10 Realities Every Grad Should Know Prior to Graduation
- You are the most educated generation to enter the workforce, but you are also viewed as the least prepared. Don't be blind-sided by your generation's professional reality.
- The other generations in the workforce don't have much compassion for your situation. You are being incorrectly perceived as lazy, entitled and arrogant. Don't validate these beliefs by ignoring their concerns, instead, work to overcome them.
- DON'T road trip, backpack or 'take a year off' without thinking about your career first. Those who delay to play, often pay!
- More degrees don't mean more money! If you aren't sure what to do next, the LAST thing you should do is stay in school.
- Don't succumb to Cinderella Syndrome. The sooner you break your addiction to acceptance, praise, grades, rewards and other bribes, the sooner you'll find personally satisfying work that is professionally rewarding.
- Got a compelling Career Story that you use to market your employability? If not, then plan on a longer, more stressful job search.
- Spray-and-pray job searches (sending out a hundred resumes and hoping for a call) are for people who are willing to settle for what's available. Get active, create a network, and you'll get access to the hot jobs nobody else knows about.
- A great mentor is worth a lot more than a good job.
- Want to quantum leap your career? Then learn to deal with the 3 C's (conflict, criticism and causing disappointment) ...now!
- Embrace the equation used by the most professionally satisfied people in the world: EXPERIENCE = LEARN = GROW
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 9, 2008 at 6:42 AM | Leave a Comment (0)
CollegeRecruiter.com Re-launches With Free Job Postings
CollegeRecruiter.com went live in 1996 and has had a handful of major software updates since that time. We're scheduled to re-launch with our newest update the weekend of Saturday, May 17th and we're very excited.
To celebrate our impending re-launch, we'll automatically add to all employer accounts as many free job posting ad credits as they have active postings on the date that we re-launch. So if an employer has five active job postings on our re-launch date, we'll add five additional postings to their account at no charge! To buy your two-for-one postings, go to our registration page if you're a new client or our login page if you've previously registered with us.
Continue reading "CollegeRecruiter.com Re-launches With Free Job Postings"
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 8, 2008 at 12:15 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
Tips for a Successful Internship
I graduated from college way, way back in 1988. Yup, I'm 42 years old. That makes me ancient to virtually every student on a college campus. Back in my day, we walked 12 miles to school, through eight feet of snow, with no shoes, it was uphill in both directions, and we loved it. Oops. That was in the days of my grandparents. But I digress.
Very few Gen X'ers like me had internships. Those of us who graduated with any work experience tended to have jobs that had little to nothing to do with our career aspirations. Those going into accounting waited tables or stocked shelves, for example. Gen Y'ers are completely different. They understand that in order to have a reasonable chance of finding a good job upon graduation that they must complete at least one and preferably multiple internships. And employers are catching on too. Some 50 percent of employers expect a college graduate to have completed at least one internship. Indeed, 20 percent of employers expect a college graduate to have completed two internships. How times change.
So what should a college student to ensure a successful internship?
Continue reading "Tips for a Successful Internship"
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 8, 2008 at 10:34 AM | Leave a Comment (0)
Subject Lines for Targeted Email Campaigns
Most job boards seem to operate under a typical 80-20 rule for revenue generation: about 80 percent of their revenues are generated from the sale to their employer clients of job posting ads and resume searching. The other 20 percent are miscellaneous items such as banner advertising, sponsorships, lead generation, and targeted emails.
CollegeRecruiter.com also operates under an 80-20 rule for revenue generation but for us about 80 percent of our revenues are generated from the sale to our employer clients of targeted email campaigns, cell phone text messaging, and other such non-traditional products. We generate revenue from the sale of job posting ads and for a very limited period of time will also from resume searching, but we've learned over the years how to effectively and efficiently target tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of candidates via double opt-in email and cell phone text messaging.
Continue reading "Subject Lines for Targeted Email Campaigns"
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 7, 2008 at 6:40 AM | Leave a Comment (1)
Is There More Money in Death Than Jobs?
