Ever spent a few minutes with one of today's college students? If so, you'll know that they're experts at multitasking. Many see nothing wrong with carrying on a conversation with you while at the same texting one or more friends about something completely different. As annoying as that may be to a Gen X'er or Baby Boomer in a social setting, it is even more annoying to those same people in a work setting. While I'm not condoning that type of multitasking, I'm also a realist and I know that it is here to stay so I can either grumble about it or I can get used to it and perhaps even in some ways learn to embrace it.

Thankfully, a lot of the multitasking is occurring during their non-work hours. According to a recent study from William Blair, 93 percent of college students conduct at least one additional activity while also watching television. Overall, 41.6 percent of television time is spent multitasking. So what are the most popular distractions from television watching?

1. Talking on the phone;
2. Instant messaging; and
3. Text messaging.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 31, 2007 at 7:40 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

For many, one of the least enjoyable aspects about post-secondary education and the years immediately following it is finding a new place to live. When I moved to the Twin Cities to attend the University of Minnesota, I moved every year for five successive years. Now all of that moving does have some benefits. Boxes which were not opened two moves in a row somehow found their way to the nearest dumpster. If I didn't need the stuff in two places, I wouldn't need it in the third and I certainly wouldn't want to have to move it the third time.

These moves occurred between 1988 and 1992, so before the Internet became viable for most. Way back in those stone ages, getting information about moving, getting insurance quotes, or trying to find apartments for rent was quite a chore. Now it is easy.

There are sites like National Relocation and the relocation information page on CollegeRecruiter.com that contain plenty of real estate information including area information, home values and forms to fill out to connect agents with buyers and sellers. Many of the sites have sections for rentals where property managers can list their properties. For those students or recent graduates with a bit more capital, many of the sites also have mortgage sections that help you learn about and apply for different types of loans.

So don't despair you movers. There's plenty of great information out there. Now if they could just figure out a way of preventing those frequent movers from moving for the third time stuff that they didn't use at their first home, their second home....

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 30, 2007 at 8:39 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin recently released a study conducted in July 2007 that illustrates that today's college students study hard and multitask just as hard.

Nearly two-thirds reported studying diligently and 59 percent said they used online study tools such as online quizzing, course outlines, video tutorials, tutoring and study groups. "We're finding that students are increasingly using online study tools in tandem with their textbooks," Katie Rose, head of research and marketing for Houghton Mifflin College Division, said in a statement.

Good news? Perhaps for some students. While most students seem to use their computer primarily as an education tool, 44 percent said that the same computer was also their distraction of choice. Not so good.

So it is pretty clear that a computer is a great study tool for virtually all college students yet it can also be a source of distraction for many. While most students seem to use their computer primarily as an education tool, 44 percent said that the same computer was also their distraction of choice. Not so good.

A recent survey by Youth Trends found that full-time students at four-year colleges spent an average of 19.2 hours on-line per week, which was up one hour from the previous year. Today's college students spend more time on-line for entertainment than for academics. Tsk, tsk if you want you Gen X'er or Boomer but just remember that when Gen X'ers went to college, there wasn't an Internet and when Boomers went to college, there weren't personal computers. So be honest with yourself: if there was an Internet when you were in college, you'd have spent more time on-line for entertainment and academics too.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 30, 2007 at 7:34 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Since 2003, the unemployment rate amongst new college graduates has decreased from about three to a little over two percent. Why?

1. The improving economy has forced/encouraged more employers to hire more college students and recent graduates.
   
2. The war has forced/encouraged the military and other areas of the federal government to hire more college students and recent graduates.
   
3. Baby Boomers are starting to retire, forcing/encouraging more employers to hire more college students and recent graduates.
   

Bottom line: it is a great job market for college students and recent graduates.

Source: Recruiting Nevada

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 29, 2007 at 4:08 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I wrote yesterday about how the U.S. Army, one of the top employers of college students and recent graduates, is using a new $20,000 "quick ship" bonus to greatly reduce the amount of time between the day on which someone enlists and when they actually report for basic training.

