Anyone who has ever looked for a job knows the drill: find job online, send resume, wait, and never hear back. If you’re sending out dozens of resumes, like most job seekers do, you’re likely familiar with this broken process — and frustrated when you don’t get a response. In the careers industry, this broken loop even has a notorious name: “The Black Hole.”

Recently, TheLadders conducted a study on job-seeker behavior using “eye-tracking” technology to determine how we could help close The Black Hole while leading job seekers to their perfect job. We analyzed how job seekers view job postings, what they actually saw, what they concentrated on, and what they totally missed.

If you’re unfamiliar with eye tracking, it’s a way to record and analyze where someone focuses on a page, and in what order they do it (see cool visualizations above).

So, what did we find out?

Job seekers assume The Black Hole exists because employers do not take the time to respond, which is only partially true. What we found from our behavioral analysis was that job seekers also played their part in The Black Hole, which can be statistically proven through our eye-tracking study.

The fundamental conclusion of our study relies on sensitivity and specificity, two really important statistics terms. Sensitivity, in this study, was the ability of job seekers to correctly determine a good job “fit” for them, while specificity was the same job seeker’s ability to determine a job “not a fit.” Basically, we were on a mission to find out if job seekers were applying to the right jobs, and avoiding applying for jobs that were not right for them.

Surprisingly, the results of those two pieces of analysis showed us that job seekers were unable to determine good jobs, only picking good fits at a rate of 38%, but were able to tell bad fits at a rate nearly twice that. For further clarification, this means that out of every 10 jobs an average job seeker applies to, six of them will be bad fits. Additionally, this means that out of every 10 job postings viewed, the job seeker overlooks at least two that are good fits.

Our primary assumption for why this happens is due to the time spent reading and assessing the positions. Sixty-five percent of our study participants self-reported spending up to ten minutes reading job postings before applying; however, our study findings show that, on average, job seekers spend less than a minute per job posting – even less when they determine it’s not a fit.

What can TheLadders do to help job seekers make better decisions in the job sourcing and application process? We have to make the application process more precise, so that job seekers can better identify the right opportunities and avoid getting stuck in The Black Hole. This is why we recently introduced TheLadders Scout, a competitive-analysis tool that provides job seekers with an anonymous overview of who else applied for that same role.

To determine the effectiveness of TheLadders Scout, the second part of our study tested how participants viewed the competitive data provided, and whether it influenced their ability to identify good fits.

The results were equally surprising, in that job seekers eyes were heavily drawn to the new feature on the page, and spent on average 12 incremental seconds viewing the competitive data.

Additionally, participants viewing job descriptions with TheLadders Scout were able to determine good fits at a 35% higher rate than job descriptions without Scout. With 12 seconds of viewing time being devoted to TheLadders Scout, we expected the overall viewing time of postings with TheLadders Scout to increase, but we were proven wrong. Job seekers spent 24% less time finding fits with TheLadders Scout.

Looking at these “heat maps,” you can see that job postings without Scout data on them (pictured on the left) drew job-seeker attention primarily to the title, company description at the top, and then the first line of the first couple of paragraphs. The majority of information (such as job requirements) was skimmed, or went completely unnoticed. In the Scout version, not only was more information read, but 12 seconds were spent reviewing the competitive information and determining based on other applicants if the position was truly a fit.

For us at TheLadders, the study provided valuable information, not only on why The Black Hole exists, and why employers and job seekers have equal roles in contributing to it, but also on how we can provide features and tools to help close The Black Hole.

Download the full research study. 

 Daniel Cronyn is the director of consumer marketing at TheLadders. Besides a passion for creative direct-response campaigns and analysis, he spends his time tracking down obscure music events and even more obscure food choices across New York City.

Last week, we held our third annual Career Day at Richard R. Green High School of Teaching. Career Day is an afternoon when professionals from across the city come to the school to speak with our students in small classroom settings about their career paths and industries. The big idea, of course, is to expose our students to careers they may never have even heard of through a compelling personal connection, in hopes of inspiring them to pursue whatever it is that they really love and are excited about during and after college. What’s unique about this event is that every single one of our 550 students, regardless of academic standing or self-motivation, gets to participate.

Given that many of our students have had limited exposure to different careers and have faced challenges and stifled opportunities throughout their education, Career Day has the potential to be a truly transformational moment in their lives, opening them up to a future they simply could not have imagined before.

