I have said before that the real test of a new company or product is simple: Does it solve a problem? Would life be better, more convenient, less costly, or more efficient if only we had YOUR product? Answering this question, or stimulating a conversation about it, is at the heart of our nation’s economy. Or, someone has to sell something. Well, it might as well be me today. If you are a job seeker, or even a blog/website, here are some things you don’t know about LinkUp. But should. Until LinkUp, job seekers had some real problems finding a decent job.

Let’s Call It: 12 Reasons Why LinkUp Will Become the New, Best Way To Find Your Next Job

1. GI-GO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. There are over 50,000 job boards. Some are big, some are very narrowly focused, like www.LeftHandedX-Raytechnicians.com. Once a job board is created…and you can have your own job board by noon tomorrow…someone finds it and starts using it to post irrelevant, fake, work-at-home scam jobs or worse. Job boards love the pay-to-post biz model and, of course, will take the $. The unfortunate result is that the poor job seeker wastes valuable time at these typical job boards. There’s just so much “trash” on job boards nowadays. At LinkUp, we insist on making sure that the jobs are real AND available. The only way we know how to do this, is to go to the company with the job opening in the first place, not the job boards. If a job is up on the company’s own website, we know it is a real job. (LHX-ray is not a real site, btw)

2. LinkUp’s free. You can pay to look, browse, and even apply to the jobs listed there. There is nothing lower than a job board that takes money from a frustrated jobseeker, with trickery or worse. You all have seen TheLadders TV ads. Only $100,00/yr jobs, they shout. BS, they get jobs from SimplyHired/Indeed and many of of the jobs are not even close to $100k. They have even been called out on this, but still persist with the ads. Another favorite is Employment Guide, who has a gigantic customer that entices job seekers to pay to apply for Postal Positions. EG takes money for this ad, “How can we tell if all the job openings are legitimate?” they seem to say. Try harder to protect the job seeker, we say.

3. Only jobs from company websites. The Holy Grail of the industry has always been the idea of finding and sharing the jobs that are posted on company websites. Until LinkUp, it was too hard for the job seeker to find these jobs. Some company urls are not easy to find or remember. Once you find the site, it is even difficult to find the career page because some companies seem to hide their job openings on the 19th buried page. Years ago, companies posted Job Openings in the break room or near the copier so employees or their friends and family could apply first. Then, they started paying Monster et al to advertise the jobs, because they needed more applicants. Some jobs were not advertised or companies could not afford the $300 posting fee/month/job. So not all the jobs were even advertised. At LinkUp, we share all the jobs and we believe that about 60% of them are never advertised to the public.

4. You just search, you don’t sign in. Isn’t it frustrating to be surprised with a sign-in screen on some job boards? But you go ahead and sign in because you need a job, badly. Job boards make huge money by selling your name and, if they say they never do this, they’re lying. Recruiters, MLM marketers, and scam artists buy your name. At LinkUp, you see everything you need to apply for a job. You only give us your email if you want a job alert. Otherwise, just search LinkUp and stay anonymous. Protect your privacy, we say, something Monster can’t or won’t do.

5. Robust searching. Most job boards show you only condensed job descriptions because job boards have word limits, etc. With LinkUp, we share the entire job description (it is on the company’s own website, remember, space is free for them) and it is also searchable. So, you can search on random things like “401k matching,” which will show you companies that offer that benefit. Have a narrow job idea?–I typed in “company softball” and got some interesting results.

6. Yeah, we got that, too. Job alerts, tabs, easy user-ability, feedback–we got it all. Everything you need.

7. Y-Not Simply Hired or Indeed? These are the top two job aggregators, which means they put up the jobs that they get from job boards. They have no filtering, they go for quantity of jobs, so again, GIGO. If it is up on the big job board, it’s up on theirs too. Over time, job seekers WILL go only to the hiring company to find open jobs, and not the pay to post job boards. SH and Indeed are dependent on the job boards (now in trouble) to survive. It is pretty well understood that SH and I are each like the canary in the mine: they are flattered by the attention of the miners, but they’re baffled as to why they are still alive.

