Note To The Membership of RecruitingBlogs.com

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Last Thursday, I received a letter from Lawyers representing Jobster letting me know I had to shut down RecruitingBlogs.com immediately or Jobster would take action. They say that RecruitingBlogs.com is causing damage to their business and that I am in violation of my non compete.

I started RecruitingBlogs.com in its current form while still at Jobster because Recruiting.com was no longer a place that I could see and interact with the Recruiting Blogosphere the way I wanted to.

When I left Recruiting.com, people started writing encouraging and positive things about RecruitingBlogs.com and people started joining. It was not my intent to cause any trouble for anyone.

I believe that RecruitingBlogs.com and all of the recruiting related blogs that are written by Recruiting Professionals help the entire community, Jobster included and I believe the more content that is submitted to Recruiting.com the better off that site it.

I will not willingly shut RecruitingBlogs.com down. The site provides something that Recruiting.com and Jobster never provided. I think it is a mistake for Jobster to have their lawyers forcibly shut down RecruitingBlogs.com. I am a share holder in Jobster and the founder of Recruiting.com and I would love to see both of those entities succeed. My goal is not to mess with that.

I spoke to Jason Goldberg on Friday of last week and he was adamant about me shutting the site down. We did however agree that he would extend the deadline for 7 more days in order for me to show him how RecruitingBlogs.com is not a threat and how the two sites can help each other so that he would drop the issue. This seems like a positive step in the right direction though I have no confidence at all that I will come up with something that satisfies him.

My gut feeling is that Jobster would much rather see the site go away and I am very surprised by it but I am really thinking hard and talking to people to see if there is a way to make everyone happy. I mean, there are over 200 people responsible for making RecruitingBlogs.com what it is and if the site is forced down, all that effort will be lost and I would feel terrible for wasting everyone’s time.

I will continue as normal until there is some sort of resolution. I completely understand if there are any people out there who choose not to participate with RecruitingBlogs.com anymore because of what may be. I am really trying to think of a way for this to be a good thing for everyone.

48 Comments

Comment by WorkFarce on June 26, 2007 at 1:40pm: This is not good.

Comment by Amitai Givertz on June 26, 2007 at 1:44pm: Oh, dear. Web 2.0 meets Heavy-handed 1.0. This should be interesting, don't you think? What is Jason Goldberg thinking?

Comment by R. Brown on June 26, 2007 at 2:08pm: Oi.. what next?

Comment by Sherry Karr on June 26, 2007 at 2:09pm: Wow - that is the stupidest thing I have read in a long time. I do not see how this site could hurt Jobster at all, and in fact, think that instead of this reaction, Jobster would do better to think how they could leverage this site to work with Jobster. Perhaps Jason needs to think how he needs to make Jobster more competitive instead of trying to use lawsuits to bolster his site.
Unbelievable.

Comment by Rob McIntosh on June 26, 2007 at 2:10pm: Boo Hisssss!

Comment by Jacob Share on June 26, 2007 at 2:11pm: Seeing as how he sounds reasonable enough, it would be interesting to hear J.Goldberg's side of the story. Maybe that would shed some light on what he hopes to gain by this heavy-handedness.

Comment by SHUKRON on June 26, 2007 at 2:13pm: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. This was the only blogo-type site that I actually enjoyed visiting regularly. Besides thechad.jc.com and the ole head honchos blog...naturally.

Comment by Paul DeBettignies on June 26, 2007 at 2:15pm: I have a question. In what way are you competing with Jobster? I fail to see how Jobster is meeting my need of networking with my recruiting, HR, sourcing colleagues that RecruitingBlohs.com is.

Am I missing some cool thing they have?

Comment by Heather Hartmann on June 26, 2007 at 2:16pm: WOW - Jason G. is a pretty sharp guy. I'm suprised that he would risk alienating any of the recruiting community, which could happen if he forces the issue. I agree with you, JD, there ought to be a way that we can all play together in the sandbox.

Comment by Epihet on June 26, 2007 at 2:17pm: I am dead but this one made me pop my head up. What Recruitingblogs.com offers that Jobster, Recruiting.com and other sites do not is "Community". I can't get community from Recruiting.com or other places because I am only really hearing from one person (Papa) and retread other blog forwards. I like the interface of Recruitingblogs, the personalization of the space I can create which reflects me. I can not do that on any other site that I have found.

Mr Goldberg - If I want to read blog posts like I read a newspaper in the recruiting industry, I can go to Recruiting.com. If I want to be part of a Recruiting community, then I come Recruitingblogs.com

Note To The Membership of RecruitingBlogs.com

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