Career Day is my favorite project, and each year I try to come up with ways to make the event more meaningful and engaging for students. It has grown tremendously from 19 speakers in the first year to 48 speakers this year.

Additionally, we added a Career Fair, in which Amanda Augustine, job search expert for TheLadders, spoke with students about their individual passions and dream jobs. At the fair, students had the chance to speak with representatives from a variety of professions, including the military (Navy and Marines) and AmeriCorps (Vista, NCCC and CityYear), as well as non-profits that offer internships to high school students.

The speaker series featured professionals from non-profits (including Russell Simmons charities), magazine journalism (the editor and art director from US Weekly magazine), graphic design, product design, music entertainment, system design, cinematography, social media, law, nursing, fitness, software engineering, architecture, broadcasting (Terrence McKnight from NPR & WQXR), finance, healthcare management, and education. A week later, students are still talking about the speakers they met and spoke with at Career Day. In high school time, that’s an eternity!

To learn more about Career Day, or to volunteer next year, please visit the website at wix.com/rkessous/rrgcareerday.

Rachel Kessous has been a public school teacher in NYC for 9 years. In addition to being a teacher, Rachel is also the Director of the Liberal Arts Academy, where she coordinates career preparedness programming for students and mentoring programs focused around finding students passions and preparing for college.

After many weeks of careful planning, my colleagues and I were proud to launch our inaugural JobMobile event in New York City last night. This was the first in a series of nationwide events that brought together the talent acquisition community to discuss major innovations and strategies in mobile recruitment. It also served as a festive platform for us to honor the top 1% of recruiting professionals in New York, better known as TheLadders ELITE.

Our CEO and Co-founder, Alex Douzet, gave a keynote presentation on the ever-increasing demand for mobile solutions across a broad spectrum of sectors, including recruitment. It’s estimated that within the next twelve months, employers can expect 50% of their web traffic to come from mobile devices. This shift in our businesses creates many opportunities, but also comes with its challenges.

Employers cannot simply transform their companies’ web experience to an iPhone screen. Mobile requires an intuitive design and user experience that brings convenience to the job seeker with functions like “one-click apply.” With that in mind, Alex discussed TheLadders’ latest projects, including our mobile-responsive site redesign for job seekers; the introduction of our proprietary, competitive-analysis tool, TheLadders Scout; and our impending mobile app that will allow job seekers to find and apply to the right job on the go.

I had the honor of moderating a diverse panel discussion featuring industry thought-leaders Karen Miller, vice president of people for Seamless; Jack Kelly, managing director and co-founder of the Compliance Search Group; Karsten Vagner, director of people for ZocDoc; and Melissa Enbar, director of recruiting for Birchbox.

Our goal was to have an honest conversation about mobile recruitment and discuss what’s working for their organizations and what challenges remain. This group did not disappoint! Not only did they share their best practices and common gripes, but they also talked about the differences in their approaches. For instance, corporate recruiters look for synergies between their product and marketing teams to build a mobile recruitment strategy that fits their brand and shows off their corporate culture; whereas agency recruiters tend to utilize mobile and social in different ways to attract the right type of candidates to suit their clients’ needs.

What I learned from this lively conversation is that every professional interprets mobile recruitment differently to suit their business needs. From the utilization of social media, to developing mobile-optimized career sites and mobile apps, to incorporating Skype and texting into the interview process, organizations can find large and small ways to attract the right candidate pool.

After the panel discussion, TheLadders Director of Client Relations, Employer Marketing & Sales, Thomas Murphy, honored TheLadders ELITE and presented them with their awards and ELITE jackets (I have to admit I’m jealous – those jackets are great)!

The night ended with cocktails and conversations. As always, it was a pleasure to meet so many great people and get a chance to chat. I want to thank everyone who was able to attend and give a special shout-out to our wonderful panelists for their participation. If you’re a recruiting professional who lives in Chicago, San Francisco, or Atlanta, keep your eyes peeled – we’re coming to your town soon!

Amanda Augustine is the Job Search Expert for TheLadders, the online job-matching service for career-driven professionals. She is a Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC) and Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) who provides job search and career guidance for professionals looking to make their next career move. Have a question for Amanda? Submit your question here for a chance to have it answered in her weekly column, and be sure to follow @JobSearchAmanda on Twitter and “Like” her on Facebook for up-to-the-minute job-search advice.