Monster founder Jeff Taylor just announced that he's spinning off the obituary classifieds section of Eons, his social networking site for Baby Boomers. The obituary site, Tribute, is intended to aggregate obituary listings placed by funeral homes much like Monster was one of the first job boards to aggregate job listings placed by employers.
I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Jeff at a recent International Association of Employment Web Sites conference. He sat on a panel and was a vocal participant in a number of issues where his experience and advice was invaluable to many members in the room. Other than some warm fuzzies, it is unlikely that he got nearly as much out of the meeting as most of the other attendees but he didn't seem to mind. If Jeff's new venture is half as successful as the industry that Monster helped spawn then this is yet another blow to the viability of newspapers.
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 6, 2008 at 9:22 AM | Leave a Comment (0)
A Great Gift to Our Nation
I recently completed watching Battle 360, a multi-part series on the History Channel about the famed World War II carrier, the U.S.S. Enterprise. Our primary contact at client Enterprise Rent-a-Car gave me the heads-up about the series and am I ever glad that she did. It was fabulous.
Enterprise Rent-a-Car was founded in 1957 by Enterprise by Jack Crawford Taylor, father of current CEO, Andy Taylor. Jack served as a fighter pilot on the U.S.S. Enterprise during World War II. The History Channel series did a very nice job of tying the men and women of Enterprise Rent-a-Car together with the proud legacy of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
Continue reading "A Great Gift to Our Nation"
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 5, 2008 at 3:07 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
We Beat U.S. Economy by 3,733% in First Quarter
Many including me predicted that the U.S. economy was in a recession during the first quarter. Turns out that news of the economy's ill health was greatly exaggerated. The economy actually grew during the first quarter of 2008, albeit barely. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, the country's economic growth from January through March was 0.6 percent. Hardly great, but definitely a lot better than many feared.
Not to toot our own horn, well, maybe a little, but our revenues were up during the first quarter of 2008. Our revenues increased by 22.4 percent in the first quarter in 2008 as compared to the same period a year earlier. That's off from the roughly 75 percent growth we saw from 2006 to 2007 but given the recession economy's only slight growth, we're feeling pretty good.
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 1, 2008 at 4:23 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
Human Capital Institute Expert Advisory Panel
I recently accepted the Human Capital Institute's invitation to join their Expert Advisory Panel for Recruitment Advertising and Communications. The Human Capital Institute (HCI) is a global professional association and educator that is advancing the science of strategic talent management.
The panel meets on quarterly conference calls and collaborates through on-line technology to discuss trends, uncover leading-edge thinking and ideas, provide real examples and advice, guide HCI research and webcasts, and help push the industry forward in general by discussing what works and what doesn't. More specifically, Expert Advisors help HCI Community Leaders identify track topics for webcast and research development, identify leading speakers for webcasts, identify industry best practices and tools for the track, and help attract others interested in the track topics to help promote the track offerings. Expert Advisors also contribute to articles, research, webcasts and educational initiatives at HCI. Quotes from members of the panel may also occasionally be used in HCI content.
Continue reading "Human Capital Institute Expert Advisory Panel"
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 1, 2008 at 4:00 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference Spring 2008 - Free!
It's been a year since Paul DeBettignies a/k/a the Minnesota Headhunter, Josh Kahn of Accenture at Best Buy, and I got together at Chipotle for some burritos and to plot strategy for how to increase the number of active recruiting bloggers in Minnesota. One thing led to another, which is often the case when you get three guys together over exceptionally good food, and the end result was the Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conferences.
Josh has been instrumental in getting the group access to the Best Buy world headquarters facilities. They have superb meeting rooms and the price is certainly right. Their in-house catering service also bends over backwards to make it as easy as possible to host an event in their building.
Joining the group later was Nicole St. Martin, who we affectionately refer to as Paul's wingman. She's the one who makes these volunteer-driven events happen so professionally that I have to believe that most attendees think that Tinkerbell must be involved as everything just magically works perfectly. She's an incredible asset to the recruiting world generally and the human resource search engine optimization community
specifically.
