The graduating college seniors of 2007 face one of the best job markets in history and certainly the best since 2000. Employers and students both talk about greatly increased efforts by employers to land the candidates they most desire and the multiple job offers being received by many and perhaps most of the grads. Yet few employers are complaining like they did in 1999 and into 2000 that they are unable to hire the people they need to hire. They are complaining that it is difficult to hire those people, but generally they are able to hire them with the proper effort. And part of that effort is paying a salary which is competitive.

According to a recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), 90 percent of college career service offices believe that the class of 2006-07 is graduating into a strong job market with 11 percent rating the market as being "excellent." In comparison, only three percent rated the market as being excellent in last year's survey. In addition, two-thirds of the schools reported that more employers recruited on their campuses, 82 percent reported increases in on-line job postings and the number of employers attending career / job fairs, and 87 percent reported that at least as many employers signed up for spring 2007 recruiting than did last year.

All of these healthy reports translate into higher salaries being paid to the class of 2006-07 with a whopping 26 out of 29 majors seeing increases:

• Marketing graduates were the big winners with an average 10.3 percent increase to $41,285.
  
• Business administration / management graduates saw a 7.5 percent increase to $44,048. The comsulting firms hiring these students paid even more: $51,050 on average.
  
• Economics (business / managerial) and finance grads were the most highly paid among the business disciplines with average offers at $53,449 and $47,877, respectively.
  
• Management information systems (MIS) / business data processing grads saw a 4.9 percent increase to $46,966.
  
• Computer science graduates made 2.5 percent more to $52,177.
  
• Engineers saw increases with chemical up 5.6 percent to $59,707, civil up 4.8 percent to $47,750, computer up 3.2 percent to $55,946, electrical up 1.6 percent to $54,915, and mechanical up 5.7 percent to $54,695.
  
• Accounting grads saw salaries up 2.7 percent to $47,421. That relatively small increase may be an indicator that the sector is cooling somewhat after years of phenomenal growth driven in large part by the Sarbanes-Oxley securities regulations and the additional reporting requirements that came about as a result.
  
• Liberal arts grads saw salary offers up an average of 1.2 percent to $31,333.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 31, 2007 at 7:38 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

When searching for candidate resumes on CollegeRecruiter.com, you will notice that the search screen includes an option to search by keyword. One of the options under keyword searching is Boolean Searching. Boolean Searching can be very useful in specifying what information you want. Boolean Searching consists of 3 functions: and, or, and and not.

Boolean 'AND'

When using the and function, it requires all terms joined by it to appear somewhere in the document, in any order. Using and narrows a search because it augments the number of matching words required for a document to meet the search criteria. The more words you enter connected by and, the fewer search results you will receive.

Boolean 'OR'

When using the or function, it requires at least one of the terms joined by it to appear somewhere in the search results, in any order. Using or broadens a search because it makes it easier for results to meet the criteria of the search.

Boolean 'AND NOT'

Using the and not operator will exclude search results from containing whatever follows it. It limits a search because it disqualifies results no matter whether they meet the other criteria of the search or not.

Parentheses can also be used when grouping terms; however it must be used to group terms joined by or when there is any other function in the search. Parentheses require the terms and operations that occur inside them to be searched first.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 31, 2007 at 6:58 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

We are pleased to announce that we have recently developed and deployed new features within the Recruiting Desktop. You will notice that we have added a "Refresh" button and link to "Refresh All Jobs" within the My Job Postings area of the Recruiting Desktop. These new options allow you to either refresh an individual job OR refresh all jobs in order to allow these jobs to be sorted towards the top in date sorted search results. The more often you refresh your jobs, the more exposure you'll get with the candidates you are trying to reach so the more resumes you'll receive from them.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 30, 2007 at 4:55 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'll be a guest on tomorrow's Minnesota Public Radio "Midmorning" show at 9:06am CT. The show runs for almost an hour. During that time, we'll discuss the improving job market for recent college graduates. I'll be sharing the microphone with Lindsey Pollack, author of "Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World."