8. We’re Just Getting Started, Keep Watching As We Get Partners, too. The big job boards pay big fees to sites that carry their widgets and search boxes. Huge. We don’t have that kind of money so we are finding companies and websites who want to offer a real service to their site visitors, and not just “sell out.” We think if you are a blog or website that serves, for example, truckdrivers–wouldn’t it be a nice service if you had our kewl widget that allowed you to showcase only truckdriver job openings? What a convenient way to add traffic is what I would be thinking. It takes time to build things right, we figure.

9. Here is why the LinkUp jobs are ‘fresh’ and theirs aren’t. There is nothing worse for a job seeker than applying for a job that has been filled. Big job boards understand how this works, because we all know that the most recently posted jobs are the most attractive. Big job boards charge companies to automatically re-post their jobs for not much $. So, often a job that has today’s date on it has been up on the job board since September of 07. Grrr. If it is up on the company’s own website, it is up on www.LINKUP.com. As soon as the company pulls it off their site, it comes off ours. Badabingbadabing. When you apply for a job you find on LinkUp, therefore, you know it is current.

10. Perfect for Networking. Most job seekers understand the role networking plays in finding a job. Some of us, like me, are lousy networkers…we just don’t know that many people. When we network, we ask the too-general “Do you know any companies that are hiring?” instead of coming in to the meeting with a printed out target list of companies who are actually hiring in our city or field for the person you are asking. This is a much better way to get the recommendations started.

11. Even if you are truly ‘passive.‘ Stats show that nearly 75% of us are passive jobseekers. A passive job seeker is someone who understands that all jobs are truly temporary and that one needs to be constantly aware of the environment. A great way to maintain this awareness is to use LinkUp consistently. It is like having your own intelligence gathering operation like Jack Bauer wishes he had. Or, for publishing late-breaking news items on jobs, like this blogger.  You can discover what companies are planning in their future because the FIRST place to look for new opportunities and new initiatives in a company, maybe even your competitor is their internal job board. They have a new project to build widgets, so they post a job for a new widget program manager…and it does not go to a job board first. But, you can see it first if you use LINKUP.com.

12. We’re getting raving fans, one at a time. We’re spending embarrassingly little on marketing. If we were spending more, there’s no doubt we would be the NUMBER one job search engine in the market. We’re getting ready for this big marketing push. What we can report is that some very smart folks have already discovered us and think we might just be the next big thing. Folks like Nick Corcodilos, TechCrunch, Mashable, CNET (short 2-minute video) and many more think we are awesome.

Ed. Note: How do we make money with LinkUp? Simple, companies pay us a $500 fee for the work we need to do to automatically serve their jobs through LinkUp and a monthly fee of $199. This fee structure saves companies a lot since they no longer have to pay for each job listing. Plus, employers can pay a small per-click amount if they want to sponsor, or enhance, their posted jobs.

So what can you do?

Think this through with me a little. Are they not hiring or are they not hiring you? You mean to tell me if you approach a company with a way to prove your worth, either in a cost saving way or in a revenue producing way, they would not hire you?  Of course, we they would.  But some namby-pamby, they-all-look-alike resume is not going to get you the job.  It’s going to take work, even in the job searching.

If you are not working now, what better time to work like an intern. Prove yourself to them. Work half days, Do something that makes YOU indispensable. Be flexible. Be results oriented. Figure out how they like to measure performance and offer to match that.

Offer to do a loathsome job…even part-time. Ever wonder why so many head media honchos got started in the mail room? Back then, it was always hard to get a job…and, the most aggressive, the ones who wanted to work the hardest, knew it was mostly about getting a foot in the door. The mail room was the way IN.

One thing is clear…when companies cut back on employees, over 95% of the time, they do not cut back on activities or requirements. This means that fewer people are doing the same work as before. If you can offer up a lifeline….most companies will think twice about throwing it back.

I know it is hard out there for job seekers. I am not questioning that fact. I am just hoping to help one person find a job…you.

(hat tip: Leah Metz)+Don’t forget our way-cool site LinkUp.com which only has jobs from company’s own websites, most are never advertised. There are new jobs every day in JOBDIG, in the paper and on the website that is constantly being updated.