It has been gratifying to see the attention and usage that our recent updates to the Jobster site have been receiving. As usage increases, we’re working set the right tone and standards so that the community will be valuable to everyone who participates.

Recently, the new site was covered in the Wall Sttreet Journal, CNN (streaming video), the front page of Digg, and the Washington Post.

People are discovering innovative ways to express what’s unique about their company culture, whether it’s Eric talking about what’s unique about an established leader like Bose, or Joe talking about the up-and-coming startup Snapvine. In comparison,, using HR boilerplate to talk about a company comes off looking stale and uncompelling.

We’re working to develop and document a set of community standards that encourages authentic answers about companies while discouraging unverifiable hearsay, prepackaged corporate advertisements, and personal attacks. We draw some metaphorical inspiration from the standards of communities such as the Wikipedia.

For example, although it wouldn’t make sense to go as far as Wikipedia’s standard of verifiability, we encourage answers that include a factual component that can be verified in addition to personal opinions.

These facts are often neither “good” nor “bad” in and of themselves, the real measure is in the eye of the reader. (Consider private offices vs. open plan, city vs. suburban, big company vs. small, or flat vs. hierarchical organization.) Answers that capture the unique details of each company really are more useful and more likely to sell the company to the right people than unsubstantiated emotions or advertisments.

Not all verifiable facts will be positive for all readers, of course. It might come out in an answer that a company does not provide child care, for instance, and for some prospective employees this could be a deal breaker. Revealing this fact in a forum such as Jobster is not inappropriate or unfair, since these facts end up being uncovered in the interview process anyway.

On the balance, we believe that a balanced and informed look at companies benefits both companies and jobseekers through better career matches.