Want to listen in but outside of the range of MPR? No problem. Go to http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/nis/streams.shtml.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 29, 2007 at 5:23 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

One of my favorite people in the recruiting blogosphere is Jim Durbin. He posted a blog entry today about the tremendous growth he and his wife/business partner Nikki have seen with their firm, Durbin Media Group. They're looking for dependable, creative, and fabulous Web 2.0 people to work with them, initially as project based, but eventually as full-fledged contractors or employees. The Durbins will be heavily involved with the work, and can either bring the Web 2.0 professionals projects to work on independently, or farm out web work as it comes in.

Does this sound like you? If so, email Jim and Nikki a list of your skills (don't bother with a resume), some url's of projects you've worked on, and what you're looking for in an hourly corp-to-corp or 1099 rate.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 25, 2007 at 12:06 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

The Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. is a holiday that is welcomed by most as it is the unofficial start of summer and all the joy that comes with that most glorious of seasons. So enjoy the weekend, laze around in your hammock, grill some burgers, but also take some time to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be free and enjoy the lifestyles that we do.

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD, Canadian Army (1872-1918)

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 25, 2007 at 9:47 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of my favorite career authors is David Perry. He recently teamed up with Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the Guerrilla Marketing series (14 million book buyers can't be wrong) to write Guerrilla Marketing for Job Seekers: 400 Unconventional Tips, Tricks, and Tactics for Landing Your Dream Job.

What makes Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters so great? It uses the unconventional guerrilla marketing approach while also covering topics such as how to:

• Use the Internet to research employers and search for jobs but also how to use it create your own Web site, blogs, and podcasts;
  
• Make over your resume to create a higher-powered value-based resume;
  
• Harness the full power of Google and business networking sites such as LinkedIn and ZoomInfo to find great opportunities in the hidden job market; and
  
• Brand yourself and sell your strengths in the resumes, letters, e-mails, etc. that you send to employers and in the interviews you have with them.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 24, 2007 at 8:31 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Think that your office is welcoming to Gen Y so that it helps your firm both recruit and retain this highly sought after generation of employees? Think again.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 24, 2007 at 7:25 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

This is one of the best times of the year. Late May. Clearly everyone in the civilized world is thinking hockey and specifically NHL hockey. For those who have been following the NHL playoffs, and I know that everyone has, the Stanley Cup finals are about to begin. Facing off in a best of seven games series are the Ottawa Senators and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.

The Senators have never been this far in the playoffs despite having one of the best teams in the world this decade. This is the second trip to the finals for the Ducks. The last time was four years ago.

So who is going to come out on top? Probably whichever team gets better goaltending. As with pitching in baseball and quarterbacking in football, goaltending in hockey is crucial. But which team will get the better goaltending? J.S. Giguere of the Ducks is incredibly solid and makes what should be very difficult saves look very easy because he is almost always in position, he's got great speed, and he's huge. Have a look at his highlights and you'll see what I mean:

But as much as I like Giguere, my money is on Ray Emery of the Ottawa Senators. I have to admit that I'm biased. I grew up in Canada so I'd love to see the Canadian team win. The last time that happened was when Montreal won in 1993 and because they're in Quebec it is questionable whether you can even count that as a win for Canada. If we regard Montreal as being in New France rather than Canada, then we have to go back 19 years to the Edmonton Oilers in 1988. That was the year when the Oilers won with Mark Messier as captain and Wayne Gretzky was wearing a Los Angeles Kings jersey.

But I also love Emery because he loves to fight. That's right. A goalie who loves to fight. And he fights well. Have a look:

So, Senators in six? Bets anyone?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 23, 2007 at 4:04 PM | Leave a Comment (5)

1. New York/New Jersey
2. Washington, D.C.
3. Silicon Valley
4. Los Angeles
5. Chicago
6. Boston
7. Philadelphia
8. Dallas
9. Atlanta
10. Seattle

Source: Dice

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 23, 2007 at 3:53 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I had the pleasure of having dinner a couple of weeks ago with our primary contacts from Valpak, which pioneered local cooperative direct mail in 1968. Today, they have approximately 200 franchisees in North America and print and mail 19.4 billion coupons a year to nearly 46 million homes each month. They hire hundreds of entry level sales representatives a year.

