Resume.com Hurting the Economy
I was just reading an article by David Carter on how he builds his websites on the back of businesses. The blog starts off discussing how there is “a big credit squeeze that we all know about and that in itself presents a great opportunity for those individuals and businesses that can take advantage.”
From there I went off on a tangent and began thinking of single domain name opportunities within this market. Yesterday, I randomly received a call from a head hunter that we often use. It sounds like he has a lot of resumes on his book right now that he is looking to place in jobs. Resumes.com! Checked it, already a big site on there. How about Resume.com? Parked!
Why would they park this now? During a time when there will probably be more resumes available than in the last 30 years, this would be a great time to have a site up for either collecting and redistributing resumes or providing resume-building services (as Resumes.com has done).
Then I thought that maybe the site recently changed hands. The owner has the Whois masked, but looking at the Archive.org wayback machine, it looks like the site moved from a previous simple database site of collecting resumes to a parked site sometime between Dec 10-15th, 2006. That parking of the site is not helping their SEO, I will tell them that. Interestingly enough, the old owners even wrote a book
off the back of the domain they owned, which I imagine they are still profiting from, even without the domain.
There are so many simple businesses that could be built on the back of Resume.com that it really is a shame to see it parked. I am quite sure that a business on that site would be much more profitable than the parking revenue. Not only that, but it is in some way providing a disservice to our economy. Not only could that business be providing jobs for people to run it, but it could also be a source of job opportunity for people who are inputting their resumes into that database. The New Jersey Nets are doing something similar in regards to helping the economy, as I wrote about on Basketball.org.
Worse case, the owner could partner with a domain business developer (such as ourselves 
) and let them manage and develop the site, with some piece of the upside, of course. The downside is easily flipping it back over to a parked site after several months, while the upside could be huge.
If there is one thing in this economy that I think will continue to create jobs, it is the development of businesses on the back of solid generic, currently parked, domains. It is not an easy thing to do, but with the right understanding of the core business, and the knowledge coming from domaining, development, SEO, advertising, and Internet sales, the possibilities are endless. There are so many parked category-killer domains out there, that if the government ever needs to create jobs, they should just start buying up these parked sites and redistributing the opportunity throughout society.
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“redistributing opportunity throughout society.”
I like that statement, and I believe the Internet is in the process of doing just that.
To bad the whois info is concealed. We could have all bombarded the owner with e-mails and phonecalls suggesting development ideas. That may be just the push they need. Who knows…
The way I see it, if you’re still using a resume and don’t have a multi-media, digital version, i.e. a blog of yourself, then you really aren’t maximizing the value of your skill set.
The future of the resume is right here. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to have theirname.com!
Resume.com changed hands in July 2007 for 300K
I would bet the site earns a few hundred dollars per day parked if not more so why develop?
Jamie, you make a great point. However, not everyone is sophisticated enough to understand the notion of promoting yourself via theirname.com.
Resume’s will last for a long time as a primary source of a simple introduction to a potential employer. Any job opportunity related domains should be put into use at this point in time to facilitate that medium of information.
So people go to resume.com and click on Monster or CareerBuilder or MSN jobs or whoever. And they find what they’re looking for.
And this is bad, how? Bad for the economy? What? Quit drinking from “I wasn’t smart enough to buy such a good domain and now I’m jealous” fountain.
dear distinguished members, i agree, every resume out there should have a domain extension added to their Resume Headline ,that is replace Jennifer Lopez with JenniferLopez.com, or JenniferLopez.ca, or JenniferLopez.co.uk,…..or Jennifer.com, Jennifer.ca IF your first name is available, i think that one small thing will GUARANTEE at least an interview, unless the employer is __BEEP__, in which case you don’t want to work for such an employer, this strategy effectively pre-screens interviews for you as a jobseeker, for better employers, and makes things quick and easy for everyone.
This might have been a novel idea 10 years ago, do you think it still applies today?
*sorry for any missing h’s, need a new keyboard.
I am sure the owner is thanking you for the publicity. Maybe you should make an offer and buy it and put it to its best economic use?
I have two main points here, Josh, regarding the economic benefit of developing this site. Perhaps I did not explain it well enough from the outset.
One, is that there is the opportunity for Wealth Creation from parked domains. There is an opportunity for the owner to make more money than currently with a parked site (yes, he could make much more than a few hundred per day, WeBuyThe, which is why these companies are buying his leads), thus creating wealth for himself, potentially others (ie. jobs to run that business), and in this case do a good deed as well by hopefully helping others find jobs. The downside for Monster, etc. is dispersed enough amongst the ad buyers to limit financial trouble and only slightly eats away at the bottom line of the pockets of a corporate exec that can afford the small loss. Wealth Creation must be the goal of our economy again to get us through this Recession.
Two, there is a drop-off in conversion rates the further a customer has to click through to the next site to find his product. There are potential clients lost between their natural arrival at Resume.com and the next stop the ad takes them. I do not have the data for how many, but think of a time searched for a product and after not finding it on the second or third page, eventually gave up.
Lastly, I continue to believe that parked sites are a detriment to the Internet in general. I do have sites parked, so I am guilty as the rest of us, but we must admit that the goal needs to be development of these sites for both more productive and efficient use of the domain and to reduce the negative impression they leave of our industry.
Kevin, I would love to but can not afford it currently. My best offer would be to partner up with the owner, and develop the business for them with part of the upside. We have a few of these projects underway right now and I have added this to my priority list. That said, I think we have even better opportunities than Resume.com lined up (so it is a ways down the list), hence the blog to encourage others to consider the same opportunity.