Why Job Boards Should Embrace and Not Fear Mobile

Jeff Dickey-Chasins

Jeff Dickey-Chasins a/k/a The Job Board Doctor recently posted an article that reminded me that many job boards are either in denial about the growth in usage of the Internet by those on iPads, cell phones, and other mobile devices or those job boards are fearful about that usage migration.

I agree that job boards largely displaced newspapers as the primary source for job postings and that social media sites such as LinkedIn are trying to displace job boards as the primary source for job postings. I also agree that those social media sites look more and more like job boards and would cite as a further example the Social Recruiting App recently launched to much fanfare (and criticism) on Facebook as well as somewhat similar apps added to Facebook pages by companies such as Jobcast (i.e., CollegeRecruiter.com Facebook page) and Work4Labs. Continue Reading

A Social Job Posting

By Peter Weddle, WEDDLE’s

Peter Weddle

Not much has changed with job postings since they first appeared in the early 1990′s. Today, they are, as they have always been, information-based ads that are shaped by their ancestors in the classified section of newspapers. What has changed, however, is the people who read job postings. They want a different experience, one that is social as well as informative.

Unfortunately, the Web is filled with poorly written job postings. These recruitment ads are nothing more than position descriptions or print classified ads repurposed online. They may work with the most desperate of job seekers, but for talented candidates with choices, they have all of the appeal of a wet blanket on a cold day. Continue Reading

Number of Apply Clicks and Cost Per Click for Job Posting Ads

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

A commonly used cliche has the buyer of advertising stating that he knows that half of his advertising is working but he just wishes that he knew which half. That cliche pre-dates the Internet as today’s marketers should and sometimes do know which of their ads is working. But even then, how do you define “working?”

One of the interesting developments since CollegeRecruiter.com went live way back in 1996 is the increased attention employers are paying to metrics so they can better understand where their money is being well spent. For 16 years we’ve heard employers say that they use niche job boards such as ours because they care more about quality than quantity yet when it came time to decide whether to renew a job posting package our sales team would invariably hear yes or no based upon how many applications the employer received from our candidates. Those employers were saying they were basing their decisions on quality but actually were basing them on quantity. Continue Reading

96% of Employers Hiring; 81% Advertising on Sites Like CollegeRecruiter.com

As the national unemployment rate continues to teeter at just over eight percent, turnover rates are beginning to inch up. The average total turnover rate reported for employers from 2011 was 15.2 percent, according to Compdata Surveys BenchmarkPro 2012 survey results. That’s up slightly from 14.4 percent reported a year ago. Voluntary turnover rates were reported at 9.8 percent, up from 9.1 percent reported last year.

“Voluntary turnover rates were trending downward for several years, but the numbers are beginning to edge up again,” said Amy Kaminski, director of marketing for Compdata Surveys. “This is likely because employees are beginning to feel more comfortable about re-entering the job market as the economy shows small signs of improvement.” Continue Reading

Video: How to Use a Job Board to Find Your Next Job

I was honored to be asked by Carlos Gil and Kevin Morris of JobsDirectUSA to participate in this year’s America Hires virtual job fair.

We kicked around a few ideas as to how I could best help the many, many people who are hunting for a new internship, entry-level job, or other career opportunity and we decided that I should record a short video in which I answer some of the most commonly asked questions about how to be use a job board. Kevin did a nice job of editing to drop in the questions before each of my answers.

Continue Reading

Video Interview in U.K. Immediately After Keynote About U.S. Job Market for College Grads

Last week I had the good fortune to fly over to Leeds, England to keynote their annual Graduate Employment Conference. CEO of Graduates Yorkshire and Gradcore Martin Edmondson asked me to deliver a presentation about the U.S. job market for college and university students and recent graduates. Many of the issues we’re facing are similar to those they’re facing. They’re experiencing some of them before we do and we’re experiencing some before they do.

One issue that I knew was important but didn’t realize just how important it would be to them was the high cost of attending just about any type of post-secondary school. The cost of attending a higher education institution is far higher in the U.S. than it is in almost any other country and FAR higher than it is to attend an equivalent school in the United Kingdom. But their recent implementation of austerity measures threatens to put their schools on a similar path to that which our schools have long been on. Without exception, every attendee and organizer with whom I spoke greatly appreciated my urging that they do not follow our lead as we are making higher education impossible for many and soon, I fear, for most. As bad as that would have been decades ago, it is even worse moving forward as we cannot and should not hope to compete against other nations to see which can manufacture goods at the lowest possible cost. Unless we want our citizenry to again have third world standards of living, we need to ensure they have first world standards of work. And that means that we need a workforce which uses the muscles between their ears more than the muscles on their backs. Continue Reading

4 Job Hunting Tips for Recent College Grads

· You may have more experience than you realize – While recent college grads are likely to highlight internships and part-time jobs on their resumes, they may not know that many employers will consider volunteer work (53 percent), class work (33 percent), managing activities for sororities or fraternities (26 percent) and sports (20 percent) as relevant experience. One-in-ten employers (12 percent) would also consider social media (personal or school-related blogs, social networking pages) to qualify as relevant experience.

