to literally shut Fishbowl down. Not that fast! Williams who had agreed to a short time career as CEO decided to turn things around with the help of the Fishbowl team. It was a rocky path back to revenue, funding, and innovation but they made it under William’s helm. This CEO was hired to close a business down; instead he brought the business back and is still CEO today.

Simon Anderson is DreamHost’s first CEO and he was elected by the people- the employees of DreamHost. Normally we think of executive placements as occurring amongst other executive level employees but not for this web-hosting and cloud-service company.  DreamHost took a cue from the Democratic System and ditched the corporate interview, allowing everyone to have a say in the next big hire. Anderson “ran” against two other prospective CEOs in executive race that consisted of video interviews, Q & A sessions, and one on ones. Like in all fair elections, majority rules and this time majority was behind Anderson.

What we learn from all three of these stories is leaders do not always get there by walking the path you would expect.

In Winbush’s case, he saw a problem and sought to solve it even if that meant a sharp trajectory from his previous path. What we learn from Winbush is, do not be afraid to take risks. If you see an issue, odds are you’re not the only on experiencing it- that’s your market.

For Williams, it’s about revival for both his career and his business. Sometimes you get hired to do one thing, but your role evolves. What we learn from Williams is if there is potential, believe in it and nurture it. Don’t settle in your job title’s roles if you think there can be more.

Anderson’s road to becoming a CEO teaches us about culture. Anderson was put through a hiring gauntlet, one that indicated very clearly what kind of culture he would be going into. Remember that skills are not everything; you will be most affective in a company where values align. Maybe you’re not a CEO yet, but a left turn could make all the difference.

The Skills to Pay the Bills

“People are rapidly accumulating new skills every day,” says Jennifer Fremont-Smith,  CEO of Smarterer, a Boston-area startup offering “a seamless web technology that provides total clarity about candidates, quantifying skills in less than 120 seconds.”  Says Fremont-Smith, “Paper resumes and interviews can’t capture an accurate picture of a candidate.”  And that’s why “assessments are becoming a fundamental step in the hiring process, helping recruiters make more informed hiring decisions, and decreasing time-to-hire by surfacing the best candidates faster.”

According to Scott Marsho, Director of Distribution at Findly, “assessments are a cost-effective way to ensure that organizations are hiring the right people.”  Marsho lists the key benefits of using assessments as “streamlined selection process, decreased turnover, increased productivity, and increased legal defensibility.”

“Now more than ever people are getting degrees, credentials and learning from free resources that are inconsistent in terms of grading and content,” says Guy Friedman, CEO of HigherNext. ”This increases the need for an adequate filtering system based on knowledge and skills relevant to a specific job.”

The Missing Piece

And while hard skills are in demand, so are soft skills such as the ability to adapt, collaborate and iterate creatively.  And skills like those don’t necessarily show up on a resume. Increasingly, companies are using online solutions to measure these abilities as well, tapping into a growing field of companies offering personality, cognitive and job fit assessments

“Resume review is one of the least accurate predictors of job performance,” says Michael Tanenbaum, Founder of ConnectCubed, a maker of gamified psychometric assessments.  “Even work experience comes in at a measly .18 correlation with future job performance according to some researchers. If you’re hiring based on a resume, you’re missing critical data – and that means hiring mistakes and lost revenue.”

So not only are the latest assessment solutions time-savers, they can lead to huge cost savings by avoiding bad hires.

“You can review a report in seconds,” says Tanebaum, “saving you years of stress and hassle by weeding out bad hires, and helping you capture great new revenue opportunities by weeding in perfect fits every time.”

Better Living Through Chemistry

And the science behind candidate assessments keeps getting better.  “Personality assessments have come light years in both quality and the ability to scale,” says Christine Bird, co-founder of Cream.hr.

“By combining high quality scientifically-backed assessments, scalable online technology and Big Data, for the first time, hiring managers don’t have to rely on the subjective hiring process — they can get the critical data to match the right applicant to the right positions.”  Cream.hr backs up their personality assessments with cutting-edge behavioral research, something the average hiring manager is not likely to be on top of.

Tom Janz, Chief Scientist at PeopleAssessments, stresses that “employers need to ‘science up’ to recruit smarter. Online assessments with a strong record of predicting job performance are the cost effective solution for today’s smart recruiters.”

According to Kerry Schofield, Cofounder/Chief Psychometrician at Good.Co, “the way things are developing, heavily automated, online psychometric recruitment is going to be standard very soon, and companies who don’t use this resource are going to be missing out.”

