Q - How do you know when the economy is in a recession?
A - When your neighbor loses his job.

Q - How do you know when the economy is in a depression?
A - When you lose your job.

Q - How do you know when the economy is in a recovery?
A - When [insert your least favorite politician's name here] loses his job.

Q - How do you know when human resource search engine optimization experts are happy for those of their clients which are job boards?

A - When on-line help wanted advertising is up 28 percent year-over-year.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 30, 2006 at 9:25 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

In my conversations with employers of Gen Y students, many complain that their high school and college aged employees have unrealistic expectations about the type of work that they are qualified to do and how hard they need to work in order to succeed. While I've often chalked that type of talk up to the perennial tendency of older generations to look with disdain upon younger generations, there is some empirical support for the concerns being expressed about Gen Y.

According to a recently released study by Florida State University sociology professor John Reynolds, today's high school students have unrealistically rosy career goals. In his study, Reynolds tracked changes in the educational and career plans of high school seniors between 1976 and 2000. He found that the gap between their goals and actual achievements grew over that 25-year period.

"Today's teens are both highly ambitious and increasingly unrealistic," said Reynolds. "While some youth clearly benefit from heightened ambition, it can lead to disappointment and discouragement rather than optimism and success."

Reynolds suggested that "[u]nrealistic plans may lead to a misuse of human potential and economic resources. For example, planning to become a medical doctor while making poor grades in high school means that preparation for other, more probable vocations is likely to be postponed."

So what's an employer to do? There are a variety of tactics that may help. If these members of Gen Y have unrealistic goals because of a lack of knowledge, then invest in some training. But rather than that training being directly related to their work, structure the training to be more along the lines of career counseling. Have a monthly brown bag lunch meeting where your newest employees can listen to and learn from some of your employees who are just a few years older than they are. These peers are bound to make a more significant impact than an upper executive manager who may have gone to college during the Vietnam War era.

Another tactic is to establish a mentorship program. Pair your newest, young employees with other young employees who have been with you for just a few years. Again, this peer contact will likely have a greater impact than pairing a 22 year old who has her whole career ahead of her with a 60 year old manager who is looking forward more to retirement than anything else. The mentor need not come from the same area either. There is nothing wrong with pairing a new marketing assistant with an engineer. Indeed, a lot of good can come from such a pair which at first glance may appear to be an odd combination. By creating these cross-departmental relationships, you'll also be fostering greater understanding and cooperation across department lines and that inevitably will lead to greater cohesion and workplace efficiency.

Any other ideas for tactics that may help Gen Y overcome their unrealistic career aspirations?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 29, 2006 at 7:35 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

When interviewing for a new job, it is important that you walk the walk (look professional) but also that you talk the talk (ask the right questions and give the right answers). In order to do the latter, avoid topics such as sex, politics, and religion unless they are directly relevant to the position (they almost never are) as well as the following:

• Getting to the interview: The interviewer wants to know if you're the best candidate for the position, not how hard it was for you to get the interview.

• Compensation: Don't talk about compensation unless the interviewer raises the subject. You're far better off waiting for the employer to extend an offer to you before you raise the issue of compensation because at that point the power is in your hands.

• Your Old Boss: You do want to talk about previous experiences which are relevant to this position, but you don't want to talk negatively about previous superiors or employers. The interviewer knows that if you bad mouth another boss, you'll bad mouth the interviewer when you're next interviewing for a position.

• Your Significant Other: It is incredibly rare when your relationship with your significant other, friends, or family are relevant to a position, so leave them and your thoughts about them outside of the interview room.

• Health: Talk about your heath condition only if it is relevant to the position and you want the employer to make some type of reasonable accommodation for you. Otherwise, talk about the condition with your physician, not the interviewer.

• The Latest Joke: If the interviewer starts joking around with you, feel free to joke around with her as well but keep your humor G-rated and turn it off immediately when the interviewer first gives a signal that she wants to get down to business. Usually, it is best not to joke around. The upsides are few and the downsides are great.