· Expand your network of contacts online and offline – The number one way employers recruit recent college grads is through employee referrals (49 percent) followed by postings on online job sites (42 percent). Continue Reading

The Business Case for Hiring Veterans

The recent end of the war in Iraq and drawing down of troops in Afghanistan have helped focus the attention of the public on the need to help transition our Veterans into meaningful, rewarding employment in the civilian world. Much of the coverage that I’ve seen has focused on the benefit to the Veteran but little has been made of the benefit to the employer. As important as it is to support our Veterans, the reality is that the employment of Veterans simply makes good business sense as these men and women tend to have superb skills in a wide variety of areas, including organization and leadership.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is doing an admirable job of helping Veterans transition into the civilian workforce and also helping the business community better understand how the hiring of these Veterans can improve their bottom line. There are a number of case studies published at its America’s Heroes At Work web site, including the following: Continue Reading

CollegeRecruiter.com Joins White House Summer Jobs Initiative to Help Create 250,000 New Jobs for Young Adults

President Barack Obama recently unveiled the Summer Jobs+ initiative, which challenges business leaders and communities to join the Administration in providing hundreds of thousands of summer jobs and pathways to employment for America’s youth. The initiative was created after Congress did not approve the $1.5 billion summer-jobs fund included in the American Jobs Act even though the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported:

• Even though July is normally the month when youth employment peaks, only 48.8 percent of youth between the ages of 16-24 were employed last July. That was significantly lower than the 59.2 percent of youth who were employed five years ago and 63.3 percent of youth who were employed 10 years ago.
• Minority youth had an especially difficult time finding employment last summer. Only 34.6 percent of African-American youth and 42.9 percent of Hispanic youth had a job last July.

The Summer Jobs+ initiative was created to help ensure that a much larger percentage of young adults find meaningful employment opportunities this summer and for years to come. As part of the initiative, the U.S. Department of Labor is creating a jobs bank to facilitate to help more employers and young people connect.

CollegeRecruiter.com, the leading job board used by college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry-level jobs and other career opportunities, accepted the President’s call-to-action by making a “Pathways Pledge” to help at least 25,000 low-income, young adults obtain insight into the world of work by connecting them with corporate and other employers.

“The employment of our youth through this exciting, new initiative is an issue which should transcend politics as there’s virtually no cost to the taxpayer yet huge dividends to the hundreds of thousands of young adults who will gain critical work experience starting this summer,” said Faith Rothberg, chief executive officer of CollegeRecruiter.com. “We are thrilled to be in a position where we can help bright, energetic, young adults across this country find meaningful work and we’re proud make such a significant contribution to the Summer Jobs+ Bank.”

CollegeRecruiter.com urges all employers, recruitment advertising agencies, high school guidance offices, college career service offices, libraries, workforce centers, job boards, and other sources of employment information to pledge their support to Summer Jobs+ by offering one or more of these resources:

• Life Skills: Provide youth work-related soft skills, such as communication, time management and teamwork, through coursework and / or experience. This includes resume writing or interview workshops and mentorship programs.
• Work Skills: Provide youth insight into the world of work to prepare for employment. This includes job shadow days and internships.
• Learn and Earn: Provide youth on-the-job skills in a learning environment while earning wages for their work.
• Jobs Widget: Add a free job search widget to your web site to make it easy for young adults to find great new employment opportunities.

If you have jobs which are suitable for 16-24 year olds, post them to http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com/rate-card/job-postings/ and we’ll include them in this great new initiative!

Overwhelmed with Job Search – Job Search Boards

“Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” – George Bernard Shaw

So much to do and so little time. Job Search Boards, recruiters, company career sites, social sites and so on. So where do you start? How much time should you spend on all of the millions of things you need to do in your job search? My first rule of thumb is, do it all. How, you ask? First, make a list. Ensure you have a reasonable representation of all of your job search leads (the stuff I listed at the top of this post). Spread your time evenly, don’t get caught up in answering tons of online ads, but also don’t get caught up in sending too many notes to recruiters. Today’s post covers job search boards and the 10′s of thousands of jobs that are posted (and no, this is not a typo). So here goes, starting with some of the more popular names in job search. Continue Reading