A couple of weekends ago, I headed down to Wharton Business School to attend their Startup Unconference.  A former colleague of mine, Ware Skyes, CEO of NoWait, invited me to run a workshop with him called, “How to Write the Perfect Product Spec,” which made me smile. Over the years, I’ve seen many product specifications, none of them perfect, and the idea that on day zero you would know exactly what you want on day 100, 200, and 365 is, in my opinion, fundamentally flawed. However, I wanted to participate regardless, if only to drive that point home.

A big theme of the conference was managing business and technology interaction, a timely topic considering the number of young entrepreneurs I see just looking for people to execute their winning idea. In a keynote from Steve Welch of Dreamit Ventures, he cautioned about becoming too enamored with ideas, “The best idea ever at Dreamit Ventures never made it out into the market.” He observed that teams that executed well together had the most success at Dreamit, whereas the idea is secondary to the team that is executing it.

He is right, and young entrepreneurs should be focusing on finding good partners in technology, sales, as well as in marketing. I like to say, “Five dollars and an idea will get you a cup of Starbucks coffee.” The idea will absolutely change and evolve from when you get that first funding to when you have something customers will love and pay for. The team you pick will thrive with that change or they will not, and a good team that executes together is critical in all companies, especially in early-stage startups.

In 2003 at TheLadders, our big idea was a newsletter of hand-picked jobs sent weekly to sales professionals. In the 10 years since, our idea has changed countless ways; some things we’ve tried worked, while some have not. Our founder Marc Cenedella still sends his weekly newsletter, the largest and longest-running newsletters of its type in the world, but it’s just one part of a much larger and growing business. We have more ideas than time, and how we execute on them has proven to be the most important thing we do.

Therefore, we told the workshop of Wharton MBA candidates that we were not going to show them how to write a perfect product spec; that is an impossible and futile task. In fact, it is not the primary job of the entrepreneur to provide solutions, but rather to identify a need in the market:  “Potential User X has this pain; let us try to address it.”

The problems faced by young MBA founders are amplified when they have no experience in the technological and/or UX domains of the solution space. Not fully understanding a platform’s affordances and capabilities will, at worst, lead to a subpar product and, at best, a long slog of trial and error. Too often, money runs out before anything is launched.

What’s a fresh MBA graduate with a great idea to do? First, he or she should invest in finding great partners who can bring missing functional expertise to the table and then put those partners to work.

We offered the conference attendees a tool to use with their partners, a way to include them in devising solutions. Captain Picard says it best:

The entrepreneur sets the course and the team, as a whole, figures out how best to execute.

One technique to solve this is to start projects by including the whole team in devising solutions via a UX Design Studio. At TheLadders, we start all of our bigger two- to 10-week initiatives with this process. All functional groups are represented, including the CEO, marketing, product, development, and support.

Going back to the Startup Unconference, we spent the majority of the workshop running the MBA candidates through a mini, hands-on design studio. Using a little-known problem statement/scenario from NoWait, they did quick five-minute iterations of solo design and team review. The exercise gave them a process they could immediately take back to their projects, a basis for including their entire team in the problem-solving process.

UX Design Studios will not solve all problems of business and technology/product relations, but it’s a good start and relatively easy for small teams to try.

For more information about design studios and how to run them in detail, please see the following articles from Will Evans, who brought the practice to TheLadders:

http://uxmag.com/articles/introduction-to-design-studio-methodology

http://uxmag.com/articles/the-design-of-design-studio

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.

Hot on the heels of attending TED2013 in Long Beach, CA, I flew back last weekend to deliver a “Founder Talk” at the 2nd Annual NYU Entrepreneurs Festival, a two-day event to promote and support entrepreneurship across the University. As a proud NYU alumnus, I was invited to be a keynote speaker to share my stories of success, along with the challenges overcome along the way, with the rest of the NYU community.

Additional presenters included founders such as Dan Porter of OMGPOP and Paul Berry of RebelMouse, as well as Rachel Sterne Haot, Chief Digital Officer to Mayor Bloomberg’s administration and the City of New York. She spoke about various initiatives underway in New York to cultivate local technology talent for the city’s innovative community. Fellow NYU alumnus Jack Dorsey, founder & CEO of Square and creator of Twitter, made his way back to New York University for a fireside chat with Fred Wilson, co-founder of Union Square Ventures.

