Job Market Surprising Strong for Class of 2008

Despite the generally negative economy and decline in overall employment in the United States during the first quarter of 2008, job-seeking seniors found a relatively robust job market, according to results of NACE’s 2008 Graduating Student Survey.
The survey, which was conducted February – April 2008, found:

• More than three-quarters of those who applied for a job (77 percent) had at least one job interview.
• More than half who applied for a job (52 percent) received at least one job offer.
• Nearly half of those who were offered jobs (49 percent) accepted them by the time they participated in the survey.

Interestingly, gender and job location preference played major roles in determining whether a student accepted an offer. Women were less likely than men to accept an offer (47 percent of females accepted offers versus 53 percent of men), as were those who ranked the job’s location as extremely important.
The findings from NACE are consistent with what we at CollegeRecruiter.com have been hearing from the candidates using our site and our employer clients. There are many firms who are no longer hiring and some which are laying off but for every one of those there seems to be another organization that has started or increased their hiring of college students and recent graduates. The result is a flat job market as compared to 2007. Not up and not down but flat.
Fewer grads are reporting receiving multiple offers but they’re also telling us that they’re more inclined to accept the first offer they receive quickly so fewer grads are in a position to receive multiple offers. If the economy were stronger, they’d likely be more confident about holding out for the best match and therefore more likely to receive multiple offers.
At the end of the day, there seems to be equilibrium. There seems to be about the right number and quality of positions available for the students and grads who are properly seeking them. Note the use of the word “properly.” When I hear from students who are really discouraged in their job hunt, I almost always learn that they are doing little to no networking and what networking they may be doing isn’t really networking at all. They’re hiding behind their computers and applying to advertised jobs day after day. When they do, ahem, network it is only to ask others to help them find a job. That isn’t networking. Networking is about asking what you can do for others knowing that at some point some of them will do the same for you. But don’t start off asking them to do you a favor.

Why Don’t Recruiters Blog?

Clearly there are a number of corporate recruiters who do blog and some of their blogs help them hire people. But why don’t more corporate recruiters blog? Why is it that the recruiting blogosphere is dominated by job board owners, vendors, and corporate recruiters who do blog and some of their blogs help them hire people. But why don’t more corporate recruiters blog? Why is it that the recruiting blogosphere is dominated by job board owners, vendors, and third party recruiters?
For answers, turn to the man who always seems to have great answers to great questions: Jim Durbin of StlRecruiting.

The End Of The Affair

In this extraordinary film set in wartime London, star-crossed lovers are denied the radiant power of their electric romance by forces out of their control. She denies herself his unabiding adoration on a twisted premise that God wants it that way. And he is without the life force that makes him so joyous that even when Nazi bombs fall on London, in her arms he is safe and oblivious to everyone and everything but his lover.
And then when she makes her pledge to God and walks off into a sad twilight zone, they are left to love and miss each other in silence. There is an important analogy in business. Every day customers and clients walk away without saying why, without lodging a protest, without a word. They simply vanish in the night. And hardly anyone pays attention. Managers simply believe it is inevitable. Just the other day, a new client told us they lose 40% of their customers every year. Why? They have all kinds of theories but no one has bothered to ask a single former customer why “former” now stands at the front of their name. Just like the lovers in The End Of The Affair, a lack of communication separates a man and woman who in their hearts want to orbit together around the solar system. That same lack of communication is a business killer.
The only way to grow a great business is to capture, amplify and maintain customer relationships. Focusing on the capture component alone or even primarily always leads to a leaky boat of a business that has lost customers wandering out of your world without knowing why they left. Affairs of the heart exist in a realm of their own. Sometimes nothing can be done to save the relationship but in business, knowledge is power and the determination to do something about it is king.
Article by, Mark Stevens, the bestselling author of “Your Marketing Sucks,” “Your Management Sucks” and”God Is A Salesman.” Stevens is CEO of MSCO, a global marketing firm, who has advised many clients over the years such as Estee Lauder, Virgin Atlantic, Guardian Insurance, MONY, Giorgio Armani, Starwood, Intrawest, etc. Stevens delivers more than 40 speeches annually and is a regularly featured media commentator, lending his insights and opinions on Fox Business Network, to the Associated Press, on CNN International, BBC Radio and Bloomberg TV.