They were justifiably very proud to have been included in the new book by Ron Lieber and Tom Meltzer for The Princeton Review, Best Entry Level Jobs: Paying Your Dues Without Losing Your Mind. This book profiles more than 100 premier for-profit and non-profit organizations and provides crucial information and statistics about the entry level jobs offered by each organization, including starting salaries, number of entry level positions, and average hours worked per week. The book then goes further by including quotes from hundreds of Millenials and other young professionals about what they like and dislike about their jobs, including the hiring procedures, day-to-day life, money and perks, benefits, and chances for promotion.

If you're looking for a great entry level job with a great organization, pick up a copy of this book today. Learn from the experts and your peers.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 23, 2007 at 9:28 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Penelope Trunk is one of this generation's greatest career writers. In addition to her regular work as a career columnist for the Boston Globe and Yahoo Finance, she's the author of a great new book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success.

One of things that I like so much about Penelope is that she has a varied background, which is pretty unlike many so-called experts who have never walked-the-walk yet feel entitled to talk-the-talk. Penelope has been employed as a software executive and also experienced the world of entrepreneurship as the founder of two companies. She's been through an IPO, acquisition, and bankruptcy. Did I mention that she also played professional beach volleyball?

Penelope's book acknowledges and embraces the reality of career paths faced by most Millenials. It is an upward climb full of detours and more than a few stumbles along the way. She weaves in advice that she's gleaned from her personal experiences, observations and research and makes use of statistics to sell her points. The takeaway: the careers of today's college graduates will be remarkably different from the careers of their parents. This book should be required reading for all college students searching for internships, recent graduates looking for entry level jobs, recruiters, and hiring managers.

If you've got thin skin and don't like people criticizing your decisions, stay away. But if you want to learn and improve your ability to manage your career path and help others with theirs, embrace this book.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 22, 2007 at 7:58 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