• How You Look: Even if you feel like you look horrible on the day of the interview, don't mention it. The interviewer is more concerned about your ability to do the job than in the almost invisible mustard stain on your pants.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 28, 2006 at 7:21 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

"Location, location, location," is not only a relevant phrase when shopping for a prime piece of real estate but it is also a key determinant when conducting a job search.

If possible, most people will avoid a long commute when accepting a new job—thus making location and daily commute time a vital piece of the puzzle when evaluating a job offer. Who doesn't find it convenient to work close to home?

A recent survey of over 4,400 CollegeRecruiter.com Network members were asked, "How long is/was your commute to work for your most recent job?" The result—over 73 percent of business professionals said they work less than 25 miles from home.

More than 45 percent of polled members said that they commute less than 15 miles to work, more than 27 percent commute 15 to 25 miles, less than 17 percent commute 25 to 40 miles and a little over 10 percent commute more than 40 miles to work.

More and more business professionals are choosing to work close to home in order to help maintain a healthy work/life balance. Commute time alone, can make a significant dent in time available for family and after-work activities. When searching for a new job or making that next career change, its wise to consider and incorporate local niche websites that are geared towards providing resources and business opportunities within your local area or industry of interest. Many sites allow you to define your search by zip code, area code or city. Other options to consider include:

• Continue to build a network of local contacts
• Search for positions in the local or association newspapers
• Attend local career fairs
• Consider using a resume distribution service to target employers close to home.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 27, 2006 at 7:39 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

In the “Are You Having Fun Yet” chapter of my book TRUE PROFESSIONALISM I reported on a survey I have done for more than twenty years around the world. I ask people what percent of their work they would put in the “I love this” category versus “It’s OK It’s what I do for a living. It doesn’t excite me.” There’s also a third category called “I hate this part of my work life.”

I also ask people what percent of their clients they would put in the category “I REALLY like these people I serve and find their sector fascinating” (as opposed to: "It’s OK, I can tolerate them.”) The third category here is “By my taste, they’re idiots in boring businesses.”

The “typical” answers I am given (by people at all levels) are about 20-30percent for “I love this” work, 60percent for “can tolerate it” and 10-20percent for “it’s junk.” On the client questions, typical numbers are 10-60-30. (I’m not making this up. By and large, people don’t REALLY like those they serve, bosses or clients.)

My message has always been that these are depressingly low numbers - I don't want to spend the majority of my life doing tolerable stuff for tolerable people just because they pay me. I'm going to work to change that!

One young person wrote in to ask: “People will wonder what your message is if they really cannot find favorable numbers where they currently work, or at least on the tasks they are currently assigned to. Can someone in a junior position influence the flow of tasks that he / she is assigned so as to increase the proportion that is stimulating? What can a junior person do?”

Some obvious first thoughts:

1. Build RELATIONSHIPS WITH POWER PLAYERS who can get you in the flow of work you would prefer to what you are doing now? (Go be helpful to someone.)

2. VOLUNTEER for challenging activities so you can say “No, sorry, I’m too busy, when the bad assignments come along?”

3. PROPOSE and INITIATE suggestions for innovative projects that will get you assigned to things you would like to do?

4. TALK to those who are currently doing the work you aiming for in order to find out if it truly is as satisfying as you think it is?

5. Talk with OTHER STAFF MEMBERS in your firm, to find out which senior people you can learn from and which ones will just exploit you and dump you?

6. Go get friendly with CLIENT PERSONNEL. Any client intelligence you can pick up and bring back will mark you out as a go-getter, and it mike lead to more work for your organization.

Alright, everybody, we’ve all been juniors in an organization at one time or another, so let’s help. How do you get more of the interesting work and avoid getting stuck on the dull stuff?

What’s YOUR top 3, 4, or 5 suggestions to an individual at the lower levels of an organization that would help him / her bring about a better future for him / herself?