A Personal Branding Lesson From Kate Moss

Every marketing and general management professional thinks we can teach Kate Moss-just a “dumb model”- chapter and verse about business. Man are we donkeys.
I can hear Kate laughing at us. (In fact, she is sitting right next to me as I write this.)
[Editors Note: Yea, in your dreams, Mark.]
What do I mean by this deification of Moss? In business, the art of recovery is critical. From time to time, we all blow it. How and if we emerge from the mud is what separates the real world stars from the college professors.
And Kate, well she was considered done, fried, fini, just months ago. Now she is not only back from the muck, she has cemented her position as the el primo “dumb model” in the world.
How she did it reflects a bedrock business principle.
If people love you
your product
your service
-not just like, LOVE
-they will forgive everything and keep buying.
For Kate, there were no sloppy Today show Mel Gibson 10 cent apologies. No groveling for forgiveness. She simply stood there and broadcast her greatest asset: drop dead, sex machine, ice cool beauty. Forget all the nonsense crisis management scrap metal shoveled out by the “professionals.” Just lead with love. Listen to Kate.
Article by, Mark Stevens, the bestselling author of “Your Marketing Sucks,” “Your Management Sucks” and”God Is A Salesman.” Stevens is CEO of MSCO, a global marketing firm, who has advised many clients over the years such as Estee Lauder, Virgin Atlantic, Guardian Insurance, MONY, Giorgio Armani, Starwood, Intrawest, etc. Stevens delivers more than 40 speeches annually and is a regularly featured media commentator, lending his insights and opinions on Fox Business Network, to the Associated Press, on CNN International, BBC Radio and Bloomberg TV.

The Truth Is But Lies In Disguise So we all know The Truth.

It comes to us from truth tellers who invent The Rules of Life and package it for us as the gospel. And then we drink the Kool Aid and the longer it’s out there on the shelves, the more we accept it as Divine. Inarguable. Bullet proof.
To me, it’s all a joke. Who has the right to create rules? Who tests their validity? Who starts dutifully following them and then passes the virus on to others? And who needs them. Life is best when we face the issues with a blank page and write the rules, our rules, as we go along. Any other way is an extended stay in hostageville.
Let’s take The Rules Of Business:

• A low turnover rate among employees is a sign of a healthy company. (Whenever I find businesses where almost no one ever leaves or is dismissed, I usually find a lazy culture that rewards mediocrity. I think they call it the Post Office.).
• It is always best to promote from within. (But what if a person more qualified for the job is at another company? Make due with second best? Why?)
• Seniority should be a key component of the formula for calculating compensation and authority within a company. (So if the greatest contributor to revenues and profitability is far younger than the oldest slacker in the office, the star should make less? Are you kidding Rule Maker?)
• Great companies arrive at decisions through consensus. (Actually, consensus building is a miserable excuse for inaction. Have you ever attended the UN? It will make you run for your life every time you hear the word consensus.)
• Don’t embark on a new initiative until research shows you it will succeed. (For the most part, research is for cowards and college
• Professors. Oh, I know it’s good to test the waters and crunch some numbers, but business is like war. All the plans and assumptions change when the first shot is fired. Trying to figure out a perfect path to success before you launch an enterprise, means you will be paralyzed in planning while the real entrepreneurs go out and make it happen, taking their lumps and making mid course corrections along the way.)

Liberation Day. You are free to ignore The Truth, recognizing that it is just a feel good myth Homer Simpson created in his basement.
Article by, Mark Stevens, the bestselling author of “Your Marketing Sucks,” “Your Management Sucks” and”God Is A Salesman.” Stevens is CEO of MSCO, a global marketing firm, who has advised many clients over the years such as Estee Lauder, Virgin Atlantic, Guardian Insurance, MONY, Giorgio Armani, Starwood, Intrawest, etc. Stevens delivers more than 40 speeches annually and is a regularly featured media commentator, lending his insights and opinions on Fox Business Network, to the Associated Press, on CNN International, BBC Radio and Bloomberg TV.

The Case For Accidental Companies…..And The People Who Run Them

When I was a young man, I met ice cream impresario Tom Carvel: widely credited as the entrepreneur who created big league franchising.
What struck me most about our conversation was that Tom’s first store was an accident: when his truck broke down on a road in Westchester, NY, and he lacked the funds to repair it, he started selling ice cream from the spot where he was stranded. He was smart and flexible enough to recognize that his original business plan wasn’t as good as the accident he had stumbled on to …..and he let the latter drive his success.
Levi Straus. Nike. Gatorade. Craig’s List. All more or less accidents
or experiments that turned out to be major enterprises. There is such a convoluted irony, a staggering twist of fate, in a guy who decides to create a superior running shoe with a waffle iron, succeeding at it and then turning that track meet tinkering into a global business.