1. Make meaning. This is the reason that a start-up should start. Don't start a business to make money. Start a business to make the world a better place.
2. Make mantra early in the life of the business. Mission statements are too long and don't get to the core essense of companies. Mantras are two to three words that describe a business. For Wendy's, "healthy, fast food." For FedEx, "peace of mind." For Nike, "authentic athletic performance." For Target, "democratiize design." For CollegeRecruiter.com, "college career connector."
3. Get going. Don't over analyze and spend all of your time writing business plans. Think differently. Embrace polarizations. Think of Apple's Mac computers. They don't try to be everything to everyone and, as a result, some people love them so they've been able to carve out a highly profitable niche even though others hate them. Find one or two partners who are soulmates to help balance things off.
4. Define a business model. Be specific. Always think about who your customer is and have the attitude that you're just trying to figure out how to get your money out of the wallet of your customer. Keep your business model simple. Your products should be innovative, not your business model. Make sure that you ask women to review your business model because their natural inclination is to succeed rather than kill the competition. Killing the competition is not the goal. Succeeding is the goal.
5. Weave a MAT (Milestones, Assumptions, and Tasks). Milestones are like when you start shipping your products, not ordering business cards. Assumptions are things like the number of sales calls you can make in an average day and how much you'll sell to an average customer. Tasks are things that enable you to accomplish a milestone or test an assumption. An example of a task is ordering business cards.
6. Focus on the ability of the organization to provide a unique product or service. Organizations which offer great value but have a lot of competition tend to compete on price. Organizations which offer great value but have little competition tend to sell their products at premium prices. The Dot Bombs offered little value to their customers and had a lot of competition. Your goal is to offer a product which is highly valued by your customers and only you can produce the product.
7. Follow the 10/20/30 rule for how to make PowerPoint pitches. You should have a maximum of 10 slides: title, problem, solution, business model, underlying magic, marketing and sales, competition, team, projections, status, and timeline. Be prepared to deliver the presention in 20 minutes, even if you're allotted 60 minutes as that will allow time for questions and discussion. Use 30 point font as that will force you to minimize the number of words in a slide so you'll spend more time discussing and less time reading.
8. Hire infected people. Human resources tends to want to hire people with perfect backgrounds. What you really want are people who love what you do. Do they get what you do? Are they better qualified to do what they'll be doing than you are? Apply the shopping center test: if you were to spot them across a hall at a shopping center before they see you, do not hire them unless they're the type of person that you'd go out of your way to greet.
9. Lower the barriers to adoption of your products. Flatten the learning curve by making your products plug-and-play. Don't ask your customers to do something that you wouldn't do, such as pay $0.50 to do your wash when you're staying at a Hyatt. Would the owners of the hotel be willing to pay $0.50 to do their wash when they're paying $400 a night to stay at the hotel? Of course not, so why should they expect you to do so? Embrace your evangelists, who are those who think that your product makes the world a better place. These are not people who you pay but may be your customers or other admirers.
10. Seed the clouds in order to increase future sales. There is an ancient adage that says you need to let a hundred flowers blossom in order to get one great flower. You may not know which customer is going to be right for your new product and that's fine. If the product is being used in ways that you did not anticipate, that's great and don't "fix" it in order to change the product so that it fits the need of the customers that you first anticipated selling it to. Instead, figure out why the unexpected customer is buying and then sell to them. Good sales fixes a lot of business problems, so don't be concerned if your sales come from unexpected places.
11. Bonus tip: don't let the bozos grind you down. So called friends and experts will tell you that your new venture has no merit or that you should take the safe road by staying an employee. Let them travel the safe path -- it often heads no where. Stick to the path less traveled if you want to live your dreams.

Source: Guy Kawasaki

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 21, 2007 at 7:35 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Perhaps I'm out to lunch on this, but I've always thought of Web 2.0 as being more than just user generated content. As one of the owners of CollegeRecruiter.com, I think that I have a pretty good handle on different types of user generated content and I draw a big distinction between user generated content which is just data and user generated content which is information.

To me, user generated content which is just data includes job postings and resumes. There's little to nothing there that's truly informative. User generated content which is information includes articles, blog entries, podcasts, and videos. Just about everything there is informative.

So, am I out to lunch? Does your definition of Web 2.0 include job postings and resumes?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 19, 2007 at 9:02 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

The number of college admissions offices which are using blogs to recruit students has been exploding over the past couple of years. Some schools have paid staff members write about the school, the city in which it is located, the degrees it offers, the employers who recruit on-campus, etc. Other schools have currently enrolled students writing as they feel (and I agree) that a high school student is far more likely to listen to the opinions of someone who is currently a college sophomore than someone who was a college sophomore when Al Gore was busy inventing the Internet.

Cheap shot aside, if bureaucratic, conservative institutions which move at a pace which can only be described as glacial are now blogging, why aren't more employers? Virtually all employment-related blogging is coming out of the offices of job boards and third party recruiters. With very few exceptions, virtually no corporate recruiters are blogging. That's a real shame as those same corporations are crying the blues about how hard it is to recruit the best Gen Y workers yet their recruitment and retention policies are decades old and reflect the needs and wants of their Baby Boomer and Gen X managers rather than the Gen Y'ers they want to recruit.

Wake up, folks. If you want to recruit a group of people, you need to speak to their needs and wants and that might mean getting out of your comfort zone and taking some chances.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 18, 2007 at 9:08 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

It appears that the virtual job fair hosted by ad agency TMP in the virtual on-line world of Second Life has been a real success. Some clients of CollegeRecruiter.com participated in the career fair, although our participation was rather limited. We were not involved in the career fair at all other than through delivering a targeted email on behalf of Sodexho to help drive college students and recent graduates to their virtual recruiter a/k/a In-World Recruiter. The career fair was held on TMP's virtual island.

