Resumendation?

So I was looking for a "good" name for an employment search related web service. It's not a job listings board and not a resume board - it's a place where a person can truly and anonymously describe himself for a chance to be discovered by some employer that really needs a person like that. So how can a person describe himself and convince others that this is all true? We have all seen our share of exaggerated resumes. One can hardly trust a resume these days.

My answer to this is a combination of what you say about yourself (that's the resume part in the name) and what others say about you (that's the recommendation part in the name). Together, resume and recommendation, give me a domain name that was not taken - resumendation.com

To be more accurate, this was my wife's idea and she deserves full credit for it (and for much more).

So, resumendation is a combination of resume and recommendation. But then I began worrying about people lying left and right. How can one trust what people write about themselves and what their friends write about them? After all, one will only write good things about himself and publish only positive recommendations. Right? Not so fast... I think there are some nature forces that will help me out here, plus some recommendation related trickery that I learned from the way most academic institutions solve a similar problem.

First let's talk about the natural forces. I love having the universe on my side. You see, good and bad are not so easy to define. What's good for me might be bad for you and vice versa. So when one person describes himself as great, another person might read the same description and interpret it as full of B.S. Most of who we are is neither good nor bad, it just is what it is.

When it comes to employment, good or bad does not matter. What matters is being exactly what an employer wants. Do you really know what an employer wants? Are you sure? How is it working out for you so far?

Now imagine the difference between being hired for what you think the employer wants versus being hired for who you really are. That alone is worth the effort of being truthful. When was the last time you did not need to worry about how your peers, subordinates and bosses perceive you? How great it is to be with people who accept you for who you really are?

I believe that some people will be less than truthful, in part because many of us are not used to being absolutely open in public and on the Internet. However, over time, they will learn how great it is to be absolutely open - especially since nobody knows who you are. Remember that all profiles on resumendation.com are anonymous? Want to know how anonymous you are? Well, I believe that one cannot compromise what he does not know. And since I do not know who you are, I cannot possibly compromise your identity. Nor can any hackers, who I hope will never be able to hack into my database, because I never asked for identifiable information.

Now let's talk about the way colleges deal with a similar issue when asking a professor or a teacher to recommend a candidate student. Their solution is CONFIDENTIAL recommendations. A student never sees the recommendation that a professor writes, it goes directly to the college.

I created a similar mechanism where recommendations can be regular or confidential. Regular recommendations are visible by the individual and he can decide to include them in a public profile.

Confidential recommendations can never be viewed by the recommended individual. All he can do is ask the recommender to forward a confidential recommendation to a third party. This may not be 100% bullet proof, but it is much better than nothing.