The OfficeBook application, created by the three people at Leaders 2020 Inc. who were frustrated by the inability of job seekers to uncover company culture through traditional means of job searching, has begun a fan club of about 500 users on Facebook since its debut last month.

Users can anonymously express their feelings about a company or research what others have said in order to find the best cultural fit.

“With over 50 percent of Facebook’s users aged 30+ and seeking useful applications, we decided that OfficeBook should go live there,” co-founder and CEO Sundar Vanchinathan said. “We have been live for one month now and the response has been terrific. Over 960 views from all over the world, about 500 users, and over 6,500 page views.”

So why is measuring a company’s culture so important for the job seeker?

“[All three of us] have spent the last 15+ years working in Silicon Valley,” Vanchinathan said. “Over time, we realized that the most productive and successful companies are ones where every employee feels valued for who they are and what they believe in.”

The application can be found at http://apps.facebook.com/office-book.

Over 68 percent of respondents said no, they were not satisfied, whether it’s due to pricing, technology, or lackluster results.

A whopping 75 percent of respondents said that resume databases do not uncover quality candidates. No surprise there, since finding the right person via a large database is like searching for a needle in a haystack. One might spend hours typing in various acronyms, adjectives, and well-worn phrases like “problem-solver” or “top earner 2007,” when they really wish that the perfect candidate could be packaged with praise and hand-delivered to their in-box with minimal leg work.

Job sites like craigslist, which offers free postings in many cities, are fast-becoming the preferred method of posting jobs over sites like Monster and Careerbuilder, which can cost anywhere from $115 to $300 per posting, as opposed to the $25 (or nothing) that craigslist charges.

According to Peter Weddle, 50,000 job boards are operating now and 110,000 are expected to be live by 2011. The gap between employers and job seekers is widening.

Employers have more choices that can be customized to suit their company’s needs. They will no longer need to fork over $30,000 for a standard pack of postings on a general job board, and another $2,000 to have access to a vast database that is like pawing through a giant pot of gumbo for that prized bite of shrimp.

Instead, according to the survey, which stated that 64 percent of HR reps would prefer a pay-for-quality pricing model over the traditional pay-per-post option, staffing and human resource professionals would either like the model of the traditional job board to be vastly improved upon, or they will be turning to niche job sites to find candidates in a less costly, time-consuming manner.

Rafael Cosentino, VP of Business Development for Realmatch, says because of the cooling economy and a general dissatisfaction when dealing with traditional job boards, hiring professionals are seeking more cost-effective approaches at a rapid rate, explaining why some job boards have shown a recent decline in purchases.

“Realmatch differentiates itself with technology, reach, features and pricing. The technology makes the process fast, the network provides access to lots of users in lots of industries, the features make the process simple and the pricing removes the risk because employers only pay if they decide to open the resume of a matching and interested candidate,” Cosentino said. “We believe our pricing model lets the genie out of the bottle by lowering the barrier and making it risk free for employers to post their jobs.”

One wonders why traditional job boards are still being utilized by any company, when considering the blazing ads, muddled resumes, and costly features that are in the end a detriment and a poor representation to the job seeker. Just as Marketing must present customer-focused, results-driven ideas to their clients, job boards need to do the same to keep their customers happy. No longer is it the case that one HR rep refers Monster to another; instead, HR is getting together over lunch to talk about another fruitless day spent searching through a job board database. And next year, they might be taking their budget dollars elsewhere.

“ChicagoJobs.com LIVE! allows us to bring our online audience of local job seekers that much closer to our local employers, thus allowing for instant interaction between the two parties,” says Tina Krater, Director of Sales at ChicagoJobs.com.

Job seekers will be able connect with recruiters, submit resumes, and receive job tips from various sources. Recruiters can prospect for candidates without the traditional costs associated with career fairs. Customized packages and sponsorship opportunities are now available.

The career event is scheduled for Tuesday, July 22, from 8am-6pm CST. A second ChicagoJobs.com LIVE! event will be held on Tuesday, September 16.

Other tiers of pricing include an unlimited usage plan, which costs about $100 for six months, or a one month plan for $10.

MyCredentials recently launched its publisher program through Commission Junction with over 40 advertisers signed up through the program. It will also be launching a Podcast service to announce new user options.