Ever feel like people see you as little more than a number? Well, a startup called thinks that’s actually a good approach when it comes to hiring — if everyone’s job qualifications can be quantified and compared, it might bring more objectivity to the hiring process.
Zapoint says that with its product, employers won’t have to spend as much time agonizing over who is best qualified, because Zapoint can give the resumes a value and rank the applicants for them.
But can a job applicant’s value be measured scientifically?
Well, Zapoint awards job applicants with more than just a single number. Instead, Zapoint also generates a graph for you called the Lifechart, which shows how many professional, educational and personal “zapoints” you’re worth and how that value has changed over time. While the idea may sound a little silly at first, the chart has a compelling simplicity. If the Lifechart is as accurate as Zapoint claims, it may provide a lot of useful information at a glance — arguably more than a resume.
Right now, applicants can already go to the Zapoint site and input their resumes. The company plans to offer tools for both recruiters and employers, as well as professional networking features for job applicants. But at this early stage, at least, it’s the concept of the Lifechart that makes Zapoint stand out from all the other job sites out there.
It’s hard to gauge whether a company like Zapoint is full of hot air. For example, a startup called YouNoodle says it uses social network theory to predict a startup’s future worth, and it was greeted with a lot of skepticism — it will take a lot of work to convince people that YouNoodle or Zapoint’s systems involve real science, not just a lot of handwaving. And in the case of Zapoint, I met with repeated failures during my efforts to set up an account at the website, so I didn’t get a chance to try the product out myself.
Still, the Brookline, Mass.-based company says it has already landed some large enterprise customers for its platform for hiring and managing workers, and also lined up faculty from Harvard and MIT for its advisory board. It also just raised a first funding round of undisclosed size from HFF Investments.