You can follow the conversation about the NYUEF on Twitter here.

Tom Post, Managing Editor at Forbes, interviewed me on stage for almost an hour, before taking questions from the audience. Below is the agenda of topics I discussed with Tom:

• The Road Towards Entrepreneurship: From Golden Arches to CEO
• TheLadders is Born to Address an Unmet Need
• The Business Model Comes Full Circle
• A Year of Fine Tuning
• Re-envisioning TheLadders with a Mobile-first Lens

You can watch the entire keynote presentation here.

I had a great time at the NYU Entrepreneurs Festival, and very few other reasons would incentivize me to cut short my stay at TED besides the opportunity to speak at my alma mater. I look forward to doing it again.

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

Last week, I flew to the TED Conference (Technology, Entertainment, Design) in Long Beach, CA, my fourth visit. As CEO & co-founder of TheLadders, I attended TED as a guest, rather than a speaker, which is the only show I attend in this more passive role. Although TED is an excellent platform for networking, the main reason I attended the conference was to hear about and learn from outstanding presenters.

Because most of the TED speakers do not work directly in my industry, the immediate implementation of my learnings from there are not obvious. However, there are some amazing moments when I absorb so much from these speakers that it is a humbling experience, demonstrating that a captive audience can learn from practically anyone. Whether a scientist, street-musician, artist, fashion mogul, serial entrepreneur, or a high-school graduate, these categories of “teachers” commonly demonstrate that their ideas are worth sharing. Additionally, I returned home with the feeling that challenges such as climate change, poverty, or job creation can, indeed, be solved. As human beings, if we have a purpose and put our minds to the task, we can be incredibly resourceful and creative.

Bono projects extreme poverty rate of zero by 2030

I highly recommend these three TEDTalks once they become available online:

1. Taylor Wilson, teenage nuclear scientist: Solving the world’s energy crisis

At 14 years old, from his garage, Taylor Wilson became the youngest person to achieve fusion with a reactor. Now, he wants to solve the world’s energy crisis with a safe nuclear fusion reactor. With a $100,000 grant from PayPal’s Peter Thiel, Taylor is skipping college to start a company that will manufacture a safe, non-replenishable fusion reactor (at least for 30 years) that either can be buried or sent to space. His newly designed reactor can produce 10-times the power of a traditional nuclear plant, with the intent of being commercialized in three to five years.

2. Ron Finley, South Central’s renegade gardener: “Plant some shit”

Ron Finley grows a nourishing food culture in South Central LA’s food desert by planting the seeds and tools for healthy eating. He is a true urban farming hero who thinks outside of the box, and could not help but notice what was going on in his own backyard: drive-throughs and drive–bys, both contributing to the area’s high diabetes rate. Ron’s vision started with the curbside garden where he grows fruit and vegetables. When the city tried to shut him down, his fight led to a movement that provides nourishment, education, and health. Additionally, his plans for a green café will create jobs in his poverty-stricken neighborhood.

3. Phil Hansen, stroke-of-genius artist: Embrace the shake

As an art student, Phil Hansen developed an artistic style for extreme pointillism that ultimately caused a tremor in his hand and permanent nerve damage. Eventually, he dropped out of school and stopped creating art until a neurologist suggested he “embrace the shake.” This recommendation propelled Phil on a journey to invent a new approach to making art by embracing his personal limitations. However, suddenly faced with too many choices and resources at his disposal, Phil lost his creativity. To find it again, he challenged himself to create art, only using materials that cost less than $1.00. Phil taught me the biggest lesson from my week at TED:  “I had to be limited to become limitless.”

These are just a few examples of the fantastic TEDTalks during my week, epitomized by the following quote from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

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

The backbone of every high-growth company is its people. In the knowledge economy, a strong team is the foundation for success and top talent is the driving force. As Jim Collins said in his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, “Get the right people on the bus.”

