professional.inc.ru was the website of a Nizhny Novgorod recruitment agency called «Professional» (Agentstvo PROFESSIONAL LLC), which operated from 2001. The agency handled personnel recruitment: as the home page stated, the project was aimed at finding Nizhny Novgorod specialists both for local organizations and for regional representative offices of out-of-town firms[1]. In 2003 the site listed the agency's phone numbers — (8312) 65-88-85 and 65-95-88[2]. In 2005 the site moved to the domain prof-nn.ru[3], and by 2008 the old address had turned into a hosting provider's placeholder page[4].

What the site looked like

The earliest surviving snapshot of the home page is dated 18 November 2001. The page opened with a dictionary definition of the word "professional," linking to the "Great Russian Encyclopedia" — a specialist who has mastered a profession, as opposed to an amateur[1]. Below that were short section announcements, marked with the ".:" icon characteristic of web design of the time: "About the Company," "Our Services," "Vacancies," "News," "Information"[1].

The news block from 16 November reported a redesign of the site and an update of the vacancy listings; it also referred readers to print publications — the newspapers «Birzha plyus Kar'era» (Exchange Plus Career) and «Rabota dlya Vas» (A Job for You), where, according to the agency, its vacancies were regularly published[1]. At the bottom was a copyright line for Agentstvo PROFESSIONAL LLC, the email address prof-nn@sandy.ru, and a credit line — "Created and maintained by: PromMedia"[1].

What the agency offered

By the 11 October 2003 snapshot, the site's menu was split by two audiences. Employers were offered "Personnel Selection," "Personnel Selection Request," and "Training"; job seekers were offered "Vacancies" and "Resume Preparation"[2]. The agency stated that it specialized in the search, evaluation, and selection of qualified specialists and maintained a daily-updated database of vacancies[1]. About itself, the company wrote that its consultants mostly held degrees in psychology and had extensive experience in personnel selection[1].

The 2003 news feed was sparse: a vacancy update on 9 October and an announcement of a new training program on 11 February[2]. By then the copyright line had stretched to "2001—2003," with Prommedia still credited as the developer[2].

The last surviving snapshot of the working site, taken on 1 September 2005, was structured differently: there were no announcements or news, only a list of sections remained — "About the Company," "Our Team," "Personnel Search," "Our Vacancies," "Specialists' Mini-Resumes," "Training and Seminars," "Contacts" — and a line about the move to a new address[3]. Compared with 2003, "Our Team," "Specialists' Mini-Resumes," and "Contacts" had appeared in the list, while the separate items "Personnel Selection Request" and "Resume Preparation" were no longer there[2].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In the directory of the nn.ru portal, the site was listed as "Kadrovoe Agentstvo PROFESSIONAL" (Recruitment Agency PROFESSIONAL) with the description "Professional selection of qualified specialists," placed in the category "Firms (Enterprises): Information and personnel agencies, services: Recruitment agencies." Next to each site in the directory, the rubricator displayed its ranking from the Counter.nn.ru counter: in the category snapshot from 19 May 2003, the agency's rating stood at 163 — fourth position out of 22 sites in the category, while the leader, "MIR Delovykh Kommunikatsiy" (World of Business Communications), showed 3815[5]. This figure was a momentary snapshot and changed from one capture to the next: on 14 May 2003 the same category showed 140 for the site, and in the May 2002 snapshots — 45, 97, and 46, 94, so it is only meaningful to compare it with its neighbors on the same page (on the limitations of such cross-sections, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating). In the final vote tally of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day for 2004, the agency is not listed[6].

For the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of the early 2000s, this was a calling-card site for an offline firm that also worked through print: for vacancies, the site itself referred readers to «Birzha plyus Kar'era» and «Rabota dlya Vas»[1].

Move and closure

In September 2005, as the home page announced, the agency got a "new address, www.prof-nn.ru"[3]: it moved from a third-level domain in the inc.ru zone to a domain of its own. What happened to the old address afterward cannot be seen from the surviving snapshots: the next snapshot, from 29 February 2008, is already a standard hosting-provider page noting that the site is not currently being serviced, with links to the site of "Net" LLC, instructions, service settings, a user forum, and the support service of the Net.ru hosting provider[4]. With this snapshot, the address's history in the web archive comes to an end.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2008 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Category «Recruitment agencies» of the nn.ru directory, 19 May 2003 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, 2004 (archive)