In the past, the time between enlistment and the start of basic was measured in weeks and often months. Because of the quick ship bonus, 92 percent of enlistees are now reporting within about a week. The effect has been to greatly increase the current number of enlistees entering basic training because those who enlisted in June and were scheduled to start basic training today still will but those who enlisted a week or so ago are also starting today rather than in two or three months as they would have before the bonus was implemented.

As I thought about the bonus and the huge number of resignations that the Bush Administration has seen over the past few months, I began to see a connection. I'm not saying that Alberto Gonzales resigned because he's planning to sign up with the Army and head to basic training in a week. But I am saying that the so-called surge of troops in recent months has put the Army under a significant strain and greatly increased the need for more boots a/k/a soldiers so that those those boots can be put onto the ground a/k/a into Iraq. But what happens after the surge? By definition a surge increases and then decreases. If the strategy is successful, and I pray that it will be, then the number of U.S. troops in Iraq will diminish and perhaps that withdrawal of troops will be sudden and significant, although I don't think anyone actually believes that the withdrawal will be complete for years and perhaps ever. But when the withdrawal begins, the need for troops will be reduced and therefore so will the need for new graduates from basic training and therefore so will the need for new enlistees.

So it seems to me that the $20,000 quick ship bonus is temporary and a pretty sharp strategy by the Pentagon to ensure an adequate number of enlistees entering the system to support the current surge. The fact that the number of enlistees will significantly drop off when the bonus is withdrawn isn't that big of a deal if the timing of that coincides with the withdrawal of a significant number of troops from Iraq. So even if you oppose the war, the surge, or both, the reality is that the quick ship bonus is needed in order to generate enough candidate flow to support the surge.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 28, 2007 at 11:19 AM | Leave a Comment (2)

The U.S. Army, one of the top employers of college grads, created a $20,000 "quick ship" bonus in July to accelerate the process between the date on which an enlistee commits and the date on which they start basic training. That time period used to often be measured in months. The new bonus has reduced the delay to days, an astounding achievement for the Army.

An average soldier coming out of basic training receives $17,400 per year so the $20,000 quick ship bonus more than doubles their first year pay, a significant incentive to those who enlist at least in part because of financial considerations. So where's the problem? Well, the problem isn't today or even tomorrow. The problem is next month and next year. Let me explain.

If a soldier enlists today and does not accept the quick ship bonus, he may not report for basic training for months. For ease of discussion let's assume that he wouldn't report for about three months, which is late November. But if the soldier accepts the quick ship bonus, he may report within a week. What the Army is doing is essentially borrowing from November recruiting numbers in order to meet its August goals. While that may be six of one versus half a dozen of another, the reality is that the Army is undoubtedly shifting its recruiting challenges from August to November.

Meeting their goals today is admirable and I applaud the Army for its creative thinking. Their recruitment advertising and related practices are almost always leading edge and the recruiting challenges that they face are so much more difficult than those of a corporate employer that it is difficult to even draw comparisons between the two groups. Yet there are pros and cons to almost everything and these quick ship bonuses are no exception.

From July 25th, which was the start of the quick ship bonus period, through August 13th, 3,814 of the Army's 4,149 recruits accepted the bonus. That's an acceptance rate of almost 92 percent. How many of those 3,814 would have agreed to start within days if it had not been for the bonus? That's anyone's guess yet surely it would have been a lot fewer than 92 percent. So the Army is much more likely to hit its recruiting numbers for 2007 but its success today is coming at the expense of its recruiting success in 2008.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 27, 2007 at 9:08 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Looking for an even better way to pay for your college education than student loans? The brand new CollegeRecruiter.com Scholarship Finder will help you research, apply to, and win hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships. And best of all, our Scholarship Finder is absolutely free.

