[davekinkead]

I'm not trying to crush your startup dreams but you should stop right now and immediately talk to 20+ recruiters or hiring managers about your app before you invest any more time or money.

I built a prototype for a similar idea about 18 months ago - it imported your linked in profile, your network could write skill specific references which back-linked and allowed recruiters/employers to search for skills/experience/geography/salary range they wanted to generate an anonymous short list of candidates in seconds; they could browse shortlisted CVs, read references and they only paid when a candidate agreed to release their details to the recruiter. Great idea eh?

The problem was, just about all the recruiters & employers I talked to about it (in Australia) weren't that positive. Their reasons were: * network effects - it only becomes useful once plenty of candidates were in it. * many recruiters already had their own database of candidates that they didn't want to share or duplicate. * many recruiters needed near immediate response (they had 48hrs to fill a role). Waiting for candidates to respond to a request was a negative for them. * some recruiters saw it as a threat and didn't want to support that kind of system. * Companies often wanted a full service solution so while this could generate a quality shortlist for them, many wanted hand holding.

HR is ripe for disruption but execution is everything. What does your app do that paid access to searchable linkedin profiles doesn't?