We first took the covers off Zookel’s public beta a little over a month ago, with the goal of changing the face of online recruitment.

Whilst there’s certainly a long way to go before we can declare our success, as a team (and indeed personally) we couldn’t be happier with our progress.

Our highlights:

• We’ve added over 6000 new jobs
• We’ve received some great support and press coverage - http://www.nmk.co.uk/article/2009/1/6/business-brief-job-hunting-in-the-web-2-0-world, http://www.bornpodcast.com/blog/?p=260, http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/zookel-com-online-recruitment-made-supple
• We continue to sign hundreds (& sometimes thousands) of new jobseekers every week

Keep tuned our plan is to continue to use this blog as a way of updating our users, clients, and supporters of our progress.

It’s a fair question?

Since we moved into public beta in mid December one of the recurring questions I’ve been asked is – ‘why launch a recruitment site in an economic downturn’.

When we first started developing Zookel in May 08, there were signs that we were potentially heading towards a downturn, so it’s a very valid question.

So, why did we continue to invest and launch Zookel rather than wait? The simple reason is that during this downturn (and the ongoing war for talent) the benefits of a site that can improve the process for applicants competing for roles, and for recruiters seeking to identify the best candidates are clearer than ever.

We’re confident that Zookel is starting to deliver real change for our users and recruiters. We hope you share our enthusiasm! And if you haven’t yet checked Zookel out – click here to see the progress we’ve made.

Paul & Team Zookel