Hi folks!
I just added our highest paying referral reward since we started up about 2 months ago. It’s for a senior strategy director position with an international bank and we anticipate the reward to come in at about S$16,500!
Wow! Frankly, I’m pretty mind boggled by that number as well! This candidate pool is probably not limited to just Singapore so this is really going to be a test of our international networks.
Know someone? Tell them about the opportunity, follow up with calls cause many of the best candidates out there often need that soft push to ‘pull their head up from their work’ and realize there are exciting alternative opportunities out there.
Meanwhile, its been really busy for me … i certainly would appreciate comments or notes from you folks out there. I promise I’ll get back to them asap (Yes, we really do reply!)
Two weeks after our official launch on July 31, we are finally going to embark on our first direct marketing campaign. We are going the old-fashioned route - postcard sized flyers aimed at you finance/consulting/accounting types who go to work at key areas around town. Yah, we are competing against those annoying slimming salon and Burger King handouts! Thanks JA for also suggesting this route.
The goal is to increase our professional referral base so as to deliver more relevant and quality referrals to our clients. In addition, the stronger the referral base the more attractive it becomes for our clients to use us.
Here is our humble design:
Any comments are appreciated. We are no graphic designers (nor can we afford one :)) so if one of you guys would like to help out, please let me know.
We are also pleased to report that we are close to our first official offer to a candidate - whether he will accept the position though is an entirely different matter together. We also have 2 other candidates in interviews currently so we hope to deliver at least one piece of good news in the next 2 weeks.
A big thank you to everyone who has corresponded with us and taken the time to send us feedback and comments.
I thought it would be a great idea to share a recent e-mail we received by Mr. C (thanks C!). Attached below is our response to him as well as to anyone else who may have questions about Vawch.
—- E-mail from Mr. C —-
Wanted to start by saying, I love the idea of Vawch and seems like a great way to offer the recruitment benefits to the general population and leverage on the power of referrals. Likewise, the site is great to use.
That said, I am a little concerned about a few things and I was wondering if you could help explain them before I start more seriously using the site:
1) No Contact Number: Why is there no contact phone number for the company?
2) All founders are referred to by letters: Why are all the blog posts by founders referred to only by letters? If Vawch was formed by experienced professionals in the field, why isn’t more info / background given about the people involved?
3) No physical office per-say: a friend of mine recently stopped by Far East and noticed that there is an office on the 13th floor but it is blacked out and there is no way to talk with a secretary or representative.
Sorry for all the probing questions, but would really like to get a hold on things before actively using Vawch. Likewise, I think filling in the missing info on the site could definitely boost the image of the site and Vawch as a reliable company.
Thanks again and hope this message finds you well,
Sincerely, C
—- Our response to Mr. C —-
Hi C:
Thank you for your email and raising your concerns.
We are a new startup and thus in a rush to get the product out have missed out on a few things:
1) Phone number - we will put this out shortly as we just got a phone line installed. (We’ve put it on our website since receiving Mr C.’s comments)
2) As we were in stealth mode this past month (so as not to raise the ire of traditional headhunters who have been asking about us) we were more careful in identifying ourselves. However, we have always communicated with members who provided feedback or applied to our jobs directly. Please feel free to contact us at this address. We will soon put a more detailed profile and introduce ourselves to our blog readers. A lot of the current members are people within our social networks and so they know who we are.
3) We are currently running out of a virtual office as we do not yet want to invest in a permanent space until we get things up and running. Hopefully we will be able to rent a space once we get a bit more traction. We have been officially up and running for about a month now.
Thanks for your comments. Do not hesitate to contact me again or my partner if you have any concerns. Any additional feedback will be great as well.
Ben and Kart
A big thank you for those who have been using our “Invite friends to Vawch” function. Our network has certainly grown through the support of many of you and hope you will continue to tell / invite friends about this new exciting recruitment website.
One frequent question I have been getting from several people is “Which of my friends that I have invited has signed up with Vawch?” Yes we obviously do track it and you can find out too… Click on your manage contacts list when logged into your account and you can tell whom you have invited has signed up (indicated with a green tick).
Not that I have to remind everyone, everytime someone with a green tick (person you invite) manages to successfully refer someone to one of our positions - - you get rewarded $200 too! Not bad huh?
We’ve been online for a bit now - anyone have any comments or thoughts for us?
To make it easier for you to receive the latest updates, we have created a Vawch Group on facebook. We invite you to join the group and get the updates from there.
Also please vote for your favorite charity in the poll on the right hand side of this blog.
Information has value … not when in isolation but only when its aggregated. That’s the premise to which wikipedia and many other aggregator businesses (e.g. mobile, newspapers etc.) has developed it value.
Translate that to the networks of people you know. We can aggregate all of that to provide a compelling database of candidates to employers. That’s what we are trying to do.
Imagine all the revenues and advertising money headhunting firms that build large candidate databases (that gets dated might I add). Since we own all that information, a significant part of the value of these companies should ‘technically belong to us’.
Hmm… perhaps I should pull out my dusty consulting skills and try to put this point down on a pretty powerpoint slide. Anyhow who wants to see that?
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