TheLadders Blog

“You must be the change you wish to see….” -Gandhi

Eight years ago today, I joined TheLadders.

Back in January 2005, we were a small startup with only 25 employees. My first job was working on building a new version of TheLadders.com. At the time, there were only a few hundred lines of code and we spent the next few months working around the clock to deliver a new and improved website. When we were done and the site was launched, I remember my father asking me, “Now what? The site’s done; do you still have work to do?”

We certainly had more work to do then and we still do now. Today, our mission is the same as when we started: finding the right person for the right job. As long as our customers face frustration with their job search, we will be hard at work trying to help job seekers find their next job or employers their perfect candidate.

As we embrace 2013, I am seeing the same kinds of change and excitement that I saw in 2005. Over the past eight years, we’ve learned a lot about the job search, and we’re making big moves to reflect a new way of discovering job opportunities and candidates.

Fundamentally, we have changed the way we work. We threw long backlogs and task-lists out the window, and started working towards shared themes and goals among the whole company; not just technology, not just a single Scrum team. Themes shared by the CEO, marketing, sales, finance, customer service, product, tech and UX groups. With this approach, we have abandoned a traditional team structure previously set by executives and, instead, empowered our staff to determine how best to organize themselves to achieve our shared goals. We try and gather the right people in a room to solve a problem and we know they will make something great.

Have we figured out the magic formula for software-development success? Perhaps. We are closer to being agile with a lowercase ‘a’ than we ever before. We are making better decisions about how to best deploy our collective brainpower and talents. We are shipping value to our users faster. We are learning to say ‘no,’ affording us more time to focus on the work that best serves our users.

Almost 20% of our traffic is coming from phones and tablets, so the new website for TheLadders is completely responsive. It renders well on desktops, tablets and mobile phones. And, we are not stopping with just some fancy CSS; more is coming on the mobile front in the next few months, so stayed tuned.

Because finding the right job should be less tedious than searching through a database of titles, our team of data scientists and engineers work relentlessly to pair our users with the jobs that suit them best. You can still search if you want, but you do not have to be an expert on crafting keyword searches and filters to find relevant jobs; based on what you tell us, and also what you actually do online, we will find you those jobs.

Matching is easy to say and hard to do well. We have to deal with a host of technical challenges, such as classifying jobs into our taxonomy, and we are employing machine-learning to do that. But, that is a topic for another blog post. If you are one of our more-than 5 million members, you may have noticed some of our job- matching efforts with our new Targeted Hiring Alerts.

Job descriptions are becoming a commodity; everybody’s got them.  So, what data do we have to augment them and provide our users with relevant job information they cannot get anywhere else? We’ve launched TheLadders Scout, an innovative (and addictive) way to get a deeper understanding for the job market and your competition. It is a start towards giving our users the data they need to make faster and more-informed decisions in their job search. Here’s our founder’s take on it.

We’ve grown a lot in the past eight years. With more than 5 million jobseekers and 31,000 recruiters and employers, we have embarked on a large infrastructure rebuild, launched powerful caching with Varnish for our web-services layer, and we are leveraging Storm for processing our long-running match and email tasks. Our move from MySQL to Clustrix continues, and dozens of DB slaves are going offline as we increase our load on the Clustrix database. And, most significantly, we are refactoring away some of the most fiddly bits of our codebase.

Additionally, we are rebuilding our data center with shiny hardware, as well as a new network and level of resource flexibility that gets the bits from us to you, that much faster. Our DevOps team has been busy designing the new data center and ramping up for a smooth transition over the upcoming months.

To celebrate our accomplishments so far, and to share our excitement about what is to come, we are re-launching our development blog, because the best decisions stand up to the harshest light of criticism. There are exceptionally talented people on this team, and you should meet them.

Want more from the product and development team? Visit the Engineering Stories blog!

Kyri Sarantakos is Vice President of Engineering at TheLadders.  When he’s not playing around with iOS development, he can be found hacking all things radio-controlled.

At TheLadders, we currently have a greater UX goal to incorporate our design process more dynamically and efficiently, so when my boss asked me if I wanted to attend an HTML & CSS workshop at a collaborative workspace called General Assembly, I jumped at the opportunity.

General Assembly is a global network of campuses for people seeking opportunity and education in technology, business, and design. It has locations in most major cities, both nationally and internationally, and its memberships provide private desk space to individuals, along with office space for deserving organizations. Partnerships with major philanthropic companies and corporations help to keep its engine going. They also offer a variety of workshops, covering topics from effective project management to powerful social media techniques, that incorporate hands-on education.

