Need a Job? Check Your Phone

Job hunting can be frustrating.  Where do you look first, the newspaper, the Internet, the bulletin board?  That's why two local entrepreneurs came up with a unique way to use new technologies to find a job.

Monday, April 12th 2010, 3:16 pm

By: News 9


By Darren Brown, News9.com

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Job hunting can be frustrating. Where do you look first, the newspaper, the Internet, the bulletin board?  It seems that jobs are posted almost everywhere these days.  And with the current jobless rate, those looking to fill jobs are inundated with applications. 

How does a company narrow the search and find the most qualified candidates?  That's a question two local entrepreneurs think they've answered.

Jessica Miller-Merrell is a human resources professional who owns Xceptional HR.  She refers to traditional methods of job posting as "spray and pray."

"You're spraying your message out there and just praying that they're gonna apply," said Miller-Merrell.  "I like to take a more aggressive and more targeted approach in how I am getting to my candidates."

Ron Cariker owns 7 Media Group and deals in mobile marketing and advertising.  He shares Miller-Merrell's aggressive approach.

"Smart phones in general over the last couple of years have changed people's habits in a big way," Cariker said.

"It can change in two minutes," said Miller-Merrell.  "You just never know what's gonna happen and how people are gonna latch onto that technology and learn how to use it."

That's why Miller-Merrell and Cariker teamed up to form Texting4Jobs, a text-based job platform that caters to job seekers here in Oklahoma.

"We were asking each other 'Somebody's gotta be doing this, or you would think it's being done,'" Cariker laughed.  "Both of us did a little homework and figured out that yeah, there's really not anybody doing it quite like we had planned out."

Texting4Jobs is fairly straight forward. A job seeker texts a code to a designated number and then selects an industry and metro area.  Texting4Jobs then sends the job seeker up to four texts per week informing them of job opportunities in their target industry and location. Currently, OKC and Tulsa are the two main areas available, although Cariker and Miller-Merrell think more will follow.

Four major schools have already signed on. Southwestern Oklahoma State University was the first.

"Our main focus was to go to the job seekers, go to the students, go to the career service centers," Cariker said.  "That's where Jessica really excels at, is to find those people that are in the decision-making roles."

And Texting4Jobs seems to have been launched at the perfect time for students and universities alike. 

"They wanna see their graduates get jobs," Cariker said.  "So, things like this come along, and it's kind of a no-brainer for a lot of them."

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