Although the career fair doesn't end until later today, a representative from TMP told me that they've already seen success in potential hires for not only Sodexho but all of the participating companies. "By tailoring media plans for each specific client, [TMP was] able to attract the right kinds of candidates and match them to each company's areas of need." The representative from TMP added that "the feedback from users has been fantastic - whether hitting it off with an In-World recruiter or the ease of navigating through TMP Island with so much information at your fingertips."

Want to learn more? Tune in today at 1:06pm Eastern to The Kojo Nnamdi Show on the Washington, D.C. public radio station WAMU 88.5 FM. Mr. Nnamdi will discuss the Second Life virtual career fair with:

• Hanah Cho, Reporter, The Baltimore Sun;
  
• Arie Ball, Vice President of Sourcing and Talent Acquisition, Sodexho;
  
• Brenda Farrey, Virtual job fair interviewee;
  
• Stephan Dowler, Chef and virtual interviewee; and
  
• Yours truly.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 17, 2007 at 9:35 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I had the extreme pleasure of sitting down with Peter Clayton of Total Picture Radio last week while at the Kennedy Information recruiting conference in Las Vegas. Peter and I discussed a wide variety of recruiting-related social networking topics including MySpace (4,300% traffic increase in two years, most visited networking site with an 80% share, third most visited U.S. Internet site, over 31.5 billion page views per month, and an average user age of 35). We also talked about topics such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Second Life.

Want to listen in? Go to http://www.totalpicture.com/content/view/470/154/.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 16, 2007 at 1:48 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Recruitment advertising agency TMP is hosting the first ever virtual career fair in the Second Life virtual world. According to the Baltimore Sun, the experiment begins today and runs through Thursday and participating employers include eBay Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Microsoft Corp., Sodexho, T-Mobile and Verizon Communications Inc.

In the article, one of the registered candidates discusses how he has prepared for the virtual interview and how he plans to interact with the recruiters representing the employers. One of his tips is that it is important to wear clothing. Apparently, some people neglect to put clothing on their virtual selves (avatars). I suppose that may go over well in some of their more risque areas of Second Life, but probably wouldn't be the type of behavior to win you many friends amongst the employers at this virtual career fair.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 15, 2007 at 11:20 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

A tip of the hat to search engine optimization expert Joel Cheesman for bringing this video about video resumes to my attention. According to the very tongue in cheek Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, the best practices for video resumes are:

1. Keep it short.
   
2. Do not nap while you're filming your video resume as that makes you look lazy.
   
3. Do not cry on camera unless you're seeking a position that requires crying. If you are, then cry it out.
   
4. Work at a TV show because their production people can help you make a really cool video resume.
   

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 15, 2007 at 11:12 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

When it comes to motivating a hiring manager or internal recruiter to move on your submittal, remember the catchy saying….”Time kills all deals”.

One of the most frustrating things to a recruiter is the lag time between finding and submitting a good candidate and getting meaningful feedback through the screening process. Think about it: how often have you taken a request for talent and spent weeks doing the sourcing, pre-screening, preparing and presenting your candidate’s case? Now comes the exciting part, right? Your hiring manger or internal recruiter calls you right away, excited about your candidate and asks when they can come in for an interview. Yeah, right!

The problem is that it rarely goes like that. You usually end up waiting days or weeks for someone to follow up with you, share their excitement and invite the candidate in for an interview. Why is it that a busy HM or IR, that wants to fill their open position as quickly as possibly, takes so long to get back to you on a candidate?

Could it be they are really not as impressed as you? Maybe they disagree that the candidate had a good case? Maybe they are really busy and needs some time to get this task completed? Perhaps the motivation to hire has slipped to the back burner. Or they just need a little push from a professionally aggressive recruiter.