This particular workshop took place over a weekend – five hours on Saturday, and five hours on Sunday.  The instructor, Chris Castiglione, focused on what he called the good parts vs. the bad parts of the language.  He then educated us about the elements were expected to work with, mainly Front-end Web Development:

Front-end Web Development (FEWD): the process of writing code to provide the layout of a site, and how things look and behave in the browser. At its core, there are only three front-end languages: HTML, CSS and JavaS.

• HTML is the STRUCTURE of our page 
• CSS is the PRESENTATION (or style) of our page 
• JS is often referred to as the BEHAVIOR of a web page

We then went into Sublime Text and began to code like crazy!  By the end of the workshop, we were able to create basic sites that ran completely on HTML & CSS. It was a fantastic experience, and I highly recommend General Assembly as a valuable resource for all technology professionals!

Tesia Kosmalski is a User Experience Designer at TheLadders. When she’s not ensuring high quality and meaningful user experiences online, she makes art with wacky things like electronics, sound and sometimes textiles even. 

At TheLadders, we have been a pioneering, lean UX Agile shop for a few years. As we continue to optimize the job seeker’s online experience by ramping up our mobile efforts, my team and I recently completed a comprehensive review of our product performance. I seized this opportunity to re-read the insights from thought leaders of the Agile Lean UX community…and then it hit me: there is an Achilles’ heel to the Lean Agile UX methodology.

Before I go on, please don’t misunderstand my epiphany. I am not dropping the axe on the entire methodology nor start a holy war on the UX community. Rather, my goal is to share my experience and learnings with other CEOs, entrepreneurs, heads of engineering, design and product development, so that they can extract the best value from Agile.

Here is an abbreviated list of my recommended reading:

• slideshare.net/pathf/lean-ux-agile-putting-it-all-together
• andersramsay.com/2012/04/24/agile-ux-vs-lean-ux
• jeffgothelf.com/blog/
• theleanstartup.com/
• slideshare.net/venturehacks/the-lean-startup-2

What becomes apparent is the absence of the following principles:

• Goal-setting
• Commitment
• Leadership

Even in this presentation, unfortunately, there is only slight attention devoted to these principles.

You may argue that these presentations simply attempt to educate the community about the process and you may say, “Of course you need goal-setting, commitment and strong leadership. That is obvious, so there is no need to mention it.” However, I would counter-argue that if one really understands goal-setting, commitment and leadership, that it is imperative to include these principles in any presentation.

For example, I recently read a great conversation on Quora about what makes a good engineering culture. Lau hits the nail on the head when he discusses optimizing interaction speed:

“Team-wise, fast iteration speed means having a set of strong leaders to help coordinate and drive team efforts. Key stakeholders in a decision need to decide effectively and commit to their choices. To borrow a phrase from Bill Walsh, a leader who coached the 49ers to three Super Bowls, strong leaders need to ‘commit, explode, recover,’ which means committing to a plan of attack, executing it, and then reacting to the results. A team crippled with indecisiveness will just cause individual efforts to flounder.”

In one paragraph, he covered all three principles.

As Colin Powell said, “Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.”

Without strong leadership, how did a team of 11 at Instagram take on the mighty Facebook and its 5,000 employees in the mobile photo war?

In my recent post on TheLadders Blog, Chief Executive or Ironman?, I explain how to build a successful start-up and convert it into a lasting enterprise.

My friend Dave Carvajal, CEO & founder of Dave Partners, a premier executive search and advisory firm, has hired the best in New York City, and is a three-time successful entrepreneur and a two-time Ironman. He also talks about these principles in a recent blog post:

Goal Setting, Discipline, Performance Metrics, and Achievement:

Peter Drucker said, “What gets measured gets managed.” We need goals in life, big and small, to move forward. Measuring and training in specific heart-rate zones is the fastest way to athletically increase your VO2 max and lactate threshold. Both in business and athletics, being data-driven in your goals and execution is the best way to measure your progress and increase performance. The most successful entrepreneurs and athletes are masterful at setting and achieving performance metrics.

Last month, I was at a gallery opening in New York City, the first for the featured artist. Twenty beautiful landscape oil paintings were displayed, most of which sold by the end of the evening. You can imagine my surprise when I heard the artist’s husband say something that made me think about the Agile UX process. He asked, “Can you believe that she created most of the 20 paintings during the two weeks leading up to the show?”

Deadlines create urgency, as well as provide a map. I designed my 30-week training program for Ironman knowing that the deadline was August 11, 2012. It was an Agile process, not a waterfall.

If you allow your scrum team to perform staggered, two-week sprints without a map or a deadline, where do you land? Without proper leadership how do you ensure that you won’t end up with an aggregation of half-baked features?

What applies to artists, entrepreneurs, and athletes also applies to engineering, Agile, and Lean UX.

Applying the above principles of the Agile Lean UX methodology will avoid process for the sake of a process, while maximizing ROI.