Trust But Verify

Another crucial component in the assessment process is reference checks.  Gone are the days of tracking down former employers on the phone to gauge a candidate’s suitability for the job.  Just as technology allows us to quickly and effectively assess a candidate’s skills, so, too does it now allow for effortless reference-checking.  Products such as Chequed now automate what was once an old-fashioned, time consuming process.

Says Matt Gough, Co-Founder of Chequed, “Our solution empowers businesses to not only streamline their talent selection process but provide objective, consistent and predictive information about their candidates.”  Anyone familiar with labor law will immediately grasp the importance of objectivity in hiring, and, increasingly, the “predictive” part of the process is attractive to hiring managers looking to avoid costly bad hires — and to save time.

A New Standard

Assessment solutions are fast becoming an integral part of any smart hiring process.  The technology is there — and at an increasingly low cost to the hiring manager — so companies are starting to view it as a crucial step in the hiring process.  Given the high cost of a bad hire, it makes sense to do it right the first time.

“Is it possible to get great hires without including any assessments in the process?” asks Ravi Mikkelsen, Co-Founder and CEO at jobFig.  “Of course you can. But similarly to how technology helps to improve the  building of cars, houses, computers and just about everything we use, why not have it help build the teams we’ll spend most of our waking hours with?”

Honest Abe couldn’t have said it better himself.

Best time for candidate assessment tests: prior to an interview – for shortlisting & sparking deeper interview dialogues #smartrecruiters — workZeit (@workZeit) May 22, 2013

“We are taking a stand to make assessment easy,” says @jerometernynck. #HRtech

— SmartRecruiters (@SmartRecruiters) May 22, 2013

]]> http://www.smartrecruiters.com/blog/the-science-of-hiring/feed/ 0 http://www.smartrecruiters.com/blog/nyus-womans-basketball-shares-recruiting-tips/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nyus-womans-basketball-shares-recruiting-tips http://www.smartrecruiters.com/blog/nyus-womans-basketball-shares-recruiting-tips/#comments Thu, 23 May 2013 15:00:39 +0000 Cassandra Loftus http://www.smartrecruiters.com/blog/?p=19708 As an employee of New York University for nearly a year, I have had the opportunity to learn about an elite, progressive, and truly unique community.  With nearly 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students, over 350,000 alumni, and study centers in 25 nations there is no end to the network of ideas, achievements produced by these individuals. As an assistant coach on the women’s basketball staff, I aim, along with my colleagues, to provide an experience that is fulfilling and that helps shape young women’s academic and athletic experience at NYU.

Many of our players are nothing short of renaissance women; boasting athletic prowess, academic success, and gifts that span from chemists to film making and everywhere in between. We seek young women who are the triple-threat (basketball pun intended); elite in 3 ways: basketball, academics, and character. One might think that recruiting individuals with this trifecta is difficult. You are right! There is a thrill in the challenge, and with each special individual we add, the NYU community grows in character and strength.

Every professional is asked to do the same – to add members to the team that are dynamic, hard working, and who offer special gifts that will enhance the community in which they work, live, etc. While your company may not be looking for a team member with a great jump shot or ability to rebound, remember these transferrable recruiting tips when you ARE recruiting in your line of work:

Have a clear vision: We aim to provide an experience for our women that allows them to earn an elite education, grow as people, and to compete at the national level in Division III women’s basketball – in that order.  Our job is to find young women who share this vision. We are honest about this vision when we are on the road, have a prospect on the phone, or are speaking with families on campus. We are clear about our expectations and standards as a member of the team. Prospective students know what to expect when they arrive on campus and begin their four-year journey. The vision keeps us working towards the end goal – our identity.  Individuals want to work for, play for, and be a part of a team that has a clear identity. What is your vision? What is your company’s identity?

Zebras can’t change their stripes: One our greatest assets is NYU’s location, New York City. We are located in of the biggest, most diverse, and energetic cities on the planet. New York City is not just our surrounding, it is our classroom! Ironically, this is also one of our biggest challenges. We can’t hide the challenges of living in Manhattan. Instead we are honest about the atmosphere and complexities in attending a university in NYC. It takes a special individual to be open to the ever-changing surroundings. This person takes challenges head on, is willing to remove themselves from their comfort zone and accept new tasks. This is who we want on our team. Be honest about your company’s strengths and weaknesses, sending an honest message from the start will be better for retention. 