Here are some tips on speeding up the client screening process:

• Verbally present your candidate to the HM or IR
  There’s no substitute for the energy and enthusiasm that a good recruiter can add to the equation. Excitement can be contagious. Spark motivation in an HM/IR to set up an interview with a candidate.

• Follow up within 24 hours of submission
  Call to clarify your position and make your candidate’s case. After all, if you’re not excited about him/her, why should the HM/IR be?

• Make sure to focus on the HM/IR needs, not your own
  If you come across as desperate, selfish or uninformed, the deal will break.

• Stay in constant contact with the candidate during this critical period
  You can use the information you learn about them to expand your case and motivate the HM/IR to move on them.

• Check a reference and use this positive information to get things moving
  This is a powerful way to bring credible case material into the equation and can motivate the HM/IR to move on your candidate.

• Keep the HM/IR updated of any changes in status of the candidate
  If the candidate is progressing on another position, or on another company opportunity, let your HM/IR know the fuse is getting shorter.

• Go for the “No”
  This is a very effective technique to get a decision made. If you have tried all of the above and the HM/IR is still not moving on your candidate, you might try to “take away” the candidate by withdrawing them from the process. If the HM/IR tries to stop you, then they are truly interested. If they do not try to stop you, then perhaps they were not interested enough in the first place to move on the candidate. Either way, you will arrive at a final decision.

• Time kills all deals
  Good recruiters know this line and live it every day. If the candidates are not moving through the screening process in a timely manner, chances increase the deal will fall apart.
  

The next time you submit a candidate for which you have made a good case, use these tips and watch the screening process time speed up!

-- Scott Beardsley is the co-founder and vice president recruitment services http://www.q4b.com/RecruitmentRedefinedBlog/

This article is courtesy of Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 14, 2007 at 6:00 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Job postings are to job boards a little like your younger sister: you love her and you know that she's part of your family, but they can sometimes be annoying even though you know that you need them. Of all of the products that job boards sell to employers, most job boards rely most heavily on the sale of job postings to drive revenues. I think that this is lunacy because they're the product of which is sold most often by most job boards. In other words, job postings are commodity products and commodity products tend to have small margins due to pricing pressure exerted by consumers who know that they can purchase a very similar and perhaps identical product from a competitor so aren't going to be willing to pay anyone a premium for that product.

Rather than focusing on the sale of job postings, we focus on the sale of products that we believe provide much greater value to those of our clients which have much greater hiring needs. These products include targeted emails, cell phone text messaging (SMS), and direct mail. We still sell job postings and probably will for years to come and I believe that they provide excellent value to our clients, but I also believe that we cannot properly serve the needs of our clients by focusing on job postings. They are the lowest of the low hanging fruit, but successful orchards do not just pick from the bottom of the tree. They also reach skyward to pick the most flavorful and difficult to capture fruit from the top of the tree because they cannot satisfy all of the needs of all of their clients by ignoring the high hanging fruit.

Another benefit to targeted emails, direct mail, and cell phone text messaging (SMS) is that the products tend to be much friendlier to the student who is hunting for an internship or a recent graduate who is searching for an entry level job. Think about it from the perspective of the hopeful intern. Rather than wading through dozens and perhaps hundreds of job postings and contacting many and perhaps most of those organizations, products like targeted emails allow employers to zero in just in the candidates who are most likely be interested in being hired for the internship. And rather than the employer being forced to look at 200 intern resumes to find 25 which are qualified to find five to interview to find one to hire, they can instead accelerate right to the 25 which are qualified because the candidates do not self-select: the employer's email is only delivered to those who already meet the basic qualifications. Less noise for the hopeful intern and less noise for the employer.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 11, 2007 at 2:00 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm at the Kennedy Information conference in Las Vegas. As usual, they've done a great job with lining up a perfect facility, great and varied speakers, solid exhibitors, and a large number of primarily corporate recruiters who seem to be very happy with the value that they're receiving.

