Wednesday, July 20, 2011

BetterWorks Launches Recruitment Bounty

In another attempt by a Southern California company to attract talent, Santa Monica-based BetterWorks just became the latest firm to dangle a cash bounty to people for product or engineering hires. According to BetterWorks, it wil pay $5000 to people if the firm hires someone for one of its product or engineering positions -- plus provide one free year of Betterworks services to that person's company or organization. The competition for technical talent in Southern California -- and particularly, the Los Angeles Westside -- has been heating up in recent weeks. Just last week, Los Angeles startup Scopely--headed by former Applied Semantics co-founder Eytan Elbaz--said it was offering $11,000 (albeit, wrapped in bacon) for employee referrals. Betterworks said that finding engineering talent "can be tough" saying the firm is competing against Google, Facebook, and a "million other start-ups out there." BetterWorks is headed by well known Southern California investor Paige Craig, and counts Sizhao "Zao" Yang -- the creator of Farmville-- as a co-founder. The firm provides technology-driven, fringe benefit services to companies looking to retain and attract employees.

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