At TheLadders, we will be celebrating our 10-year anniversary this summer. For the past decade, we have hired more than 500 people, constantly focusing on getting the “right person on the bus,” and constantly ensuring that they are sitting in the right seat on that bus. We always strive to hire the best and get the most from our staff. Coaching, just like in sports, is the key to empowering employees to reach above-and-beyond. Just as with Sir Roger Bannister, we want TheLadders to break the four-minute mile; achieve what they might perceive to be unachievable.

Not surprisingly, TheLadders alumni network in New York City is strong and vibrant. When we ask them what they miss most about working at TheLadders (besides Bagel Friday!), they say it is the people. Over and over, we hear from our current and former employees that what makes the difference are the incredible colleagues they have worked with or are working with.

At TheLadders, we do not expect our staff to work here forever. Eventually, we know that people will leave. Furthermore, we know that as much as we enjoy promoting from within, we cannot possibly promote every great hire to a Vice President or C-level position. That said, one measure of our success is to assess where our alumni end up, post-employment with us. It is always a great sign when one of them lands a top job. That is the way that Jack Welch, Chairman and CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 2001, looked at his company. In the 90s, when a company needed a loan, it went to a bank. When a company needed a CEO, it went to General Electric, which minted business leaders the way that West Point mints generals.

Last week, I was thrilled to read in All Things Digital that Ware Sykes, TheLadders’ former VP of Sales & Services, became the CEO for NoWait, the OpenTable for restaurants that don’t take reservations. Ware joined TheLadders in 2006 as an MBA intern from Columbia Business School and worked his way up the executive rank.

Last month, when I heard that Jake Levine, General Manager at Digg, made Forbes’ iconic “30 under 30” list, I tweeted and posted the following link: http://onforb.es/Ws5iRZ. Prior to joining Betaworks/Digg, Jake did strategy work at TheLadders, directly reporting to TheLadders’ Founder Marc Cenedella and me.

Here are several other alumni who became CEOs and entrepreneurs after working with us:

• Derek Pilcher, Managing Director and owner, TheLadders.co.uk

• David Carvajal, Founder and CEO, Dave Partners, LLC

• Michael McCurdy, Co-founder and CEO, TestingMom.com

• Thilo Semmelbauer, President and COO, Shutterstock

• Sheila Lirio Marcelo, Founder and CEO, Care.com

However, not everyone wants to be a CEO. We also have alumni who are function leaders at other successful New York City tech firms:

• Alain Benzaken was Vice President of Technology at TheLadders for five years. He is now the Senior Director of Software Engineering at Buddy Media Salesforce.

• Ofir Shalom was Vice President of Engineering at TheLadders for five years. He is now the CTO at Group Commerce.

• Angela Romano Kuo started as a recruiter with TheLadders, working seven years before becoming Vice President of Human Resources. She now is the Vice President of Human Resources at SecondMarket, Inc.

• Leslie Semegran started as a marketing manager at TheLadders in 2005 before working her way up to Vice President of Marketing and Engagement, reporting directly to me. She is now Vice President of Marketing at Care.com.

As previously mentioned, TheLadders also proudly promotes from within. For instance, I promoted two leaders to the executive rank, just last month:

• Kyri Sarantakos was promoted to Vice President of Engineering at TheLadders. He joined the company in 2005 as a software engineer. During the past seven years, he has moved up the ranks to become a manager of core architecture and development, an application architect, and, most recently, a principal software architect.

• Selena Hadzibabic was promoted to Director of Product and UX at TheLadders. After graduating from Dartmouth College, she joined the company in 2006 as a junior community associate, an entry-level position. Subsequently, she was promoted to product manager in our U.S. operation, and then became the sole product lead for two years in our former UK operation, where she was based in London before returning to New York in 2011.

If you are a tech professional in New York City and are looking for your next challenge to enhance your skills and your career, join TheLadders! Why?

You may say: “My friend is starting a company and I can be the VP of Technology and get a lot of options.”

Yes, that may be true, but is your friend giving you the leadership training necessary to succeed in that job? Will you be out of a job in six to 12 months because the company did not raise sufficient capital or you do not possess the skills required to lead and drive performance from a team? You will learn that skills on the job at TheLadders.

You also may say: “I have a generous cash offer from Amazon, Google, or Facebook.”

