Who said you had to be geeky to create an innovative social networking site?
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Posted By: Shawn Sledge on September 28, 2010 Imagine it's the heart of the recession and your company for several years just laid you off during the holiday season with no severance pay. Sounds familiar right? Well that's exactly what happened to me during the holiday season of 2008. By me being a family man and the only source of income it was no way I can let my family down. Living on campus at an HBCU taught me how to be a fighter and let nothing stand in my way. Job searching was just as bad as ever. Posting hundreds of resumes online and attending numerous temp agency interviews proved to be worthless for me. I was blessed to stay in touch with a former co-worker and was able to get a position at their company. During this whole process I had an idea for a social networking site and instead of pitching it to the facebook, myspace, and the twitters of the world I said why not create it myself. Excellent thought but there was a slight problem. I had no start up money, tech connections, or the slightest idea how to create one, all I had was an idea and dream on paper. Artist by trade, I wanted to create something different from the norm so it had to be done by scratch, which proved to be another challenge. Since I wanted my social site done from scratch web developers either didn't want to touch my project or they wanted to charge over $100/hr. When it's your time to shine God put things in front of you to help you find your way. Not only did I find a web developer through an old college roommate that was willing to work with my dental floss budget, but the company I was working for decided to offer unlimited overtime in the heart of the recession. So let's just say my 40 hrs a week turned into 60 hours a week. Now that I have things in place to get started it was time for me to create the site. The idea I had was to create a company office atmosphere where every member had their own virtual cubicle space to network out of to other members. Plus I knew I needed to create a name for it that was universal and everyone can relate to so I called my site Jobslackersonline.com. Now I know some of you gonna say why Job slacker? Well every place I worked, the top producers (including myself) created hidden perks for ourselves. We either surf the web, texted on our cell phone all day, took longer lunch breaks, or if you was a smoker you took multiple smoke breaks all on company time. The non-producers of the company called us "job slackers" and I'm sure you know a job slacker at your place of work. As time went on during the development process the unemployment rate started to increase dramatically, so I decided to create a job feature on my site like no other. I created a networking job search feature where employed members on the site post jobs to allow the job seeking members network directly with them for an inside connection on that position. Doesn't that sound like the real world, it's not always what you know, but who you know. I launched jobslackersonline.com on my birthday 4/24/10 and even appeared on the ABC Morning Show in Birmingham, AL being interviewed about my site on live tv. This is journey I wouldn't change for the world and it will only get better. So sign up today and experience something new and fresh, membership is free of course. :) I credit my drive and endurance to GOD, Family, and the mighty HBCU'S. Peace! http://jobslackersonline.com If you enjoyed this article, Join HBCU CONNECT today for similar content and opportunities via email! |
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Shawn Sledge
From Atlanta, GA Alabama A&M University class of 1999 Member Since September 2010 |
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