-- Material reprinted from davidmaister.com © Copyright 2001-2006 by David Maister. http://davidmaister.com/blog

This CollegeRecruiter.com Blogswap article is courtesy of Recruiting.com at http://www.Recruiting.com and CollegeRecruiter.com at http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com , a leading site for college students and recent graduates who are searching for internships and entry level jobs.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 21, 2006 at 7:53 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

For much of the U.S., people are more concerned with digging out snow shovels at this time of the year than they are in finding a great, paid internship for next summer. When then would I want to write about how to find an internship when it is still November? Because many employers have already started their hunt for interns. If they're looking for interns, then students should be looking for internships.

A part-time internship during the school year or a full-time internship during the summer are both great opportunities for students and even recent graduates to get great experience. Internships are essentially temp-to-perm relationships as both employers and students are able to try each other out temporarily to see if they want to make the relationship permanent. Also, it is become more and more common for interns to be paid. In a recent survey conducted amongst members of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), nearly 98 percent indicated that they pay their interns and that the average undergraduate intern is paid $15.44 per hour. Now I take that survey with a grain of salt or perhaps even a whole shaker because NACE's membership is heavily skewed to large employers and most interns are not employed by large employers. In addition, employers who pay their interns are probably more likely to be proud of that fact so more willing to share that information than employers who do not pay their interns.

Whether your internship is paid or unpaid, an internship by definition is a great way of getting experience that is directly related to your career aspirations. Unpaid internships often provide the experience that students need to land paid internships and those often provide the experience that students need to land great, entry level jobs upon graduation. Indeed, employers report that nearly 60 percent of the students they hired upon graduation had at least one internship under the belts.

So what are you waiting for? Start searching for a great internship today.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 20, 2006 at 7:33 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

As odd as it may sound to a Gen X'er or Baby Boomer, college students and other members of Gen Y who post information about themselves and their friends to social networking sites such as Facebook do not consider that information to be public. Yet when you post information on-line at any site, even a password protected site such as Facebook, you should consider it to be akin to getting a tattoo: there's nothing inherently wrong with it but you need to be prepared for people to see it for the rest of your life even if you don't want them to see it.

Campus police departments have been trolling social networking sites such as Facebook for years in an effort to reduce illegal activities on-campus such as alcohol use and campus building-climbing. As word of this trolling has come out, students have strongly objected and some of the departments, including the campus police department at Princeton University, now only use Facebook as a tool in specific investigations. Yet some feel that they shouldn't be using Facebook and other social networking sites at all in an effort to clamp down on crime or do background checking on students.

Many students feel that outsiders – professors, campus authorities, employers, etc. – should not visit student sites such as Facebook. The analogy that is drawn is that of the family reunion where an older, uncool uncle hangs around a bit too long with the younger folks. Call it the creepiness factor. This creepiness gets worse when the visitors who are hanging around are law enforcement authorities who are checking to see if you've participated in any illegal activities. But students need to understand that outsiders will visit their sites and that those visits can have negative consequences. You may be accused of commiting a crime. You may be denied an employment opportunity. You may be suspended from school.

The bottom line: if you don't want a potential admissions officer at a college or graduate school seeing the information, don't post it on-line anywhere. If you don't want a potential future employer, girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, in-law, or anyone else seeing the information, don't post it on-line anywhere. If you do, you'll likely find that it will be a lot harder to correct the damage than it is getting a tattoo removed.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 17, 2006 at 7:26 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

For the past few years, one of the media's favorite buzz words has been "outsourcing," which they tend to misuse when they are referring to organizations which terminate domestic employees and move their work to foreign countries where it typically can be done at a lower cost. Outsourcing is not the same as offshoring, which is the word that the media should actually use to refer to what those organizations are doing as one American organization can chose to outsource part of its work to another American organization and that's hardly the type of activity that politicians or the media can or should get worked up about.

But offshoring does pose problems for many people, especially those who are focused on the micro economic effects. When you lose your job to someone in Pakistan who is happy to do the work you used to do for 1/10th of the cost, how can you not be upset? And even if that doesn't happen to you, how can you not be scared when you see that happening to a friend or family member?