Alex Douzet is Co-Founder and COO of TheLadders. In this role, Alex is responsible for the company strategy, global business operations, and product development.

Last week I attended Mobile Health 2012, with a focus on “Baby Steps for Big Results.” The idea being there’s power in “baby steps” done quickly, for long term behavior change. Hosted by Stanford U’s Persuasive Technology Lab, this year’s keynote speaker was Weight Watchers CEO and ManMeetScale blogger David Kirchhoff.

David took the opportunity to speak of his personal struggles with weight loss and the dreaded word “maintenance.” He shared one of his own baby steps for keeping the weight off when confronted with temptation…he tweets. For example, @dkirchhoff “On a flight back from St. Louis. Just turned down another warm cookie. It’s the little victories…” There’s something about publicly declaring your weakness and celebrating your win.

So what’s this got to do with TheLadders? And why did we attend a mobile health conference? It’s a good question. What I told attendees is that there’s synergy between the trials and tribulations of health and wellness behavior changes and job search behavior changes. What do I mean by this? In my role as a product leader at TheLadders, I witness countless job-seekers struggling with adopting best practices for a faster, more meaningful and more prosperous job search simply because the tasks at hand appear daunting, or they are overloaded with irrelevant jobs and action-less info.

At the heart of the conference…Baby Steps! (Actually, I find this term a little off putting so I’m going to call it “Starter Steps” to steal from Tim Chang of Mayfield Fund, a conference panelist. Starter Steps translate into BJ Fogg’s new program “3 Tiny Habits” as a way to create new behaviors – in health, or in our case, the job search. Fogg states only three things will change behavior in the long term:

Option A. Have an epiphany
Option B. Change your context (what surrounds you)
Option C. Take baby steps

Unless you’ve ever spotted a unicorn, forget about the epiphany – it’s too difficult. Instead, focus on changing your context and taking starter steps. These two options are practical and can lead to lasting change if you’re following the right program. Fogg warns that few winning programs exist – luckily TheLadders, like Weight Watchers, is one of them, in my opinion.

You should join a future session of Fogg’s Three Tiny Habits to try starter steps for yourself, and while you’re at it, check out Stanford’s Top 10 Mistakes in Behavior Change.

For more from the audience and participants of Mobile Health 2012, check out the #mh2012 Twitter stream.

Chantal Botana is Director of Consumer Product Development at TheLadders. She’s a pragmatic leader whose mantra is “Insight, creativity & innovation are what make good products great.” She’s #lean and #agile, and a Real Madridista.

When our VP of Public Relations, Lisa Hagendorf, first asked me if I wanted to work with AMC’s The Pitch, I broke out in a cold sweat. It wasn’t the show’s fault — it was that simple phrase: The Pitch.

See, before I started my successful career here at TheLadders, I was an agency guy. I’ve worked at some of the biggest and best advertising agencies — Ogilvy, Euro RSCG, Draft and McGarryBowen. Throughout my agency days, I’ve worked on over 50 pitches. They can be exhilarating and they are always exhausting. Late nights. Bad take-out dinners. Intense discussions. Strategies. Concepts. More intense discussions. New strategies. New concepts. Arguments. Sometimes there was crying. Too many calls home, saying you’re still working. Finally, we’d finalize the concepts and send them off to production. There would be a light at the end of the tunnel.

But wait! Emergency meeting!

The new Executive Creative Director took a shower and now has a new strategy and creative idea. Swearing. Lots of swearing.

As soon as I became a Creative Director, I vowed to respect my teams and make sure I understood how they felt. But that goes out the door after a few late nights and the pressure you feel to win. No other professional business gets close to the insanity and pressure of “the pitch.” You have to be willing to put everything you have into it. No one wins because they brought in work they could do in one day. They might have done the work in one day but that’s because they only had a day to do it.

As I watched The Pitch, I felt the pain and excitement of the teams. A part of me wanted in. The competition showcased is really addictive and brought up old competitive feelings. The rush.

And it’s on AMC. Who doesn’t love AMC right now? They’re the most Emmy-recognized network on basic cable. Many of you know it as home to your favorite shows, including Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Killing and The Walking Dead.

TheLadders is happy to collaborate with The Pitch. How do we fit in? We’re experts on the elevator pitch, one of the key aspects of career advancement, and an essential part of a strong personal brand. The Pitch reached out to us because they know we can help professionals give the perfect Elevator Pitch and move their careers forward.

Learn more about perfecting your elevator pitch ›

Todd Hoza is Director of Creative & UX at TheLadders. When he’s not busy helping build the brand from the inside out, he’s taking credit for all the great work his talented team creates.

At TheLadders, we like to give employees every opportunity to grow.

Recently, my fellow Associate Creative Director, Jennifer Gergen, had an amazing opportunity come her way: She was accepted to participate in the Startup Bus.