Tens of thousands of scholarships worth tens of millions of dollars are available to a wide variety of students because of their fields of study, socioeconomic background, gender, race, geographic location, grades, interests, citizenship, disabilities, religion, standardized test scores, military service, interest and much, much, more. This is your money. You've earned it. And we're here to help you get it.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 24, 2007 at 9:57 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Conventional wisdom in these digital days is that your resume should be written in a standard fashion so that employers can easily add it to their automated applicant tracking systems and then pull it up through a keyword search. But what if you're not a conventional candidate or otherwise want to stand out from the crowd? Some job seekers who fall into those groups are creating resumes with aesthetic features that highlight their creativity, attention to detail, or otherwise are designed to draw the attention of the employer.

Examples of what job seekers are using are:

• Shiny brochures;
• Marketing pamphlets with complete sentences divided into paragraphs;
• Including corporate logos alongside the description of current and past employment experiences;
• Pull-out quotes -- shortbits of text displayed in large type which can be used to highlight top skills; and
• Resumes designed to look like news releases -- especially effective for public relations folks.

Source: Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2007

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 23, 2007 at 9:29 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Mark Liston, director of sales recruiting for CollegeRecruiter.com client Valpak, just joined the recruiting blogosphere. Mark is blogging on the Employee Evolution site.

In 2008 Valpak will hire over 700 Sales Representatives and they continue to expand. Mark has been active in the International Franchise Association and is on their International Certified Franchise Executive Board of Governors as well as on the Board of Trustees for the IFA Educational Foundation. He joined Valpak in 2002 as the Director of New Franchise Development before he took over the Sales Recruiting Department in 2005. Valpak has been listed by the Princeton Review as one of the 2008 editions "Best Entry-Level Jobs". He also is on the DECA/DEX National Advisory Board and works with DEX as well as University Directories with their college programs.

Mark, welcome aboard!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 22, 2007 at 12:00 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I've always believed that the most powerful retention tool that an employer has to offer are its other employees. We stay with our employer far longer if we enjoy those we work with. But to Gen Y, the other employees can also be a powerful recruiting tool. They want to know who they'll be working with because they've been raised to work effectively in teams. If their team members aren't up to snuff, their work product will suffer and they'll be unhappy and looking for a new gig.

Jennie-O Turkey apparently understands these needs of its Gen Y candidates so in addition to using Facebook as a recruitment tool, it is using its Facebook ads to highlight the faces of its interns. When you click on the photo of any of the employees, you're taken to an on-line photo album showing all 15 employees and from there you can click to their Facebook recruiting profile page. That page includes more photos, videos, company information, email links, etc. Nice soft sell.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 21, 2007 at 7:13 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

We launched our second Facebook application late last week and we've already got about 225 installations. But that's not all that interesting. Want interesting? Read on.

Facebook applications allow third parties such as CollegeRecruiter.com to add features to Facebook so that its million of users can customize what they see and use when they go to Facebook. Think of them like computer programs that you download to your computer. Each person works differently so we each have our computers set up differently. Facebook recognized that desire for customization and a couple of months ago they created the applications section.

Our first application was essentially a (yawn!) job search engine. Practical but not exactly exciting. The second has a similar front end but features two improvements, one minor and the other major:

1. The first application requires you to enter the state in which you are looking for a job. The second application assumes that you're searching for a job in your state of residence. Nice improvement, but minor.
   
2. The first application required you to run a job search every time you wanted to check our database to see what is new. The second application automatically posts to your Facebook profile page a list of the 10 or so newest internships and entry level jobs based upon the keywords, job category, and state of residence that you enter. Nice improvement, and major.
   