Interestly, the media has recently been shining their spotlight on the practice of inshoring, which occurs when foreign organizations terminate some of the employees in their home country and replace those employees with U.S. workers. An example is the Indian engineering firm Infosys Technologies, which recently opened an office in Fremont, California.

Infosys has created a Global Talent Program through which it is paying entry level engineers $55,000 per year. Over the past year, more than 1,000 American college students and recent graduates applied for the Program's 126 job openings. Why the stiff competition? The pay isn't different from what organizations are offering. The work is pretty similar. The biggest different is that new Infosys provides extensive training to its new employees for six months in Mysore, India. "The training itself is looked upon highly by other companies," says Brandon Pletcher, who recently graduated with a computer engineering degree from the University of Arizona in Tucson. "It gives us the edge to do our jobs better."

- Source: Fast Company, October 2006.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 16, 2006 at 10:44 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

If you're wondering how submitting your career-related articles to the CollegeRecruiter.com Blogswap will help you get those articles posted for free on other blogs, let's look at an example of an article that I submitted. I created an account at the Blogswap main page, indicated that I wanted to be both a publisher and an author, and then submitted a career-related article for free to the Blogswap system. When I did so, I knew that it would be published on a site that we've reviewed to make sure that they're appropriate to participate, but I did not know which site. I did know that there were about a dozen sites registered to publish the articles so my article would go to whichever of the dozen sites was next in line to receive an article. Turns out that site was Exceler8ion.com, the excellent career-related site run by Julian and Shannon Seery Gude.

When they received the article via email, they were asked to post it within two business days and then confirm that they had done so by providing the web page address (URL) so we could verify that the article was posted properly. As soon as they did, their site went back into line to receive another free article. They get extra content for their site and I got my article on their site. Why would I want my article on their site? It will lead to click throughs from their site and also better rankings for my site from search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. They'll see that Exceler8ion.com has linked to CollegeRecruiter.com and they'll also see that the link to CollegeRecruiter.com is near keywords that our target market uses to find sites like ours: internships, entry level job search, etc.

Whether you want more content or more links or both, the free CollegeRecruiter.com Blogswap is for you.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 15, 2006 at 2:35 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

A quick update on the progress of the new Blogswap, which is being organized by Recruiting.com and CollegeRecruiter.com. The Blogswap allows bloggers to get more exposure and links to their blogs by allowing them to write articles and have those articles appear on blogs run by other people. The more articles that you write, the more times your blog will be linked to alongside your targeted keyword phrases, which will be great for click throughs to your site from those blogs but probably even more importantly will be the great search engine optimization effect as Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. will see those links to your site alongside your targeted keyword phrases and you'll receive a nice bump in your search engine rankings. By submitting articles that you've written to the Blogswap, you'll be engaging in a very effective form of public relations. At the same time, blog owners who want more good content (who doesn't?) can sign up to receive articles and then publish those which will be of interest to their readers. By more content your blog has, the more likely it is that someone using Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. will find your blog and the higher your existing pages will appear in the search results because sites with more content rank higher than sites with less content.

After just a few days of our official launch, we have 11 registered users and four articles have been submitted. We have yet to aggressively promote the Blogswap as we felt that it was a better idea to walk before we ran. We want this to be a long-term, sustainable, free article submission site for human resource professionals. The system is there. Now we just need you. Register as an author to get your articles and links to your site on other blogs. Register as a publisher to increase the amount of content on your blog. Better yet, do what I've done and register as both an author and a publisher. There's no limit to the number of articles you can post as an author and there's no limit on the number of articles you can receive as a publisher.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 15, 2006 at 8:19 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Employers continue to increase starting salaries to new college grads, according to the Fall 2006 issue of Salary Survey, a quarterly report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). The Fall issue is NACE's final salary report for the college Class of 2006.

"These salary increases combined with the results of a recent poll of Salary Survey participants indicate that 2005-06 has been the best job market in the past four years," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.

"Nearly nine out of 10 respondents to that poll said that 2005-06 grads had more job opportunities available to them than 2004-05 grads," she added. "And, respondents said employers strongly participated in recruiting activities, including on-campus recruiting, career fairs, information sessions, and intern and co-op recruiting."