I spoke yesterday about how employers can and should use social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and the Second Life virtual world. When I put up the slide showing how much larger MySpace's traffic is than even that of Careerbuilder and Monster and how the traffic to the social networking sites is growing fast while the traffic to Careerbuilder and Monster are sliding, you could see light bulbs going on. Recruiters who couldn't figure out why they should care about social networking sites suddenly understood. They can't recruit people who don't know they exist and if the recruiters rely exclusively on job boards such as Careerbuilder and Monster they're only able to demonstrate their existence to a small portion of job seekers and an ever smaller portion of job seekers. Employers who want to not only survive but thrive in this ever changing world must embrace social networking.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 10, 2007 at 2:03 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm leaving early tomorrow for the Kennedy Information Recruiting 2007 Conference and Expo in Las Vegas. I speak tomorrow afternoon about how employers can and should use social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Second Life virtual career fairs, etc. Note that there is a big difference between "can" and "should" and hopefully the attendees will understand and agree with that by the end of the presentation.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 8, 2007 at 1:13 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Just when you thought that employers and their recruitment advertising agencies couldn't get more creative in figuring out new venues for connecting with their most highly sought after candidates, along comes Sodexho and their agency, TMP. From May 15th through 17th, Sodexho will host a virtual career fair in the wildly popular virtual world Second Life.

Second Life, often referred to by its users simply as SL, is an Internet-based virtual world which entered the mainstream in late 2006. Developed by Linden Lab, a downloadable program enables its users, called "Residents," to interact with each other through on-screen characters known as avatars. The SL world provides an advanced level of a social network service as Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another.

Second Life is not a game even though it is sometimes referred to as such. It does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels, an end-strategy, etc. As of today, more than six million accounts have been registered although many are not active and and some Residents have multiple accounts. Competitors include Active Worlds, There, Entropia Universe, Dotsoul Cyberpark, Red Light Center, and Kaneva

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 4, 2007 at 4:58 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

The Timmins (Ontario) Daily Press ran an editorial yesterday on eighth graders being disciplined by their schools for defaming their teacher. Seems that the students posted some defamatory statements about the teacher to Facebook and then issues a half hearted apology when told that they would not be allowed to accompany their class on a trip to Montreal. What does that have to do with college students hunting for internships and recent graduates looking for entry level jobs and other career opportunities? Nothing and everything.

Losing a trip to Montreal as punishment for defaming a teacher has little to do with job hunting, but the posting of defamatory information to Facebook or any other questionable content to MySpace, Facebook, or any other Internet site has everything to do with job hunting. Just as the school found the content posted by the students, so can employers find content posted by job applicants. As the newspaper wisely counseled,

For future Facebook users, pretend the site is like your grandmother - only post what you normally share with her. As grandma always says, keep your words (and thoughts) soft and sweet - you never know when you might have to eat them.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 3, 2007 at 1:23 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

It was a real honor to be asked by Ami Givertz of RCI Recruitment Solutions to be a member of their new RCI Center of Excellence, which was created with the express goal of raising the strategic importance of the staffing function to its rightful place in the corporate hierarchy. Other members so far are Mike Moore of RCI, Brett Hettrick of RCI, Frank Speer of RCI, Scott Biggerstaff of RCI, Shally Steckerl of JobMachine, and Eric Jackson of Jackson Leadership Systems.

If you are a player in your organization’s recruitment efforts or part of the leadership team, you have the potential to change course for the better. But in order to have the greatest positive impact, you’ll need to stay abreast of the latest best practices and technologies. To help you achieve this, the RCI Center of Excellence creates hard-hitting educational seminars and online training events and provides professional coaching and consulting services that help you find your own way.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 2, 2007 at 8:20 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I've always been a proponent of more trade between nations because it raises the standard of living for all and forces nations which might have opposing views on some subjects to engage in constructive dialogue. So it was great to see that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the United States benefits on balance from expanded trade, warned against barriers to imports as a response to jobs lost to international competition, and that it does not have a harmful effect on U.S. employment.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 1, 2007 at 8:24 PM | Leave a Comment (0)