But it is Paul DeBettignies who is the driving force. He is the visionary and the face of the organization. My involvement has been negligible after that initial burrito fest. His involvement has been almost like a full-time job. His energy, enthusiasm, sense of humor, and wisdom are infectious. People just love to be around him. He must do incredible work helping his employer clients find outstanding I.T. candidates.
If you've never attended a Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference, you have another chance. Here are the details:
Continue reading "Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference Spring 2008 - Free!"
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 30, 2008 at 2:22 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
What Job Seekers Want From Job Boards
There are approximately 50,000 job boards in the United States and about the same elsewhere in the world. Many are essentially cookie cutter boards with little to no traffic and little to no unique job posting or article content. But all serve employers and job seekers and to survive and thrive all must therefore listen to those visitors to understand what features, functionality and services they like best on today's job boards.
Fortunately, the industry has the International Association of Employment Web Sites to help us out with keeping up-to-date on issues like this. The executive director, Peter Weddle, conducted a survey between April, 2007 and April, 2008 and generated over 15,700 responses. The results were:
- 19.4% The caliber of the job postings on a site;
- 19.1% The number of job postings on a site;
- 16.7% Ease of access to employment opportunities on the site;
- 16.2% The job search tools and information provided on a site;
- 16.1% The fact that access to employment opportunities is free; and
- 12.5% The ability to network with others on the site.
Continue reading "What Job Seekers Want From Job Boards"
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 30, 2008 at 10:27 AM | Leave a Comment (0)
I'm All a-Twitter
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 29, 2008 at 8:16 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
Jason Alba Explains Social Media
I had the privilege of attending a presentation by Jason Alba of JibberJobber fame at the JobDig offices yesterday evening. For a guy working on four hours of sleep and doing the fourth of four presentations in one day, he was great. Actually, he was great compared to the vast majority of speakers so someday I'll need to see him when he is totally fresh. He must be amazing.
As indicated by a review posted at Staffing Software Talk shortly after the event, Jason did a great job explaining social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, blogs, articles, Twitter, etc. and how they all fit together. He explained how honesty and transparency are critical in today's job market. And he wasn't above poking fun at himself or friends of his in the audience.
JibberJobber is a great tool for job seekers. Employers can think of it as an applicant tracking system for candidates in that it enables them to easily track which jobs they've considered, applied to, been interviewed for, received offers, etc. There's a great free version and also an inexpensive paid version that offers even better functionality. It is truly a gift to candidates and therefore the recruiting community.
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 29, 2008 at 10:35 AM | Leave a Comment (0)
Here We Grow Again
I'm pleased to announce that we converted another of our unpaid intern bloggers to a paid employee.
William Frierson of Florence, South Carolina graduated from high school in 2002 and earned his associate's degree in business marketing in 2005.
William became an unpaid writing intern for CollegeRecruiter.com almost a year ago in May 2006. His writing and thoughtfulness so impressed us that we started to pay him to write for us on a freelance basis to help ensure that he would continue to write for us and hopefully write more and more. I've loved his work and work ethic and so was quite pleased when we finalized the paperwork last week and converted him to a W-2 employee. I have every confidence that he will continue to impress us and those who have the privilege of reading his articles.
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 28, 2008 at 3:24 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
Great Corporate Recruiting Blogs
|
As young as the Internet is, blogging is even younger. Outside of Al Gore and a few folks in the U.S. military, virtually no one had heard of the Internet before 1994. It wasn't until Netscape went bonkers in 1995 that the Internet entered our everyday lexicon. Blogging burst onto the scene just a handful of years ago and now it is difficult to go to a recruiting conference or trade show without finding at least one session devoted to how and why recruiters should blog. But to-date the vast majority of the most popular blogs have been written by vendors like search engine optimization experts and third party recruiters. As much as I love learning from those folks, it is really wonderful that corporate recruiters are finally emerging. Today's issue of Electronic Recruiting News contains a few examples of some great corporate blogs. They are: |
Ladies and gentlemen of the corporate recruiting world, welcome to the party!
Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 25, 2008 at 8:34 AM | Leave a Comment (0)