Salary Survey participants reported other signs of a robust market for 2005-06 grads, such as earlier, and, in some cases, multiple job offers to students. Therefore, it's not surprising that starting salary offers have increased in almost all curriculum areas.

Business disciplines posted increases across the board. Accounting grads' average offer rose by 4.6 percent to $44,928, and business administration/management graduates saw an increase of 4.2 percent, raising their average offer to $41,155. The average salary offer to economics/finance graduates jumped 6.2 percent to $44,588.

Management information systems graduates saw their average offer increase by 4 percent to $45,391, and marketing graduates posted a 2.1 percent increase, bringing their average offer to $37,191. But, the average offer to information sciences and systems graduates soared by 7.5 percent to $47,182. Computer science grads saw a mere 0.2 percent increase, bringing their average offer to $50,744.
Average salary offers to engineering graduates showed increases nearly across the board. Chemical engineering grads watched their average salary offer increase by 4.9 percent to $56,269, and the average offer to civil engineering graduates rose by 5.3 percent to $46,084. The average starting salary offer to computer engineering grads inched up by 1.6 percent to $53,096. Electrical engineering and mechanical engineering grads also saw modest increases—they rose 2.9 percent to $53,500, and 3.3 percent to $51,808, respectively.

Liberal arts graduates' average starting salary offers remain level. The increase for liberal arts majors as a group was a minute 0.2 percent, with the increases and decreases of individual majors cancelling each other out. For example, political science/government majors saw a 0.3 percent increase to their average offer, raising it to $33,094, but English majors saw a decrease of 0.2 percent, lowering their offer to $31,385. Psychology majors witnessed a 1 percent increase to their average offer, bringing it to $30,369, but sociology majors saw a 0.9 decrease to $31,096. However, history majors saw a strong 4.2 percent jump in their average offer to $33,071.

Early indications suggest that 2006-07 new college graduates will also enjoy a healthy job market. NACE will publish its first set of salary statistics for the college Class of 2007 in February, when it releases the Winter 2007 Salary Survey report.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 15, 2006 at 7:52 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

The holidays are quickly approaching! Yes it's the season of togetherness and joy but it can also be a very stressful time. We have to worry about buying and wrapping gifts, sending out holiday cards, decorating and the list goes on and on. During this frantic time, it is very easy for employees to get distracted. Below are just a few helpful tips to help them stay focused at work:

Emphasize Goals

It can be helpful to hold an informal company meeting to let people know where the company is and where the company wants to be before the end of the year. Reinforce that the success of the company comes from everyone, not just individuals. This approach will help build enthusiasm and continue momentum. Talking individually with employees about their goals for the rest of the year and next year is also important, especially if their annual review is conducted at year-end.

Be a Model Manager

You want to set a good example for your employees. They know that you are also stressed during the holidays but your leadership abilities should come into play at this time. Make sure you come to work on time, do not procrastinate, and stay focused on your goals. Your employees should follow your example.

Schedule Festivities

Keep employee morale high by having a holiday treat whether it is bringing in doughnuts and coffee, decorating around the office, or hosting a gift exchange. You want to make work a little more fun during the holidays so they enjoy coming to work and be more productive.

Acknowledge Accomplishments

Thank your employees for all the hard work that they have done over the year. By making them feel appreciated and worthy of recognition, they will be more likely to forget about all the stress that comes with the holiday season and stay focused on their jobs.

Plan & Organize

The end of the year is also a good time to organize and plan for the New Year. Schedule a meeting with your team and share ideas on how to best organize the office, get rid of clutter and brainstorm on new processes to increase productivity in the New Year. This will generate new ideas, encourage teamwork and give you a great head start.

Stay focused and have a great holiday season!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 15, 2006 at 7:02 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

A tip of the hat to Jason Davis of Recruiting.com for helping to resurrect the blogswap. I've been working with Jason over the past couple of months to resurrect the blogswap and am pleased to announce that it is now live at http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com/blogswap. Unlike the previous version, this new one allows participants to:

• Just author articles if they only want to write to get more exposure on other sites;
• Just publish articles if they only want more content for their blogs; or
• Both.