Nice, huh? But that's not what is so great about this application. What is great is continuously updated job posting list that it posts to your profile page:

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 20, 2007 at 4:54 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Want to see on your Facebook profile page the newest internship and entry level job postings in your area of interest and state? Add our brand new Facebook application and we'll do just that. Essentially, we'll keep an eye out for you for the newest internships and entry level jobs so that you don't even have to come to CollegeRecruiter.com -- you just need to go to Facebook to keep an eye out for jobs that you want to apply to before anyone else.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 17, 2007 at 8:44 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Mike Palmquist, our National Account Executive, and I fly later today to San Diego for the 2007 annual Enterprise Rent-A-Car human resource conference. All 700 or so of their global HR folks come together each year to learn from each other and from a small number of third parties. CollegeRecruiter.com has been blessed to have Enterprise as a client for years and we look forward to working and enhancing our relationship with them for years to come.

This year's conference promises to deliver much of the same as last year's in Atlanta but also some differences. Their hiring metrics last year were staggering: about 220,000 applications from college students and recent graduates turned into 70,000 interviews and 7,000 hires. This year, they're planning to hire 8,000 college students and recent graduates. Amazing.

Different for this year for me will be my personal participation. Although I attended last year's conference and will again this year, I'll have the pleasure this year of also being one of the presenters. I'll be giving most of their roughly 200 recruiters a whirlwind tour of how they can and should to use new media for recruitment purposes. We'll talk about blogs, podcasts, wikis, social networking, virtual worlds, video, and much, much more. Three sessions, each of which will run for about 75 minutes. It promises to be a lot of fun but also exhausting.

If you're in the San Diego airport early tomorrow evening and see a 41 year old exhausted man struggling to keep himself awake so that he can board his flight back to Minneapolis, that will be me.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 15, 2007 at 12:53 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of my favorite recruiting blogosphere characters is Joel Cheesman, the resident human resource search engine optimization expert. I really like Joel, except for the fact that he is apparently a cat person. Oh well. No one can be perfect.

One of Joel's favorite topics is transparency. Today it came back to bite him a bit. And someone else. Joel posted a blog entry about Jobster marketing itself as having 30 million users when it is actually far, far less than that if you count only those people who actually go to the Jobster site. That was fine but what bit him was his speculation that Jobster's inflated count was due to them having an application on Facebook that helps candidates search the Jobster database. We do too. In fact, a number of job boards do. But Jobster's Christian Anderson posted a comment correcting Joel. It seems that Jobster is including in its counts the traffic from its affiliates. Hmmm.

We could combine our traffic with those of our affiliates too, I suppose. We have thousands of affiliates so if we add up all of their traffic and combine it with our traffic then the result is just as meaningless as either what Joel thought Jobster is doing or what Jobster is actually doing. Either way, Jobster is putting lipstick on a pig. Pigs are great, but they're pigs. Jobster is great, but it is Jobster. Its relevant traffic statistic is equal to the number of people who go to Jobster, not the number of people who go to Jobster and to sites which are paid for sending traffic to Jobster.

Transparency is a wonderful thing, all right. But in this case, I'm not sure if it was so wonderful for Joel or Christian. They both came out with lipstick on.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 14, 2007 at 5:53 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

We just added a neat, new feature to CollegeRecruiter.com. We're now able to poll our users to better understand their demographics, their aspirations, their needs, and their wants. We're also able to gather similar intelligence for our clients so employers, for example, can run a quick poll to learn whether students would be more likely to work for them if the employers added a new benefit or modified their recruiting practices.

The polling software is provided to us by Vizu Answers, which bills itself as the Internet's first research network because clients can run polls on multiple sites. Vizu allows organizations to conduct custom market research quickly, easily, and at an affordable price. They emphasize that if you want an answer, the key is asking the right people. Their diverse network of publishers, of which we're one, makes that possible by providing organizations access to their unique audiences.

Vizu Answers allows anyone to conduct affordable do-it-yourself market research by combining an easy-to-use polling platform with a network of diverse websites. Each day, people use Vizu Answers to validate value propositions, vet new product ideas and obtain preference data that can aid marketing, communication and positioning decisions.

Vizu's growing network spans a diverse global population and includes blogs, networks, portals, news outlets, media properties and retailers. Organizations which run polls can zero in on their target audiences for their market research by selecting a category or specific web sites such as CollegeRecruiter.com (hint, hint).