The Startup bus is a really unique event. Designers and Developers in different cities board buses and travel to South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW) in Austin. They’re formed into small teams and tasked with launching a new startup by the time they arrive.

The teams then compete by means of a social game based on investing in (fake) company stock.

This meant that Jen would have to take off work for a week, on very short notice. But when she asked our boss (Creative Director Todd Hoza) if she could go, he didn’t hesitate. He realized what a fantastic opportunity this would be for Jen personally and professionally.

Think of the skills she’d be honing: design, development, coordination, teamwork, project management… the list is nearly endless. Todd also realized that there was potential for Jen’s to win—and maybe not come back to work if her startup was funded!—but he was willing to take that chance because he knew what it meant to her.

It’s that kind of freedom that you get at TheLadders that you really can’t get anywhere else. The freedom to grow and to take advantage of unique opportunities.

For what it’s worth, Jen’s team did a fantastic job, making the final group with their startup, Happstr. Happstr is a social sharing site whose goal is to spread global happiness, an idea I think we can all get behind in these cynical times.

We wanted to congratulate her and her team on a great run! We’re sorry she didn’t win, but I have to admit: I’ll be posting on Happstr and sharing how happy I am when I see Jen walk in the door later this week. We can’t wait to have her back!

(You’ll be hearing from Jen about her experience when she gets back, don’t worry.)

Follow Happstr: @happstr

Follow Jen: @b9punk

Follow Bill: @wrbeard

Follow Todd: @hoza

 Bill Beard is the Associate Creative Director of Copy for TheLadders. He loves to travel, always has ESPN.com open, and always takes the cheese option when it’s offered. You can follow him on twitter: @wrbeard

This past Saturday, the first Agile User Experience (AgileUX) conference, sponsored by TheLadders, was held at the SVA Theater in Manhattan. The conference brought together leading voices from within the New York City design and technology community to discuss strategy and tactics for delivering world class software products.

The conference was organized by Jeff Gothelf, formerly the Director of User Experience at TheLadders, and myself, current head of UX at TheLadders. Todd Hoza, who is the Creative Director for TheLadders, provided creative leadership for the conference.

The speakers we chose came from a cross-section of disciplines including product, venture capital, customer research, and consulting. Speakers representing TheLadders included Eric Burd, VP of Product, who discussed organization change to align the entire business — from sales, marketing, finance and customer support — to an agile mindset.

Eric Burd - VP Product at TheLadders

Also representing TheLadders was Jennifer Gergen, Associate Creative Director, who discussed strategies for better integrating design into an Agile process. I spoke about the importance of continuous, rapid-cadence customer research and usability testing and delved into the details of how to conduct that research and feed it back into product delivery. Finally, Jeff Gothelf argued for demystifying design and the importance of transparency for greater team collaboration.

Will Evans, Manager, User Experience Design at TheLadders

The event drew close to 400 attendees, some from as far away as Japan, who gathered to learn and share ideas for designing greater product experiences faster. The general consensus was that it was a great learning experience exploring the most recent thinking in product design, and many people left energized and excited to bring those ideas back to their organizations. TheLadders was proud to sponsor such an event and continues to be an active member of the New York City Technology and Design community.

Will Evans is Manager, Experience Design for TheLadders in New York City with 15 years industry experience in interaction design, information architecture, and user experience strategy.

When we think about Valentine’s Day, romantic images of chocolates, flowers, and candlelit dinners may come to mind. However, being happy in the workplace may just be our greatest gift. In fact, only 12% of Americans have found the right corporate chemistry and are “really happy with this job,” according to a new study we’ve conducted. Of the 255,000 job seekers surveyed, an astonishing 88% confirmed varying degrees of dissatisfaction with their workplace.

In the poll — which is illustrated by our awesome new infographic — 61.3% of job seekers who were asked to describe the way they feel about their current job admitted they are ‘actively looking for a next job.’ Another 19.0% claimed their ‘job isn’t awful, but not great,’ and 3.9% ‘don’t know how much more of this gig can be tolerated.’ The most unhappy? Unfortunately, 4.1% ‘want out of this job now.’ Talk about a bad romance.

Whether in your love life or in your work life, finding the right match is all about chemistry, and feeling motivated and appreciated in the workplace is paramount for being successful in your career and life. That’s why we suggest workplace satisfaction be determined by the following factors: corporate culture, opportunity for growth, sense of challenge, work-life balance, and compensation package.

That’s why we come to work every day: to help professionals find the right job matches, so their story can have a happy ending.

Read the press release.

Lisa Hagendorf is the Director of Public Relations for TheLadders where she is a huge ambassador of the brand in the office. At the gym. And on the street. She just can’t stop talking about TheLadders. Ever.