The blogswap is a fantastic way of enhancing your exposure. Each time you author an article, your full byline is included so you'll get visitors clicking through from the article and search engines such as Google will pick up on the links to your site and your site will receive better search engine rankings for terms related to the articles that you're posting. For publishers, the additional content makes their sites more content rich, which increases the likelihood that a visitor will find your site through a keyword search on a search engine. In addition, search engines rank sites with more content higher than sites with less content, so the more content you have the better.

Convinced? I thought so. Go to http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com/blogswap and sign up today!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 14, 2006 at 8:18 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Warning to the college Class of 2007: If you’ve got a profile on a social networking site such as MySpace or Facebook, be prepared for potential employers to view it, according to a new study conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

More than one in 10 employers (11.1 percent) responding to NACE’s recent Job Outlook 2007 Fall Preview survey reported plans to review profiles on social networking when considering candidates for jobs.

Moreover, profile information may have at least some effect on an employer’s hiring decisions: More than 60 percent of employers who review social networking sites said the information gleaned there has at least some influence on their hiring decisions.

“These results confirm that students need to be thoughtful about the information they post on social networking sites,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. “Although nearly half of respondents said they don’t intend to look at information posted on social networking sites, more than 10 percent do, and more than 40 percent are undecided about whether or not to use this practice.”

The Job Outlook 2007 Fall Preview study also found that employers expect to increase the number of new college graduates they hire in 2006-07 by more than 17 percent. (See “College Hiring Expected to Increase 17.4 Percent” .)

“The good news for the upcoming graduating class is that the job market looks good,” says Mackes. “However, that’s no guarantee that finding a job will be easy. Students need to put their best foot forward with potential employers; that includes making sure that any online information they have made public casts them in a positive light.”

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 14, 2006 at 7:51 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

We recently surveyed more than 2,200 business professional members across our network of 15,000 niche career sites. We asked them “When you are on vacation, do you check-in with your office?” The purpose of this survey was to gather and share valuable information about the habits and interests of those who are using CollegeRecruiter.com and the rest of the sites in our network to search for internships, entry level job opportunities and other career information.

The results were:

• 77 percent of respondents check-in with the office while on vacation. Of those, 40 percent check both voicemail and email messages, 16 percent only check email, and 20 percent only voicemail.
• 22 percent do not check-in with the office while on vacation.

As the use of portable devices continues to grow and Internet access is more readily available, it is apparent that professionals feel the need to stay connected to the office, which may signify a struggle to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 14, 2006 at 7:44 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

College students take note: For many new college graduates, the road to a job is through an internship.

A study conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found that employers extended job offers to more than 70 percent of their interns. Employers responding to NACE’s 2006 Experiential Education Survey also indicated that nearly three-quarters of their job offers to interns were accepted. Overall, they reported converting 53 percent of their interns into full-time hires.

Not surprisingly, employers say that internship programs are among the most effective methods for helping them hire new college graduates, says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.

“The internship gives both the employer and the student the opportunity to ‘try each other on for size’,” says Mackes. “Both have the opportunity to see if there is a good fit between the organization and the potential employee.”

Internship experience also can make the student more attractive to employers at large, even if the student hasn’t performed the internship with the hiring organization. Employers responding to the survey reported that 62.5 percent of their new college hires from the Class of 2005 came to them with internship experience but only 30 percent were from the organization’s own internship program.

“Internship experience gives the college student an advantage in the job market because employers prize relevant work experience,” says Mackes.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 13, 2006 at 7:49 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

We recently surveyed more than 4,400 business professional members across our network of 15,000 niche career sites. We asked them “How long is/was your commute to work for your most recent job?” The purpose of this survey was to gather and share valuable information about the habits and interests of those who are using CollegeRecruiter.com and the rest of the sites in our network to search for internships, entry level job opportunities and other career information. The results were:

• 73 percent said they work less than 25 miles from home;
• 45 percent said that they commute less than 15 miles;
• 27 percent commute 15 to 25 miles;
• 17 percent commute 25 to 40 miles; and
• 10 percent commute more than 40 miles to work.

