After two years of tinkering, Redmond resident Hui Dai and Kirkland resident Alvin Loh  have developed what they hope is the equivalent of match.com for small and medium-sized businesses.

Instead of dates, however, for $50 their business, Jobvention, matches a posted job description with their extensive database of resumes in order to find the most qualified applicants, who are then recommended by Jobvention to the business owners. For 30 days, they also receive active applicants applying for the job.

The current formula came out of several years of trial and error, according to Loh, Jobvention’s CEO, who created the company with co-founder Hui two years ago. Former Microsoft employees, they first met while working together on the AntiMalware Security team. Hui later went to work on Bing Ads and Amazon Kindle ads system, while Loh worked several startups before turning to Jobvention.

Though it’s still home-based, the two meet at Cafe Rocco in downtown Kirkland several times a week. Loh said he was inspired to start Jobvention after his listening to his chiropractor talk about how much trouble he was having finding good job applicants on sites such as Craigslist. One of the problems Loh’s chiropractor mentioned was the sheer number of submissions and how a tool like Jobvention might help sort them out.

Together with Hui, Loh said they initially developed an applicant tracking system, a subscription-based service, but had trouble getting it to catch on with small and medium-sized businesses. He concluded that it was better fitted for larger companies that hire enough employees to make the subscription cost effective.

Yet, Loh said they still saw a real need. Although Linkedin.com has helped transform the way in which employers seek out job candidates, Loh said this subscription-based service is also too expensive for startups and other smaller companies getting off the ground, leaving a gap that could be filled by a tool for these companies to match jobs with the right person. Loh said he personally experienced the difficulty while running a cafe in the University District in Seattle.

“I experienced some of the pain of the small business world,” he said.

Reaching out to businesses and potential customers, they learned that many of them spent money posting ads on Craigslist, but they had problems, one of which was maintaining the visibility of the ad, which sometimes required them to invest additional money. They also told Loh that many applicants wouldn’t respond to phone calls and emails. The main issue Loh experienced, he said, was the difficulty they had sorting out qualified applicants. Typically, Loh said, a hiring manager will read all the submitted resumes on their computer and then choose around five to print out before contacting the candidates. This system, he believes, is not as effective at finding the right candidates.

“What’s the real problem?” Loh said. “They’re looking for talent.”

In October, Loh said, they sought to implement several changes. Dropping the subscription, they converted it into a fee-based service of 50 per job post. Jobvention matches the job description with candidates by sorting through resumes collected from public domains with their search technology, active job applicants themselves in response to a job posting and partnerships with recruiters.

“We are constantly searching the web for jobs,” Loh said.

Their system also involves natural language processing, which takes the job description and connects it with comparable keywords found in resumes.

Jobvention also created a new pitch. Within 48 hours of receiving the job description from a customer, they send up to 10 recommended resumes they’ve selected, in addition to active applicants for 30 days, and added a money-back guarantee: Jobvention will locate qualified applicants.

Since rebranding themselves, Loh said the response has been very positive when recontacting prospective customers.

“Now we know what people are willing to buy,” he said.

One way their system has proved effective, Loh said, is that their submittals to employers include active, as well as passive candidates. In other words, they send the most qualified resumes, even if the person isn’t actively looking for a job, but if the candidate turns down the job they often provide referrals for those who might be interested.

“We just want to get people back to work,” he said. “We’ve seen that really strong communities are employed communities.”

At some point, Loh said they hope to expand and create a database business owners can search on their own.

“We have a lot of more plans down the line,” he said.

To learn more, go to jobvention.com.