Work hard, work smart, be genuine: There is no substitute for hard work, we believe this mantra as a staff and for our players. Coaching college basketball is not a 9-5 job and many of our weekends are spent working in some capacity, even outside of our season.  There are not enough hours in the day therefore, we must maximize time spent on the task at hand.  At NYU we must consider the market to make the vision of our team a reality.  We need academically inclined students who are also skilled basketball players.  Because NYU does not offer athletic scholarships we need to find players whose families understand the financial investment of an NYU education.  We are not selling a 4 year plan, we are selling a life plan – an investment in the future! Building relationships with our prospective players is perhaps the most important piece to the puzzle and helps us find individuals who fit this unique profile.

• We work hard by: having a systematic approach, and sticking to it. We are willingto go above and beyond for the good of the team, i.e. make an extra phone call, drive to a practice or game mid-week, stay a little longer at the office.
• Working smart: Using our resources (allowing recruits to speak to alumni, meet with professors, interact with current players, etc.).
• Be genuine: We cannot be anything other than what we are and we ask recruits to do the same.  We build relationships because these young women will potentially become part of our extended family.  Questions about their academics, goals as a player and student, and family finances are personal. We must be sensitive, forthcoming, and above all genuine in our approach.  At the end of the day if a student athlete is not a good cultural fit for NYU and we did not do due diligence in discovering this, then we have done a disservice to her, our team, and to the school.  A mutual desire to be at NYU is a necessary part of the relationship.  How do you go above and beyond in recruiting? How can you use your resources to maximize time? How do you show the true you in order to fulfill the vision?

Be creative! In the era of social media, you’re selling yourself short if you don’t use it as a recruiting resource. We send a monthly newsletter highlighting team accomplishments, community service activities, a “where are they now” for program alumni, and “A New York Minute” (a 60-second interview with a player).  This not only provides updates but allows fans and future recruits to see our team from the inside out.  We also have a twitter campaign (@NYUWBB) where each day of the week we tweet a new fact or piece of news.

Monday: Quote of the week

Tuesday: What’s going on on campus

Wednesday: Little known player fact

Thursday: NYU women’s basketball history lesson

Friday: Season statistical facts

Saturday/Sunday: NYC buzz

We create YouTube clips of team events: like the Wii Tennis tournament, or the pumpkin decorating contest. Showing our team in various facets is a great way to show recruits that being a Lady Violet is more than dribbling, passing, and shooting. Team culture and pride come from cultivation, work, and spending time together. How can you promote your company and the individuals within it to get individuals to be part of the vision?

Recruiting is not an exact science, and any great professional knows that you have to be willing to learn something every day to enhance your performance. I feel lucky to be part of a university, department, and staff that truly commits to the people it serves. Recruiting for the Lady Violets is exciting because I believe in the philosophy and mission of the school.

Cassandra Loftus is in her first season as an assistant coach with the women’s basketball team. Her primary responsibilities include coordinating recruiting efforts, post player development, opponent scouting, and academic progress.

Looking to Coach a Woman’s University Basketball Team? Queens University of Charlotte is Now Hiring a Woman’s Basketball Head Coach. SmartRecruiters is everything you need to source talent, manage candidates, and make the right hires.

The news market has become saturated and competitive, with the news media struggling to support the many journalists in the industry. “There is more news created today than there ever has been. There are more readers of news than there ever has been in the past. Ironically at the same time, there is less money being made by the news industry,” says Samson.

The market for news is evolving; there are less traditional journalism jobs while more news is being consumed. The evolving demand for news creates a challenge for the employer to decide what kind of worker they need, and for the worker to describe what they bring to a news organization.

“We want to make it possible for every journalist to take control of their work and their personal brand. That is truly our mission,” explains Pressfolios co-founder Marc Samson.

Samson is no stranger to the plight of writing professionals. As a former freelance media relations professional who later grew a consultancy of his own, Samson soon realized there wasn’t a way for him to easily and cleanly showcase his writings to new clients. Building off this revelation, he teamed up with programmer and co-founder Dan Kauffman to create Pressfolios, an online portfolio for journalists, reporters, writers, copywriters, bloggers, and public relations professionals.

