Exclusive social media site BeautifulPeople.com is now offering its 750,000 members a way to use their looks to find employment with its new recruitment service. The company, which launched more than 10 years ago, allows members to vote on the admission of potential members based on their looks. It is now allowing any company to post job listings on its site, and allowing certain firms on a case-by-case basis to target particularly good-looking members.
Miki Haines, head of publicity for BeautifulPeople.com, said casting directors, agents and other entertainment companies would contact the company asking to send notifications about auditions and reality show opportunities. “We’ve been doing that via email for quite some time and getting quite good responses,” she said. “We thought, ‘Why not make this more official as a resource for more companies?’” Before the company launched the recruitment service, many members were already using the site for networking, and not just dating.
The company has sparked its share of controversy for kicking out “ugly” users and launching a “virtual sperm and egg bank.” Like its largely American membership base, the majority of the job listings so far are from American companies. Members hail from 190 countries, the company said. It has about 30 employees, mostly based in Los Angeles and Denmark. Within the first 48 hours of launching on Monday, the recruitment site had about 80 job listings, the majority of which were in sales.
“The site is very much growing in the direction our community guides us to,” Haines said. “We didn’t know [that in] 10 years we were going to offer career opportunities. It’s gone that way because the economy is doing better.” Members can sign up and respond to job listings for free, but to email other members, the six-month subscription is $14 per month. For three months, it’s $ 20 per month. For one month, it’s $25. It’s free to sign up to attend BeautifulPeople.com events, though some involve paying for tickets, Haines said.
Dominic Pietrangelo, CEO of real estate company Urban Homes Group in Los Angeles, was one of the first companies to list on the recruitment page. He currently has a listing for an assistant and a real estate agent on BeautifulPeople.com and has plans to hire more people.
Listing jobs on the website is free, but a team validates job postings to make sure they are real career opportunities.
[ABCNews]