Press release from Milkbarmedia:
The Loop (www.theloop.com.au), Australia’s first online multi-media platform designed to match creative professionals with potential employers, beta launches today.
The Loop is a professional networking website connecting creative people, companies, recruiters and jobs. With more than 80,000 Australian creative professionals already using online professional networking tools, The Loop creates a market-tailored alternative to existing international networking and employment sites for people in creative industries within Australia.
The Loop provides individuals free multi-media profiles to showcase creative work online. Profile pages take the form of a professional website showcasing an individual’s achievements, experience and current projects.
Profiles can be continuously updated with multi-media files, creating a digital cv / portfolio / show reel for individuals who wish to connect with like-minded creative people and promote themselves in front of Australian companies and recruitment agents. Profiles span across advertising, design, digital media, film, music, performing arts, photography, publishing, radio, television, and visual arts fields, as well as other creative-minded industries.
“There’s a huge appetite for people to publish their lives online, and The Loop provides the platform to properly showcase professional creative achievement,” said The Loop’s co-founder and Director, Matt Fayle. “If Facebook is for your social circle then The Loop is for your professional one, and from today never shall the two meet.”
At its core, The Loop is designed to match professionals with job opportunities. Standard, Premium and Display ads are offered, and The Loop is introducing a price-capped Cost Per Application model – a new alternative in the online job advertising market – making recruitment costs measurable, accountable and affordable to smaller, boutique scale businesses. Unlike current Australian offerings, The Loop provides fully customizable filtering tools as part of the price in any level of advertising.
“We started with the notion of blending the biggest job search engine with the multi-media capabilities of social networking,” said Director and co-founder Pip Jamieson. “What we’ve ended up with is the best parts of Seek, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube all in one, creating an enhanced professional networking site that we’re confident the Australian creative community will embrace to showcase their work.”
Employers can cherry-pick talent direct from The Loop’s community of creative professionals via a virtual ‘handshake,’ enabling companies to attract and engage with both the passive and active job seeker. Unique search tools are designed to connect qualified candidates with employment opportunities in the Australian marketplace. Users and advertisers can search individual profiles using a number of search criteria including experience, education, location or specific skill sets to match people with the right jobs, companies and like-minded professionals.
Individuals build their own personal profile by visiting www.theloop.com.au, clicking on “Create Your Free Profile,” and following the simple step-by-step instructions. Profiles may include an unlimited number of multi-media, text-based information, project listings and tags to enhance search functionality. Upon completion of a profile, users are provided with a unique URL (theloop.com.au/your name) and individuals can search for jobs and create alerts to be notified when employment opportunities in their field are advertised.
Companies and Recruitment Agencies also showcase their brands on the site by creating a free multi-media profile to not only help attract quality candidates for advertised positions, but to showcase their business and share their work with the creative community.
At launch, The Loop will feature some of Australia’s most respected and admired creative companies including Animal Logic, Moon Communications, MTV Networks, Discovery Networks, the white agency, Deepend, Sixty40 and The Hyperfactory as well as profiles for over 30 businesses looking to tap into the wealth of established and upcoming talent in Australian creative industries. To create a company profile, go to www.theloop.com.au, and click on “Create An Employer Profile.”
“We’ve been overwhelmed by the interest and engagement from employers in these early days, and we’re confident that more and more people will use it as a tool to network, showcase their work, and find the perfect job,” said Pip Jamieson.
The Loop has entered into strategic alliances with industry professional associations and higher education establishments including the AFI, AFTRS, AIMIA, AWARD, COFA, Billy Blue College of Design, Design Victoria, Metro Screen, Screen NSW and others. Members and/or graduates of these organizations will be encouraged to build profiles, tag projects and showcase their portfolio of professional achievements on The Loop, further populating the community and enhancing the professional networking capabilities of the site.
“Through the aggregation of people, companies, recruitment agencies, schools and professional organizations, The Loop turns the traditional model of advertising jobs and recruiting talent on it’s head and provides an active base of fresh, creative talent,” added Matt Fayle.
Media professionals Matt Fayle (www.theloop.com.au/mattfayle) and Pip Jamieson (www.theloop.com.au/pipjamieson) came up with the concept for The Loop in early 2009, having identified a need for a multi-media platform to showcase creative professionals within the industry.
Fayle, previously Director of Digital at MTV Networks Australia has also held positions at Discovery Networks, the BBC, BSkyB and Disney, and Jamieson was most recently the Head of Marketing for MTV New Zealand. Based upon their experience across media and creative industries, Fayle and Jamieson designed the site in response to the need for an online community of creatives in a purely professional environment.
The Loop was built by Visiontech Digital (www.theloop.com.au/visiontechdigital) and designed by Robbie Powell (www.theloop.com.au/Robbie) at Moon Communications.
Profiles are free for individuals and companies. For advertising information, options and rates, visit www.theloop.com.au and click on “POST A JOB.”