And how do journalists show they can be the right one? That’s the question Pressfolios aims to help answer. Samson expresses the advantages and disadvantages facing old and new journalists. He states that while older, classically trained journalists have 15-20 years of experience, they are up against younger professionals who have knowledge of emerging technologies and technical expertise, such as coding HTML or CSS. Yet younger journalists don’t have the experience and networking resources necessary to break into the industry.

Pressfolios seeks to balance this dilemma between generations with three features: a personal repository, cloud storage, and a website builder. Pressfolios love journalists who can code. However for those who can’t, Pressfolios makes it easy to automatically pull online clips from various websites into a repository and provides advance content management tools to organize and keep track of your work.

Samson says Pressfolio is geared towards digital and technically inclined journalists, and young journalists in college or coming out of college. Journalists who are beginning to have clips and thinking about how to keep track and access them, and how to build a portfolio to make the jump to their first or second job, or start a freelance career. As Pressfolio expands its features, it will be relevant and applicable to a wider range of journalists.

To that end, Samson stresses the importance of having a strong online presence and developing your personal brand. “Even though we all realize we’re likely to work for 10, 15, 20, maybe 30 employers over the course of our career,” explains Samson, “A lot of people will think of themselves as employees when they should think of themselves as sole proprietors.”

For this reason, it is Pressfolios’s philosophy to help all journalists leverage their talent through its platform.

“If you’re able to keep track of your work over the course of your career and you’re able to show it off, we truly believe you are going to be more successful. You’re going to do a better job overall in your professional development,” says Samson.

Pressfolios is taking aim at the unemployment gap one portfolio at a time. How do you see Pressfolios changing the way news creators are hired?

When you arrive, Ms. X looks at you like she’s already angry and shows you to your cubicle, which is covered above in scotch tape and below in popcorn kernels from the previous occupant.  You’re assigned a “mentor” who hands you a 6” stack of data from a computer system you’ve never used before and tells you to study it.  You ask to go to the restroom and they point in the general direction, then you can’t get back in the door to your department because no one gave you an access badge.  At the end of the day Ms. X apologizes for “assuming you were late” because she just now got around to checking all those voicemails the receptionist left her during the 2 hours you were in the lobby.  This job is off to a great start, right? 

That job didn’t last long and I couldn’t be happier about that. I should have known it was a bad fit from the terrible first week and total lack of orientation. I still talk about this company and use it as the gold standard for what not to do. A bad orientation experience can stay with an employee long after they’ve left your company and seriously damage its employer brand. It’s cliché for a reason – you really DON’T get a second chance to make a first impression and if the impression you make to new employees is extremely different from the impression you gave them as a candidate, they will run.

Now that I’ve outlined the gold standard of what NOT to do, here are some tips to get it right:

1. Pre-orientation for you — Know your info and have a plan.  Know who is coming in and make an orientation plan.  Is this person an engineer or a janitor?  Once you get done going over policies and paperwork, who will give them the facility tour – you, or their supervisor?  Who will they be shadowing during their first days?  Have this all set up beforehand, otherwise you risk looking unprepared and making your new hire feel like an afterthought.
 
2. Pre-orientation for the new hire — Remind people of the time and what information to bring:  IDs, voided check, emergency contacts, etc.  Be clear on how long it will take and what they should wear.  Tell them whether they’ll immediately go to work after or not.  Try and schedule 2 or 3 people together if they will have relatively the same job or be in the same department.  Everyone likes an instant “work buddy.”
 
3. Make the environment as comfy as possible.  People are still nervous during orientation.  They’re terrified they’ll say the wrong thing and their offer will be rescinded immediately.  Put them at ease.  Schedule when you’ll have plenty of time to talk to them and answer their questions.  Adjust the thermostat so everyone is comfortable.  Provide a drink of some sort.  If orientation is an all-day affair, provide snacks and take breaks.  Don’t let anything get too stuffy.  If you’ve been doing the orientation all day and you need a break to check email, etc…get Larry in accounting to give them an office tour.  The new hires will enjoy another perspective and Larry can point out the really important stuff – the coffee area, the vending machines, the bathrooms and Linda in Risk Management who always has chocolate in her bottom drawer for those having a bad day.
 
4. Present the info and be honest.  Set everyone up for success.  If your handbook says everyone gets an hour lunch but you know the real culture is to take 45 minutes, tell them that.  Don’t make them look bad.  If you say you’re open from 8-5 but you know that people in this position wind up staying late more often than not, be up front about it.  Ideally you did this in the interview, but if not, now is the time.  People will appreciate the truth.
 