It appears that more and more candidates are choosing to work close to home in order to help maintain a healthier work-life balance.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 13, 2006 at 7:30 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

During the fourth quarter of 2005, the category with the most job postings across our network of 15,000 niche career sites was Information Technology. In the first and second quarters of 2006, Sales & Sales Management took over. During the third quarter, the leading category was Healthcare & Medical with 15.39 of the job postings across the entire network.

The switch from Sales & Sales Management to Healthcare & Medical was due to a significant decrease in sales postings at the same time as there was a significant increase in healthcare postings. Sales & Sales Management showed a decrease of 3.89 percent while Healthcare & Medical grew during the third quarter by 5.18 percent, which strongly contributed to its one year growth rate of 4.50 percent.

In addition to Healthcare & Medical leading the way in job postings, it has also taken over in the number of on-line resume postings, Healthcare & Medical surpassed Clerical & Administrative to secure the top spot with 15.29 of all resume posted to our network. Clerical & Administrative dropped to the number two spot for the first time in four consecutive quarters with 13.35 percent.

Geographically, the top metro area for resume postings was New York City. Over the past 12 months, the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island metropolitan region saw 17.12 of the resume postings across the network.

Some other interesting tidbits:

• 45 of resume postings are from candidates who identify themselves as being a member of a minority group.
  
• Executive candidates are also more heavily concentrated in the Western Region, with the Northeastern Region consisting of the fewest executives.
  
• Over 50 percent of healthcare candidates have a four year college degree or higher.
  
• The city with the most healthcare job postings is Phoenix, Arizona.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 13, 2006 at 7:15 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I knew that the economy in Japan has been through some rough spots, but I didn't realize that it was this bad.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 11, 2006 at 11:01 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm in New York for the wonderful Kennedy Information 2006 Conference and Expo. As much as I enjoyed the show last spring in Las Vegas, this is even better. Attendance was good in Vegas but seems to be higher here. There are definitely more exhibitors and there is a fantastic "Blogger's Corner" networking area sponsored by Recruiting.com. The level of conversation in that area was incredibly high with people like Amitai and Julian exchanging information with each other constantly and respectfully disagreeing with each other constantly.

But without a doubt, the most interesting conversation that I had all day was with Dave Mendoza, who greatly increased my level of understanding of the physical traits between those of Finnish and Swedish descent. I couldn't help but think of the Star Trek episode from the original series when Kirk and the gang descend to yet another planet, again violate the Prime Directive every few minutes, and are puzzled by a raging civil war between two people who are seemingly identical. Near the end of the episode, it is pointed out to the crew of the Enterprise that one of the warring groups is black on the left and white on the right while the other group white on the left and black on the right. Episodes like that were powerful advocates for racial harmony on our own planet and, more specifically, in the U.S. during our 1960's era civil rights war. While we need to continue to wage that war, we also need to applaud the efforts of Kennedy Information for hosting such a great event.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 9, 2006 at 6:05 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Kennedy Information brings its highly acclaimed recruiting conferences to New York City starting tomorrow. I'll be there and look forward to re-connecting with many friends and business partners hopefully making some new ones. I speak on Thu 11/9/06 at 10:30am about how employers can and should use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to both exclude and include candidates in the hiring process.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 7, 2006 at 10:01 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Each year, Fortune.com asks MBA candidates where they'd like most to work. As might be expected from MBAs, the list largely tracks the firms that offer the best compensation packages to these highly sought after candidates, but not always. This year's top 10 are:

1. McKinsey & Co.
2. Google
3. Goldman Sachs
4. Bain & Co.
5. The Boston Consulting Group
6. Citigroup
7. Apple Computer
8. General Electric
9. Johnson & Johnson
10. Morgan Stanley

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 6, 2006 at 3:42 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

A lot has been written over the past few days about the problems facing Monster.com and its various properties. These problems include:

• Monster's apparent distaste for freedom of speech;
  
• Having a CEO who resigns purportedly because he doesn't have time to deal with allegations of potentially illegal stock option purchases and then resigns from the Board when it becomes apparent that the illegalities may have been his;
  
• Monster's falling stock price; and
  
• Monster's tanking traffic.