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Summaries, Objectives, and Profiles Oh My!

If you are a client of mine or read this blog with any frequency you probably know that I am not a fan of summaries/objectives/executive profiles or any of the other lengthy chunks of information that some people use to fill the first ½ page or so of their resumes. My reasons are simple: recruiters aren’t interested in subjective statements that represent your opinion of yourself and that are what most folks (and many resume writers) include at the top of the resume. In my opinion those sections are mostly a waste of space. I started my career as a recruiter and spent many years in all kinds of recruiting and HR roles and never once did I spend a lot of time reading those sections. I just jumped right to the “Experience” section to see if a candidate had the right experience and impressive accomplishments.
Having said all of that, I recently had a great conversation about this very topic with the CEO of a top technology recruiting firm, HireStarter, named Marc Davis. Marc is one of the most highly respected recruiters in the technology industry in Central Texas so when he told me his perspective on summaries I really sat up and took notice.

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TV for Job Hunters

Over at Cheezhead, Vanessa Dennis writes about the new Chicago-based Job Search Television Network (JSTN). The multimedia job search network is looking to expand its daily two-hour broadcast powered by Comcast into a 24-hour job ops channel. Currently JSTN offers companies the opportunity to create a video that features a company profile and a three-minute segment on an actual employee of the company talking about things like how they got hired, what gets dished up in the cafeteria, and any other company perks worth mentioning.
A group of six anchors rotate the segments each week to provide job seekers with a fresh face to go with their daily dose of jobs. At the end of the video, a code is displayed that the job seeker can plug into a text message, which will then automatically generate a link to the posting. JSTN is offering a multimedia recruitment platform that taps TV, mobile, and Internet users all at once. The videos air Monday through Friday from 6 to 8 AM CST and weekends from 7 to 9 AM, and current clients include McDonald’s, Allstate, US Cellular, and DeVry University. While JSTN is only offered in Chicago and Northwest Indiana, expect to see this company branching out into several different geographies soon.
It seems that posting creative job ads on YouTube is old news. You have JSTN, and there’s also CareerTV, the only global television programmer and interactive website designed to help college students and young professionals develop their careers. Claiming to be the world’s most visited career video website, CareerTV reaches its audience on two platforms – online at CareerTV.com and on television with a nationally syndicated half-hour program also titled CareerTV. It provides job seekers with free, personalized career profiles, career coaching, career-related videos, salary reports, and career news.
Have you job hunters used these resources? I’m curious as to whether TV and video are still fads in this space, or if they are actually helping hiring companies more quickly connect with talented candidates.
Article by Alexandra Levit and courtesy of Water Cooler Wisdom blog.

Change is Scary – Tips on Dealing with Changes at the Workplace

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
- Alan Cohen
With kids going back to school and college, employees getting layoff notices or a cut back in their paychecks, our pockets and hands less open to spending; these are the days and months of accepting change, in our lifestyles and at the workplace.
For better or for worse, change is tough to handle but whatever be the case – change is inevitable.
Change makes us adaptive to hardships and challenges make us stronger. Our immense capabilities remain hidden in the folds of comfort; a change in the routine or our lives brings forward the endurance power we all have.
Change stirs our lives and that is good, it brings us out of our comfort zones and sets up some new endurance levels, to test and to accommodate to a new lifestyle.

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JobsInLogistics.com to Provide Career Services to Air Cargo Professionals

JobsInLogistics.com job board for the logistics profession and recipient of the prestigious 2007 Weddle’s User’s Choice Award for best job board, has formed a strategic marketing alliance with Aircargo Communities, Inc. (ACI) and http://www.aircargocommunities.com that will provide career services and job opportunities to more than 3,700 air cargo professionals. ACI publishes air freight and ground transportation rates and schedules and routing tools development. “JobsInLogistics.com has more than 60,000 registered freight forwarding professionals,” says Don Firth, President of JobsInLogistics.com. “We are delighted to partner with ACI to assist companies in finding the most qualified and experienced candidates and to assist air cargo professionals find the most rewarding career opportunities.”
Article courtesy of Kennedy Information Recruiting Trends providing leading edge insights and strategies for the recruiting professional