5. Unless you are just desperately shorthanded, don’t make someone go right to work immediately after orientation.  Let them absorb all the info you just threw at them.  They will have more questions later.  If your orientation takes 2 hours, great.  Schedule that and then let them start the next day.  If it’s an all-day thing, do it on a Friday and let them take the weekend to reread policies, reaffirm their enthusiasm and reenergize for a great first day.

 
 
Do all these things and your orientations should go smoothly and make your new hires feel welcome and ready to work. Starting off with a positive impression is the best thing you can do to make your new employees feel loyal to your company and proud to work there.  And for the love of Pete, please clean up your popcorn!

Dominique Rodgers has worked in HR related positions for the past 10 years. She is currently the Office Manager at Reputation Capital Media and a student at LSU. If you are interested in HR, recruiting, employee benefits, Doctor Who, or the collective works of Joss Whedon, please connect with her on Twitter @HRGalFriday!

SmartRecruiters is the hiring platform with everything you need to source talent manage candidates and make the right hires.

Many recruiters use social media for social recruiting, but your social media presence needs to have more than status updates and links to job listings. We’re talking streaming videos, webcasts, interactive presentations embedded in your site, all building your employer brand. Odds are that the top talent you have in your sights are not only tech savvy, but they expect their employer to possess likeminded attitudes about what should be shared on social media. It is crucial to convey that your company embraces advanced technologies. Take what you already know about employer branding and step it up a notch with rich media.

Today’s audiences are much more skeptical of staged content. If your employer branding efforts try to look perfect with professional editing, carefully cast talent, and posed photos, candidates will have a hard time believing that your content reflects true day-to-day life at your company. Instead, show videos and photos of real employees in their real working environment to give prospective hires a sense of what their employee experience will entail. If you’re not proud of the experience that shows, then that’s a signal that you need to work with your colleagues to change the employee experience from within.

Attract them with a crisp company mission

For the love of employer branding, please no more paragraph-long, corny company missions that just sound good. These will stick with no one. Think short and sweet. Consider the idea that your company mission could also act as a slogan. No, you shouldn’t create a jingle, but yes, it should be catchy. It should stay with employees and customers. “Employees, vendors, and clients don’t get stoked by fuzzy mission statements. They will line up behind concrete goals,” says Nancy Lublin from FastCompany. And remember that this can change. Always keep your mission fresh and relevant.

Following these principles, you’ll find that good employer branding doesn’t require big budgets. It just means you have to walk the walk so that your employees know and are united by the company mission and that can be captured and reflected in rich media.  With that foundation in place, a lean startup can compete with the biggest recruiting budgets of the most established corporations, and large companies can attract and unify employees for a people-based competitive advantage. We’ve seen it with our own recruiting at Wowzer and we’ve seen it for some of the largest brands in the world among our customers. I encourage you to do the same!

Imo Udom is the co-founder and VP of business development of Wowzer (follow them on Twitter - @gowowzer). He leads global sales efforts, identifies strategic client initiatives, and helps to secure key relationships that further Wowzer’s mission. Read the Wowzer Blog. Modified Photo, original credit HowtoDrawGuide.

SmartRecruiters is the hiring platform with everything you need to source talent, manage candidates and make the right hires.

One of the first things that stand out is the LinkedIn profile picture. Leaving your profile photo blank is not a good idea. According to LinkedIn, your profile is 7 times more likely to be viewed if you have a photo. What kind of photo? A simple head shot will do – but make it professional, not personal. There’s no need for a goofy pic of you with your pet, OR you on the hood of your 1982 Pontiac Trans Am OR making kissy faces in front of your bathroom mirror. Remember this is a professional photo. Don’t follow in these folks:

2. Contact Info and URL

How can folks get in touch with you if you don’t give them basic contact info? LinkedIn has several options to choose from. Users can list their email address, IM, physical address and contact number as well as up to 3 websites including a direct Twitter profile link. I’d also recommend taking advantage of the personalized URL option. Make it as colloquial and visually friendly to the business card as possible (example right). Instead of being stuck with the generic user ID number, customize the URL by simply making it your name such as linkedin.com/in/davidnicola.

To do this, you must first be in “edit mode.” Click on “edit” next to your existing LinkedIn link in the contact section.

On the right hand side of the next page, click on “Customize your public profile URL.” Doing so will open a new small window to edit your direct link. Lop off the existing user numbers and click “Set Custom URL”. Once saved, you can now cut and paste this link into your resume, making it convenient for potential employers to learn more information about you.