What is going to make you successful are the people you work with, the challenges you will face, the opportunity you have to influence the strategy, and your access to leadership. As a software engineer in New York working for Amazon, Google, or Facebook, you may never be exposed to Jeff, Larry, or Marc. At TheLadders, you will get frequent exposure to the CEO. At TheLadders, we won’t give you the answer to a problem. We will give you a problem statement and will ask you to determine the answers that fulfill our shared vision.

At TheLadders, your last interview will be with me, the CEO. You will hear directly from me that during the next four years of your life, you will experience tremendous professional growth. That is a guarantee that TheLadders offers. Your experience with us will take your career to the next level.

So, is TheLadders a CEO factory or are we just lucky? You be the judge.

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

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you may have seen me tweet about Job Central. Here at TheLadders, we’ve been hard at work for months planning a one-of-kind job-search extravaganza, and in less than one week, it will all come to fruition!

On Thursday, January 10^th, we will bring together the best employers, recruiters, and career experts at Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall to host a comprehensive job-search experience for professionals looking to make their next career move.

So, what’s so special about Job Central, you ask? For starters, it’s FREE and open to all professionals! I will be there all day answering questions and sharing tips on how to conduct a successful job search in 2013. Additionally, we’ve lined up an impressive roster of industry experts to speak on a wide range of topics, including how to leverage social media in the job hunt and navigating job-search uncertainty.

Whether you’re looking for a job now or considering a change further down the line, if you live in the Tri-State Area, this is an event worth attending. In addition to learning how to get a jump-start on your search, you also will have the opportunity to meet and network with dozens of recruiters and hundreds of fellow job seekers, and possibly receive a free, three-month Premium membership (a $75 value) to TheLadders.

What to wear

Don your best business-casual outfit for the event. For gentlemen, I suggest a pair of slacks with a button-down shirt. For ladies, consider a flattering blouse paired with slacks, or a dress. Make sure the neckline is workplace-appropriate and that the skirt falls to your knee. Afraid your outfit will raise a red flag at the office? Check out these wardrobe tips for job-seeking on the sly.

What to bring

Bring a stack of business cards, at least five copies of your resume, a pen, a notebook (or your iPad) for taking notes during the presentations, and your game plan. Review the list of speakers ahead of time and come prepared with specific questions. Most importantly, arm yourself with a smile and be prepared to network.

What to expect

Not only will you have a chance to speak with recruiters, employers, and other professionals, but you’ll also learn valuable tips to help you compete in this tough job market. Use these next few days to practice your elevator pitch, update your resume, and clean up your online presence so it aligns with your job goals.

For more information, including the full speaker line-up, visit theladders.com/jobcentral and join the event on Facebook. If you’re out of the area but want to participate virtually, join the Twitter conversation on January 10^th, with the hashtag #JobCentral.

I look forward to seeing you on January 10^th!

Amanda Augustine is the Job Search Expert for TheLadders, the online job-matching service for career-driven professionals. She is a Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC) and Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) who provides job search and career guidance for professionals looking to make their next career move. Have a question for Amanda? Submit your question here for a chance to have it answered in her weekly column, and be sure to follow @JobSearchAmanda on Twitter and “Like” her on Facebook for up-to-the-minute job-search advice.

Last week, I visited a few of our partners in Silicon Valley. First, I met with the recruiting team at Apple where we discussed trends in the online-recruiting industry, the impact of mobile disruption on recruiting, and TheLadders’ 2013 product roadmap.  As my next meeting, with Zappos in Henderson, NV, wasn’t until a few days later, I decided to spend the weekend in nearby Las Vegas and participate in the 26.2-mile “Strip at Night” Zappos.com Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon.

Despite running several marathons around the world, I found this event unique because the race started in the afternoon and finished at night in front of The Mirage Hotel in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip. Given the high altitude and dry heat, it was a challenging competition. Below is a picture of me at the start line.

The following day, I met with the recruiting team from Zappos, which is well-known for giving private tours of their headquarters to anyone interested in their culture and operations. I had heard about the tour after reading Tony Hsieh’s book, Delivering Happiness.

In many ways, Zappos offers the typical culture of a start-up: young, informal, and with an open-plan. No one in the flat organization has an office, and food and drinks are free. Not surprisingly, you can find these attributes among many tech start-ups in both Silicon Valley or in New York City.

However, here is what I found to be most unusual about Zappos:

1. Nearly 3½ years after being acquired by Amazon, Zappos still operates fairly independently of its owner. In 2013, Amazon will take over the fulfillment and warehousing of Zappos’ merchandise in Kentucky, near the UPS hub. That is the only influence Amazon exercised over Zappos.

