There are many online applications to help with business-type things: You’ve got your invoice applications, e-mail marketing, time management, project management… the list could go on and on. And although there are so many sites out there for businesses to utilize, GigTide is definitely one of the greatest all-around useful sites for anybody looking to create, manage, or perfect their resume’s online.
GigTide is an amazing tool that offers pre-designed templates and fonts to put into your resume, and you can style and manage them any way you choose. There are also many features to add to your resume that are only possible online. For example, adding a contact form directly in your resume for employers to contact you directly, or being able to track who views your resume with Google Analytics. I got an interview with the site’s founder, Micah Johnson, asking him what he has to say about his revolutionary approach to online resume building.
What is the main idea behind GigTide, and how easy is it for new users to begin using it?
GigTide has been developed to provide job seekers an extremely easy way to create and present their resume in an online format – and leverage online features like images, videos, slideshows, links and more.
It’s very easy for users to begin using it. Account creation only consists of four fields, and you are immediately presented with a resume template that you can simply edit with your information to get started.
What are some major benefits of GigTide over your competitors online?
Currently, our builder is one of the easiest-to-use available. Writing tips are built right into the application and the interface is all based on drag-and-drop functionality – similar to any desktop application. Our upcoming update includes a large number of new features that will aid in making sure your resume is ready for employer’s eye, distribution and other job search management tools.
How did the idea for GigTide originate, and what influenced the creation of the site?
Being responsible for hiring at a number of previous companies, as well as my own businesses, the current formats I received resumes in made most of them impossible to read and even harder to differentiate between.
Out of all the unreadable resumes, a friend emailed his resume – it consisted of a introduction letter and a link. When I went to the link, it was amazing… the resume was beautiful, readable, and stood out from every other resume I’d seen. It was at that point that I decided to build GigTide.
How many people currently work for the site, and what positions are they?
Currently, we have about six people that contribute to the GigTide application and project. Many of them cannot be defined within one role, but the general roles that are filled by the group as a whole are:
- Developer
- Tester
- Resume/HR Expert
- Marketer
- Customer Service
How does GigTide use social networking and social bookmarking sites to help promote the site?
This is our main form of marketing. Our blog posts speak to our audience and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter give us a way communicate with our user-base as well as introduce the product to new users.
The design of the site is very straightforward and easy to use, very web 2.0 style. How was the site design created?
Our in-house designer is very talented and we completed a lot of research before starting any production on the web site. We integrated many features and elements into the site we knew would really improve our overall conversion rate and site performance.
Since the web site update, we have tripled our purchase conversion rate, increased our registration rate by five times, and reduced our bounce rate by 20%.
Where do you see GigTide going within the next 5 years?
Currently, we are finishing up our partner program and application. We see GigTide becoming integrated in a number of industries that need to centralize their HR-related data. Organizations like colleges and universities will benefit greatly from our partner tools and applications.
If you had one piece of advice for someone starting their own web 2.0-style site, what would it be?
Test your concept in the most inexpensive methods possible, and prove your concept, before spending any money or getting investments. It will offer piece-of-mind and make your start-up much more desirable for potential investments or acquisitions.
