New York City-based startup Daily Muse believes it has a new way for companies to attract employees. Founded by Kathryn Minshew, Alexandra Cavoulacos and Melissa McCreery, the Daily Muse Company Profiles work like About.Me pages for businesses, letting them create a multimedia profile that potential employees can browse. After a company signs up, a freelance team is sent to their office to shoot photos and video which is posted on the Daily Muse website and shows off the office culture, all for a fee of $1500 per month.

The benefit for companies is that potential employees get a real feel for what it’s like to work in their environment by seeing it firsthand, and users get an idea of whether or not they’re a real fit for the company. The Daily Muse shows the environment and gets current employees sharing their favourite part of working for a company, the idea being that instead of selling a job, the team works to sell the company.

“We know that talented people don’t choose jobs— they choose companies they want to work for … and we let them discover those companies,” Cavoulacos said in an interview. “We pull all [the relevant information] together into a beautiful, interactive profile that showcases the company’s office and culture, and lets users see for themselves what it’s like to work there.”

The company launched their original content site in September 2011, and their company profiles in late February. Since then, over 25 companies have started using the platform to attract employees, including Foursquare, Mashable and Dell. Twelve of the 25 company pages are currently live and the others will be released over the next few weeks. Cavoulacos says the company also has another 80+ companies on their waiting list. The company was a part of the latest Y Combinator class, and presented at Demo Day on Tuesday.

“[Response has been] fantastic; almost overwhelming,” she said. “We’ve heard nothing but positive responses [and] we’re also hearing a lot of excitement about the features we’re planning to build out, including the ability to ‘follow’ companies you like to get updates on their job postings.”

Although other startups have tried to make a name for themselves in this space, Cavoulacos says a lot of them suffered from “the chicken and egg problem” of being unable to attract either companies or users without first having a significant pool of either. The Daily Muse is confident their approach solves that problem, because they’ve already racked up over 100,000 users and are still growing at a rapid rate.

“Our content gives [users] a reason to come back every day, and our jobs will be right there waiting when they’re looking for a career change,” Cavoulacos said. “We’re the first company that lets users discover great companies via serendipity and actually see and hear first-hand what it’s like to work there.”

Although companies like LinkedIn, Monster.com and Workopolis give workplaces the opportunity to share information about what makes them unique, since their ads are all primarily text-based Cavoulacos says most end up writing the same thing— a two-paragraph blurb saying they’re a “fast-paced, collaborative environment looking for motivated, team-oriented individuals.”

“The Daily Muse is a unique platform to show off your office and its culture, and let potential candidates actually experience what it’s like to work there,” she said. “Companies can attract higher quality applicants, and those applicants are more likely to stick around for the long haul since they know exactly what kind of culture they’re getting into.”

Companies signed up with the Daily Muse pay a monthly fee of $1500 to stay in the system, be featured on the site and keep their profile current. The subscription also allows them access to a suite of features, which will be released in the next quarter. Although she couldn’t say exactly what their plans are for the rest of the year, Cavoulacos says she and her co-founders have some “insanely exciting stuff in the works.”

It’s true that job seekers are often looking not just for a job, but for a work environment that’s conducive to their personality and goals, and a multimedia company page can do a better job showing off company culture than a text job posting. But $1500 per month is a hefty price to pay, especially when companies can create a company culture section on their own website, use a tool like Tumblr to create a free multimedia showcase, or pay to have a microsite developed on their domain. Company advisor Rachel Sklar said on Twitter that Daily Muse’s fee is small in comparison to the fee recruiters charge, implying that Daily Muse is meant to replace recruiters. But it seems that this would be a tool to enhance a recruiter’s efforts, not something that’s meant to replace them, since recruiters often target people who aren’t looking for a job. And not everyone seeking a job will stumble upon these pages organically – they’ll likely supplement traditional hiring efforts, not replace them, leaving companies to decide if they want to add this paid service into their HR and marketing mix.