3. Skills

LinkedIn has a very large auto-fill library of skills to choose from. This section allows up to 50, but don’t think you need to have 50. Identify and target your core set of skills to best fit your industry and/or experience. When thinking about your proficient traits, consider different skill categories:

Hard Skills – These are the types of specific skills you’ve acquired that are industry-based and can be taught, learned or trained. They represent the minimum amount of essential abilities needed to successfully function in a job. These are often the first set of identifiers that employers use to screen candidates.

Soft Skills – These describe your professional set of core values and interpersonal abilities. They can include characteristics such as honesty, integrity, flexibility, positive attitude, creativity and most importantly, communication – both written and verbal. If a skill you have is not listed on LinkedIn, you can always add it yourself.

Lastly, I believe LinkedIn should not replace your resume but can rather act as a supplement to it, providing an online resource of your skills and experience. There are other profile sections to explore and complete if you choose to do so (Summary, Experience, Education, Volunteer Work, Honors & Awards, etc.). And with anything else, the more time spent learning LinkedIn, the more comfortable you’ll be navigating its other features.

Happy exploring!

David Nicola has over 15 years of experience in various Human Services fields. He currently serves as the Career Services Director at Laurus College. You can also follow him on Twitter and connect on Google+. Photo Credit Dia.

SmartRecruiters is the hiring platform, everything you need to source talent, manage candidates and make the right hires.

#tru is the biggest ongoing series of recruiting unconferences. In San Francisco, #tru came to SmartRecruiters HeadQuarters.

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Video Filmed & Edited by David Smooke.

With the free price point, tech is booming. In order, the most visited websites in America: Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, and Bing. With the exception of Amazon (see below), Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Bing thrive on a user base of paying customers well, well below 5%.

I have a degree in economics. Statistics professors always say, 5% margin of error secures the reportable confidence interval. But when it comes to billion dollar websites less than 5% is not your margin of error, it is a too high percentage of paying customers. You could say, that this just means that paying is an error (you hipster!), but the reality is, we are in an age where it is easier to create a billion dollar website if over 95% of users are free than it is if over 5% of users are paying. Quite simply, the economics taught in universities have not caught up to how the Internet has changed the mathematics of money (we could spend the rest of the day discussing Bitcoin – but for now – I’d like to forget about the blip of ‘we don’t need the standard currency model,’ and focus on the significant disruption that has actually already occurred with free users dominating the most visited sites’ user bases).

Most of the tech sector will tell you, “With Facebook you are the product.” And it has merit; by using Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Bing most users submit their user information and consumption inclinations. In my industry, recruiting technology, the submission of information (professional data) and inclination (“I’m Interested.”) to the business is a free service we provide to the vast majority of our millions of monthly pageviews. But our competition fears SmartRecruiters because our collaborative candidate management software is entirely free to the business. What people will be talking more: free business facing interfaces, which have started with most visited websites, and are trickling down to all walks of business software.

The ad platforms of Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Bing are free enterprise SaaS products. They are self-service and consistent across their user base.  Anyone can bid on search terms or promote a post. Try using an ad platform that isn’t Facebook’s Ad Manager, Google’s Adwords, Yahoo’s Marketing Solution, or Bing Ads – and what do you find? – more often than more often than not, not only do you pay for the ads, but you also pay to use the ad platform (talk about cutting into your marketing spend!?).

If Google Search and Google Adwords were two separate companies, you would say that Google Search is a for profit company that surfaces the smartest and most relevant pages – for free – based your keyword search (while selling customer leads to Adwords). Functionally, Google Search falls into the category of for profit products that generate revenue from complimentary goods.

When a website is able to help you discover the goods you need, and facilitate the purchase of these goods, that website is making seriously substantial revenue on every transaction. Which brings me to my final free web giant, Amazon. You may say, “The goods of Amazon are not free,” and I think, what goods of Amazon? For the most part, Amazon sells goods it does not make, ship, or store (yes they have explored all these areas, but it is not their primary business). Amazon’s primary function is to serve you the best goods and facilitate payment.

Your entire business can live online. You can be a billion dollar website by just being a website. Like most economic decisions it comes down to two points, quality and price. (1) Is your website the most awesome at creating and satisfying customer demand for a good and/or services needed? (2) If the answer is yes, does it do so at the lowest cost? Once the price point is free, you only have to worry about the first question, is my website the most awesome?