Working World

I got an email yesterday from Doostang.com in which they let me know that they, and they alone, have the recipe for my “job hunt secret sauce,” which was a relief because I’d been wondering. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Doostang is a job and career social networking site, in a similar vein as LinkedIn.com: a place to create an online resume and profile, connect with various webs of professionals (by field, by interest, by alma mater, etc.), and hopefully get some tangible results, i.e. a job.

The difference with Doostang is that, since its inception, it seems as though it’s been a bit more…selective. Unlike LinkedIn, which anyone can join, Doostang has made it clear that it is “an invite-only career community started at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT” and requires that someone who is already a part of Doostang invite you to become a member. Now it seems that one can join Doostang not only through an invitation, but also through either a company or university network—although both of those lists of corporations and schools are very short and very selective. Indeed, if you go to Doostang’s homepage, you’ll find that they boast that half a million elite graduates are using their site, which makes me wonder what it takes to be one of the elite.  Sounds oddly like it could be an online Skull and Bones (I’m not the only one who thinks so: check out Liz Strauss’ three reasons why she wishes she hadn’t joined Doostang).

I’ve had both LinkedIn and Doostang accounts/profiles for about two and a half years. I use LinkedIn regularly, but logged into Doostang for the first time in months only after they sent me the secret sauce email, which I pasted below after the jump. I have 102 connections on LinkedIn, but only 4 on Doostang. I always encourage young professionals to join LinkedIn, but have never done so for Doostang. For whatever reason, I’ve found LinkedIn to be the more enticing option of the two, the one that feels more like a natural community rather than a secret society. It could be just that more people I knew were using LinkedIn, and so my network there grew faster and thus it became more enticing to use. It could be that in the “jobs we think you’ll like, Mark” section of my profile, Doostang recommended I check out both hedge fund associate and risk analyst positions, proving that they actually don’t know shit about what I’ll like. But I also can’t help think that some of the downfalls of Doostang that Liz Strauss points out aren’t also part of the reason I haven’t been more attracted to Doostang as a career resource.

But I’m certainly no expert on either one of these resources. What has worked for you guys? Do you find one of these career social networking tools better than the other? Or is there another, better tool out there that I’m completely missing?

And now, after the jump, the long awaited Doostang secret sauce email:

Mark’s Job Hunt Secret Sauce

Dear Mark,

Finding your dream job in a recession is like shooting a fish in a barrel. It’s tiring, your target’s a damn fish, and you have to listen to advice-givers around you use empty business clichés like “fish in a barrel.”

We’ll spare you watered-down career e-vice and talk of “recession-busting” until we run out of things to do. For now, we’d rather spend our time finding the really great opportunities out there and bringing them to our exceptional members.

That’s a medium way of saying, if you haven’t checked out our Premium Jobs yet, it’s about time:

Risk Analyst, Citi, New York, NY
Research Analyst, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA
Senior Associate, Griffin Partners, San Francisco, CA
Venture Capital Associate, Steamboat Ventures, Shanghai, China
Product Marketing Manager, Sony Group, Washington, DC

Go Premium on Doostang to get unlimited access to jobs just like these. Even though they rarely make it online, we’re working hard to make them yours.

Team Doostang