Already Been Blegged
Here’s what Freakonomics readers have been blegging for lately.
Our Daily Bleg: A Way to Show Employers What You Can Do Before You Get the Job
Here’s an interesting concept from blog reader Todd Palmer, who wants reader opinions as to whether his concept can work in the marketplace; and he also needs a good domain name.
Todd’s idea:
The site would function as a recruiting network, giving students and corporations an entirely new dimension of access to one another. Corporations would post tasks, real or simulated, for students to work on. These tasks would be organized by subject area or industry, such as computer science, mechanical engineering, journalism, marketing, web design, etc.
Students would create individual or team profiles and work on selected tasks, submitting their completed work in the form of text, images, videos, power point, audio, or any other format that can be uploaded. Companies will have the ability to rate submitted work, allowing students to accumulate a “work score.”
The benefit for the corporation would be their new outlet to recruit students who have a proven ability to excel at the type of assignment they will be faced with on the job.
They will also find that they have a large audience of well-educated students who are quite motivated to impress them with their submissions. This will give them the power to bleg. They will be able to post tasks that they are unable or unwilling to pay a single individual to do, and they will get at least a few surprisingly high-quality submissions due to the nature and size of their audience. They will be able to tap into the creative minds of the masses at their will.
The students will be able to showcase their skills while still in school full time, and they will also be able to build a work portfolio that can be integrated into their resume. Each top-notch project that they complete for a corporation will get them noticed, and make them more likely to be hired upon graduation. This format could even allow for students to go pro early, meaning they could get recruited while still in school and get a jump on their careers while their new employers pay for the remainder of their education.
This new site could be to summer internships what online education has become to on-campus education. It would give students exposure to real-world scenarios and assignments without the face-to-face interaction of an internship.
Todd asks the following questions:
— Would corporations and students spend the time and effort to participate in such a site?
— If all parties participated in the site as hoped, would it create a win/win situation for companies and students?
— Could it have a large enough impact to alter the traditional college curriculum by encouraging the teaching of material more relevant to the real world?
— What could be added to make the site more useful to all parties?
— What would a good domain name be?
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