New Ventures Look to Work Job-Hunting Market

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Two ventures with decidedly different takes on job hunting have debuted in Los Angeles, their approaches ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Tapping into the reality-TV Zeitgeist, Santa Monica’s DreamJobbing.com launched last week and offers the opportunity to vie for once-in-a-lifetime job experiences from companies including VH1 and CBS, both of which are divisions of New York’s Viacom Inc. The plan is to add one additional “dream job” each week.

The site – part recruiting tool, part competition – is a feeder for a TV series to be aired next year on Mark Cuban’s AXS TV cable network in the United States. The show will also be distributed internationally by MGM Television.

The site and show are the brainchild of former Mark Burnett Productions principal Lisa Hennessy, who most recently executive produced NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” along with reality television stars and producers Alex Boylan and Burton Roberts.

Boylan, who won the second season of CBS’ “The Amazing Race” in 2003 with his best friend from high school, said the site is a promotional opportunity for both the company offering the job and the applicants themselves.

“You’re creating these brand ambassadors, and people are getting to potentially win their dream job,” Boylan said. “Everyone is winning in that.”

The first job up for grabs is a weeklong gig as the social buzz reporter for VH1’s “Big Morning Buzz Live” show co-hosted by Nick Lachey and Michelle Buteau.

Job applicants upload a video application to the website and then use their social network to promote themselves and convince others to vote for them.

Companies will interview the 20 applicants with the highest number of votes and offer the job to the person of their choice. The winner will then share their experiences on the website in real time while interacting with other users.

Boylan said he and his co-founders came up with the broad idea a year ago while chatting over a glass of wine.

While deals are in place for distribution of the show, the co-founders have yet to come up with a plan to monetize the website.

Boylan said all three partners have backed the project financially, but declined to disclose how much money they’ve put in.

“Right now, we’re focused on getting awesome brands on board,” Boylan said. “If we start worrying about that right now, I think we’re going to miss the mark.”

At the other end of the Web job-search spectrum, San Francisco’s Hired officially launched in Los Angeles last week.

The service matches technology talent, such as engineers and data scientists, with employers who compete to hire them during weeklong “auctions.” Applicants get a $2,000 signing bonus upon receiving a job offer. Hired, which has been operating in San Francisco and New York, has been in test mode locally for about three months. In that time, the company said that it has sourced employees for businesses such as Santa Monica’s Whisper and Demand Media, as well as Riot Games in Culver City.

“In just 90 days, our L.A. market quickly outpaced our previous new-market launches, boasting 50 percent faster growth and accounting for over 10 percent of our overall business,” Hired co-founder and Chief Executive Matt Mickiewicz wrote in a blog post last week.

Parental Controls

A new service to help parents monitor the mobile habits of their kids has joined an increasingly competitive market.

WebSafety Inc., a company co-headquartered in Newport Beach and Los Angeles, hit the market last week with an app to protect kids from cyberbullying while also keeping them away from explicit content. It joins a market with more established players such as Mobicip of Newbury Park and Salt Lake City’s ContentWatch.

“Parents don’t understand that these smartphones are computers,” said WebSafety Chief Executive Rowland Day, who’s also a corporate securities attorney. “There’s no shortage of accessibility.”

The app sends parents real-time alerts about activity on a child’s Android smartphone or tablet so they know what types of conversations are being conducted via text, what’s being searched for on mobile Web browsers and which apps are downloaded. An iPhone version is in the works for early 2015.

Parents can view a history of all activity by accessing an online dashboard.

WebSafety also keeps track of photos being uploaded to Facebook and comments made about the pics.

Moms and dads can also monitor the current and past locations of their child’s device as well as disable texting and Internet usage during time intervals of their choosing. WebSafety is currently working on incorporating Instagram and Twitter into its offerings.

Prices range from $4 to $15 a month based on how many devices are monitored.

Staff reporter Omar Shamout can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 263.

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