You may have noticed that we haven’t launched yet, and you may be asking what is taking so long – web apps are getting cheaper and faster to build, right? Whilst this is definitely the case for a lot of the underlying features, especially with APIs from the key social networks, a lot of our time has actually been spent on the layout and user interface. Unlike “features” it can be harder to iterate UI and design in web apps once they have launched.

UI and usability have always been important in consumer services – consumers are fickle and intolerant of complexity – especially when compared to business applications such as SAP and even Sage. Business applications are now subject to the same usability standards as consumer apps such as facebook and Gmail, this is often referred to as the consumerisation of software. Why should my business application be any more difficult to use than the ones I use in personal life? As technology gets further commoditised, design and UI become increasingly important for differentiation and building a loyal customer base. Successful consumer internet businesses have always understood this.

At Jobwhizz we are hoping to apply the same high design and usability standards as you would expect from the best consumer websites. Things we’ve been thinking about:

• balancing functionality with simplicity
• creating simple but scalable workflows
• building a scalable UI and navigation
• AJAX vs lightboxes

We won’t get this all right from launch and the key focus of our beta is to get customer feedback.

p.s. I confess that I am not an expert in this field so would welcome any thoughts on the subject

Recruiting the best talent has always been a “social” activity – whether it’s using your network to find your next hire or having a face to face interview. Today, with the widespread adoption of social networks, both personal and professional, it is becoming easier to both grow and manage your connections. It is also getting easier for you to share information with your connections through a range of different channels from broadcasting via Twitter and status updates to sending messages via Facebook or Gmail.

So how does this relate back to Jobwhizz? Firstly, we are launching a product that lets you harness the power of your network for recruitment – over 25% of external hires come from referrals. We will allow you to easily distribute jobs to your network and track the results. Secondly, we enable anyone in the company to contribute to the recruitment process, whether this is reviewing CVs, sharing feedback on applicants or sending jobs to their own network.

All this is just the beginning – we’ve got some great ideas for more social features but would love to hear your thoughts as well. Send us your thoughts by replying @Jobwhizz on Twitter or leave a comment below

After almost a year in gestation we are getting ready for our public beta release. After some great feedback from the mini Seedcamp event last year we decided to review the entire proposition. The last 12 months has focussed on turning a bunch of features and technologies into a business, mainly in the [...]

Unfortunately we have to delay the launch of the private beta by a week – we had one showstopper that we hoped we would have fixed in time, unfortunately we haven’t.
Apologies to all the people who’ve been emailing/DM’ing – hopefully by next week.
What’s great is now I am going to spend my bank holiday trawling [...]