Jobeehive.com is an interesting startup in the careers space. The idea is fairly simple and straightforward. If you are looking to work for a certain company, you go to jobeehive, get to know more about the salaries that this company offers, read reviews from employees and alumni and make an informed decision about joining.

In fact this website addresses a really interesting issue that almost every candidate faces. Since reviews are anonymous, they might be unbiased (employee can write without fearing a backlash from employer) and on the other hand, the very anonymity makes the reviews less credible. Its the end user who needs to decided wheather to trust the reviews or not.

Another example of use of social media and crowd-sourcing to create a service that is beneficial to the end user. Since the website is essentially user driven and very new, it does not have a lot of data and information right now. Once the website gets over that network effect, it should be a useful resource. Infact, if Jobeehive wants to be successful they have to have the network effect on their side.

Ashish on pluggd.in did an interesting product review. He says

Jobeehive is neatly laid out and the company page is really done well - you get general info about the company (founding date, revenues, pictures etc) and also, the ratings/reviews and salary details as entered by the users.

What else can Jobeehive do?

  • To make the reviews authentic, Jobeehive should have HR managers from these companies ratify or answer objections raised about the company.
  • Once there are enough number of people and reviews on the website, Jobeehive can diversify into placement consultancy, employer rating, enabling campus placements and other such recruitment models.
  • Jobeehive can also introduce ratings for every individual review. The idea is to make the system trustworthy and pertinent. It could be as simple as a co-rank or as complex as a digg algorithm. Finally, someone who actually takes a decision based on these reviews should be able to ratify these.

Competition

  • HT Media’s Shine.com obviously was launched on the premise that Shine can offer you best salaries. They used the salary surveys as teaser to launch the service. In fact Shine Salary Tool was a much talked about feature on their website.
  • Criticat.com is an immediate competition that I can think in this space. Criticat is also about employer ratings and reviews. In fact the use of bargraphs makes the navigation easier and more intuitive at Criticat.

Risks

  • Just a small feature. For biggies like Naukri.com, salary comparison and employer review is just a small feature that they need to add to their existing website (and thus challenge the very existence of these review websites). Also with the huge network effects in their favor, naukri.com can offer much more value to the end user.

Anyways an interesting concept, a nicely done up website. Do check out the website and share your opinions.

P.S.: They force a user to submit a review/salary report before users can have complete access to the website. It might make a lot of sense for the business but personally I dont like it. Hope they remove it soon :)