Love this.
There are many people that have mentors, and this is an extension of that.
Would like to see a 'marketplace', but somehow personal and allowing you to be healthy long term relationships.
Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach
71–80 of 117 posts
Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disclaimer, I have gotten much value out of their previous project, jobstart. 1/ it's based on personal advice so needs to scale on both sides. I've spoken w the founders and they legit. 2/ I intend to get my work to pay for it under "high quality outsourced good management". I don't expect to use it for a new job, but to perform better in my current. 3/ it is my understanding that it's a scaling thing. 5/ in my job,…
With respect to #2, why would any employer pay for their employee to use a service that has a strong financial incentive to place them in a new job?
If the service ($) actually develops an employee to a higher level of performance, the employer gets the benefit of a more senior hire who is already at their company instead of having to recruit ($$) and on-board ($$) one & hope they work out ($$$).
Even if they need to give the current employee a healthy raise ($$) to retain them, they'd still probably net save money.
(in theory)
If some high % of employees who use this tool discover they really ought to be working elsewhere, well, that's probably better for the industry's cost/productivity as a whole, so everyone wins in the end yayy!! But sure maybe it's optimal for an employer to hide this sort of tool if they rely on employees having inefficient market information to retain them & that somehow fits with their ethics...
(Looking at you, the giant companies that got sued for their illegal informal non-competes...)
Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach
#73I'm not totally convinced but sufficiently intrigued to give this a go.
Are you focussing purely on low to mid level employees inside a company or also catering to freelancers and such people who have similar though not exactly the same needs?
Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach
#74Here's a similar service for dating advice: https://hermes.social
Shows that this concept can span niches.
Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach
#75Roll eyes . I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous idea. I can see potential use for this once or twice a year, and even at that I wouldn't reach out to anyone unless I know them personally. How insecure and in need of validation someone needs to be to seek career advice from a chatbot four times a month?
>> How insecure and in need of validation someone needs to be to seek career advice from a chatbot four times a month?
Let me rephrase that: "How long does one need to go without finding a job - perhaps any job, or one that is satisfying, or that pays well - before one seeks career advice from a chatbot?"
I have been fortunate with my career opportunities; your dismissive tone tells me you've also never truly struggled. Not everyone is in the same boat. Some go for years unemployed, or are stuck in a spiral of being paid far below market salary. I can understand why some people might be attracted to this service.
That said, I have some criticism for this business:
1. Your market isn't large enough. Those who would find this the most useful are unemployed, and cannot afford to pay. This will hold back growth more than anything - your best customers are those you cannot acquire. This leaves people who already have successful careers, and are only looking for an edge to improve their success the next time they are job hunting, or to "game" their current employer. I imagine the number of people in this category to be far less numerous.
2. From the home page: "A team of career coaches, industry experts & AI". Sorry, we're not naive. With that misleading phrasing, I'm almost certain that the "career coaches and industry experts" are never personally in contact with the customers. You simply trained the AI with their input, and these professionals are not on board to personally assist anyone. You're selling the AI rather than personal advisers, paying a modest fee to curate content instead of matching people with human beings who can offer informed advice. That is the real shame here: marketing "career coaches" and "industry expects", while that is a half-truth. Artificial intelligence as it exists today is not good enough for one-on-one coaching. For a service this important, where people are hanging their hopes and dreams of a career on the line, only an expert in the field is capable of tailoring their advice to each client in a way that is appropriate - perhaps even moral.
3. Regarding the "AI" (too many companies claim to have real artificial intelligence, when all they have is a precomputed index of lookup terms), I bet that the database is extremely generic. If you are looking for advice on the interview process, you would get similar information by Googling for interview tips. The odds that you can narrow the context down to get at information that is specifically tailored to your exact situation, rather than a generic scenario that matches problems facing the majority of the population, is slim. This service is likely nothing more than a search engine for curated content related to career advice - with a bit of interface design sugar making it seem more like a conversation than a search result.
Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach
#76@dang: Are influenced submissions investigated? This post was submitted by an account with no other submissions/comments except this. I suspect some mischief, but have no proof. Is is possible to look at the first few votes made for this post?
Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach
#77Good idea or not - I am worried about the security of this. Some of us have signed contracts that specifically mention that we shouldn't share company information with third parties.
Even if a person hasn't signed a non disclosure, how ethical is it to share in-company politics with others?
Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach
#78I am usually very skeptical, esspecially when it comes to the pitfalls of exchanging personal advice, but this really is not personal advice. This is ethics training.
I think the difference changes Everything. This could solve a very real problem: the mysteries of navigating ethical standing.
I am concerned about the anonymity, particularly that the advice depends on the info provided while the user is representing not only themselves as a patient but also their ego. Ideally, the user would have comfortable assurance of their anonymity and the concept would have a unique value. If doable and manageable, I would believe in that.
Privacy would be a concern for many users (for various reasons) but not all. My thought about anonymity is about usefulness, not privacy.
Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
The milliondollarwebsite idea was a much more stupid idea than OP. In fact, OP should probably add more stupidity, to increase success probability. I'm only half-kidding.
Only half-kidding you say?! :) - legit curious what you mean by that.
add stupidity: anonymize user data, and crowdsource career advice. use text analysis to figure out how career advice close to official Boost advice to build up a network of advisors ranked from conventional to unconventional. Users feedback on performance of idea, this allows you to identify users who are likely to be helped by unconventional career advice. If you have data on users employers over time you identify unconventional employers or perhaps toxic workplaces. Add higher paid tier for users to see employer ratings.
After this point the stupidity will dissolve into blah blah blah.
Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach
#80UTMs in the HN link: cheese-a-rific