Did someone say ouch?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 3, 2006 at 5:08 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

Jason Bentley, a member of Gen Y, created a video recently to help him get some of his job hunting frustrations off of his chest. Watch as he pokes fun a some of the big job boards, interns screening resumes, resume formats, emailed responses from human resources, benefits (or the lack thereof), and more.

The story has a happy ending. Shortly after shooting the video, Jason was hired. Awesome!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 3, 2006 at 11:00 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Scott Langmack, a veteran of PepsiCo and Microsoft, was interviewing for a position as a Chief Marketing Officer when the CEO of a top Silicon Valley e-commerce firm started to complain. Those complaints about the CEO's struggle to find great new talent led Scott to turn down the CEO's job offer and instead start his own social networking site.

Blue Chip Experts, based in San Mateo, California, is designed to help CEO's and other hiring managers better connect with top-level job seekers. The twist? Admirers of those job seekers earn cold, hard cash for helping make those connections.

Langmack's firm will pay thousands of dollars to any user who connects a user of Blue Chip Expert with an employer. Blue Chip Expert is focusing on some of the 12 million or so contract workers in the United States. Specifically, Blue Chip Expert wants to focus on the segment of those free agents who are the top-level software engineers, creative directors, and other such consultants. Why? Because these people rarely post their resumes on job boards so they're very difficult for employers and headhunters to find.

How does it work? First, you you create a Blue Chip profile that outlines your skills. Second, you invite friends to register at the site. If one of those friends gets hired through the site, you get a cut of what their project fee is. If your friend receives a $200,000 project, your cut is $4,000. Not bad, but it gets better. Let's say that your friend isn't hired but someone that she invited is and that second friend receives the $200,000 project. Then the friend that you invited gets $2,000 and so do you. Did someone say multi-level marketing?

Critical to the success of this new venture will be the ability of employers to find the right talent. That depends on a quality search engine and lots of quality, registered talent. Blue Chip's search engine allows employers to search by former employers or schools and even ranks them according to perceived quality.

The quantity of profiles issue may largely depend on headhunters referring candidates to the site in return for potentially significant royalties generated when the site matches up those candidates with projects. To headhunters, this sharing of revenues is common and often referred to as a split, where one headhunter finds the candidate and another finds the employer. If the headhunters work together, they split the resulting contingency hiring fee. "We get 50 resumes a day, most of which we can't use," says J.W. Ferneborg, a headhunter who helps Langmack. "It's going to be golden to refer them." One positive sign is that the Association of Executive Search Consultants, which is an association for headhunters, has recommended the site to its members.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 3, 2006 at 6:59 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

More news that Republicans didn''t want to see heading into next Tuesday's mid-term elections. The U.S. Department of Labor just reported that the number of unemployment claims jumped by 18,000 last week, a number that exceeded the expectations of most analysts. To put that number into context, the total number of U.S. workers who last week applied for jobless benefits was 327,000, the highest since the week of July 8th when they were 334,000.

Wall Street forecasted claims of 310,000, which would have meant an increase in jobless claims of a mere 1,000 workers. We all know that more than anything else, Wall Street hates surprises. So don't be surprised to see some volatility in the stock market today.

The Labor Department report also included some more bad news along with some good news. The additional bad news was that the four-week moving average, which is more representative gauge of underlying employment trends, jumped from 305,500 the previous week to 311,250 this week.

On a positive note, the number of workers who were drawing jobless benefits but no longer are declined by 27,000 to 2.4 million in the week ending Saturday, October 21st, which was the most recent week for which data was available. This was the lowest level of continued claims since the week of June 17th and was on target with Wall Street's forecast.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 2, 2006 at 10:07 AM | Leave a Comment (0)