2. The Executive Corner is called the “Monkey Row.”  See below.

3. If you want the inside scoop on Zappos’ culture, you must read its annual culture book, which is produced by Zappos’ employees. The content, except for typos and spelling errors, is unedited, providing the public an opportunity to read about the good, the bad, and the ugly.

4. There is no standard, annual, base-salary increase for just “being there.” Learning, development, and self-improvement are highly encouraged, and acquiring news skills is the path to increasing your compensation. For example, their royalty program empowers employees, with the help of a full-time life coach, to “Get Off Your Butt” and go through a personal growth experience via a professional or personal challenge.

Once employees have achieved their goals, they get to be part of the “Goal Club Wall” in the company’s main staircase:

5. They do not track many KPIs. Their call center is not data-driven. They do not measure talk time or drop rate. In fact, there is little focus on profit, shockingly for a company that generated more than $1B in annual sales.

6. Finally, CEO Tony Hsieh’s number-one concern is employee satisfaction and improving his employees’ happiness.

Regardless if you agree with the Zappos approach, it is definitively a unique culture that is not for everyone. So, if you plan to work there, get ready to drink the Zappos “Kool-Aid.” But, what cannot be argued is the fact that they have built a phenomenally successful e-commerce operation that produces value for its stakeholders and its ecosystem.

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

Last Thursday, I spent two days in Raleigh, NC, at the Internet Summit 2012 where I spoke on two panels: “Designing and Optimizing for Multiple Screens” and “Internet Entrepreneurship.”

The most exciting part of my trip was that it was the first time in 20 years that I returned to the “scene of the crime.” This is a story that very few people know about me – one that took place long before my time as COO and Co-founder of TheLadders.

In 1993, I was a freshman at the University of Colmar, in Alsace, France, studying economics and business. I quickly realized that as a Frenchman preparing for a career in business, I had to speak English fluently if I wanted to be successful. Since I am not the type of person who can master a foreign language via classroom study alone, I engineered a bold move. I decided that I was going to spend the summer working in the United States and, therefore, learn English there. Like I usually do, I approached it with a sink-or-swim mentality.

Through a student organization’s intermediary, I was able to secure a working permit for the summer. I bought a round-trip ticket between Paris and New York, but first needed to decide on a final destination. As a teenager, I had already traveled with my family to the West Coast, so I targeted the East Coast. Strategically, I decided to avoid cosmopolitan areas for fear of working with too many foreigners, hence limiting my language practice. Therefore, I ruled out New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., Miami and Atlanta. In fact, I narrowed my options to Upstate New York, Vermont or the Carolinas. Because it was the summer, I also was seeking proximity to the beach to enjoy the warm weekends. Raleigh, North Carolina seemed to match everything I was looking for. Even though it’s not right on the water, it’s only a two-hour drive to the beach. I was sold!

In June of that year, I boarded a plane from Paris to New York. When I got to the Big Apple, I spent my first night at Columbia University before jumping on a 12-hour Greyhound Bus to Raleigh. At the time, I had very little: $300 in cash, two bags and a piece of paper saying that the McDonald’s at 3710 Western Boulevard was willing to hire international students for the summer.

When the bus finally arrived in Raleigh, the first thing I did was find a place that I could afford for one night; I knew no one and had no place to go. After I checked in to the hotel, I walked to McDonald’s, letter in hand, and asked the store manager for a job. Because I needed the money to survive on my own, I was anxious to get started and requested a start date of the very next day.

I needed to improve my English before being allowed a customer-facing job at the counter, so I spent a memorable summer in the kitchen flipping burgers and pancakes. When the manager kindly offered to introduce me to other employees, one of them offered me a room to sublet for the summer. I had a job, a summer home and an opportunity to practice English every day with Americans. Life was good.

I ended up spending the whole summer there before returning to school in France. Those two months in Raleigh became a life-changing experience for me, a truly pivotal movement that later gave me the confidence at age 22 to permanently move to New York City. The rest, as they say, is history!

For the past 16 years, I have traveled extensively across the United States visiting many cities and states, but last Thursday was especially meaningful…to come back for the first time to where it all began!

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.