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 13, 2007 at 7:20 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

What is your firm doing to promote its internship program? Job postings? Resume searching? On-campus interviews? Great. Really, that's all great. But what about something different that really speaks to Generation Y. Something like CollegeRecruiter.com client Sodexho is doing to promote its Future Leaders Internship Program.

Give your interns a video camera and let them get creative. The results might not be as polished as what you'd get from professionals, but I bet the results will be better with the intern produced product as your future interns will listen better to a video produced by their peers. Have a peak:

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 10, 2007 at 9:18 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

What is it that entry level employers want the most when they're interviewing to fill an internship or entry level job? Some will say experience and others GPA, but overall the most important factor is the major of the college student or recent graduate.

A recently released survey indicates that 42 percent of employers of college students and recent graduates ranked the major of the students being interviewed as the top priority for hiring consideration. A year ago, 37 percent ranked the major as being the most important factor so while majors continue to be important, they are becoming even more so. Running second and third are interviewing skills and a student's internships and experience, respectively.

Why do employers first look at a candidate's major? Employers explain that in initial hiring consideration, they are first concerned with a set of necessary skills. "We are looking for candidates that possess the technical and enabling skills required to be an effective client service delivery professional," said Blane Ruschak, National Director of Campus Recruiting for KPMG.

Also critical to employers is to find candidates passionate about their potential industry. Randy Goldberg, National Recruiting Director for Hyatt Hotels, explains that finding job seekers excited about their future position occurs most often when the candidate's major matches their prospective field of employment. "Most of our entry level management positions are not your typical 9 to 5 positions," said Goldberg, "so seeking out candidates with hospitality schooling and experience is a key ingredient to achieving a rewarding career with Hyatt."

Employers repeatedly state that in order for students to separate themselves from candidates with the same major, students must be able to relate past experiences to the current job opportunity in an interview setting. Also important is to demonstrate a range of transferable soft skills to complement the skills associated with their major. Candidates should be comfortable gathering and analyzing technical data but also effectively communicating the results in presentations, lectures, and one-on-one. Candidates who are able to communicate the results of their analysis are much more valuable to a prospective employer than those who can only crunch the numbers. Even better are those who can demonstrate this ability in an interview.

Employers seeking candidates with less technical majors also point to versatility as an important professional skill. "We are looking for candidates to be in a continuous learning mode, have a positive attitude and demonstrate a global perspective in their thinking and actions," said Ruschak.

In addition to Ruschak's list of top soft skills for KPMG, other employers would also include the importance of communication skills, dedication, integrity, enthusiasm, creativity and adaptability. According to Vicki Decker, Director of Career Services for Winona State University, "These skills result in successful candidates and are not necessarily tied to any given major." Additionally, they can all be summed up in one word: passion.

Passion about the opportunity is important to employers because it cannot be taught or faked. When employers recognize that a student's enthusiasm and excitement about the job is genuine, that student will most often get the job. Provide examples of how passion has had a positive impact on results. Show an employer in your words, actions and past behaviors that you have true passion for achieving excellence. If you do so, expect to be chosen over other candidates whose paper credentials may appear superior to yours.

Following are the overall survey results:

1. The student's major (42%)
   
2. The student's interviewing skills (25%)
   
3. The student's internship/experience (16%)
   
4. Other miscellaneous qualifications (10%)
   
5. The student's computer skills (3%)
   
6. The student's personal appearance (2%)
   
7. The student's GPA (1%)
   
8. The college the student graduated from (1%)
   

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 10, 2007 at 8:25 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Posting information about yourself on-line is like getting a tattoo: there's nothing inherently wrong with either but you just have to realize that both are permanent even with expensive surgery. Sure you can try to erase the information by removing it from your Facebook or MySpace page but if those pages are indexed by Google or other search engines or copied and posted to another page or web site, then you've lost the ability to ever permanently remove the information. So before posting information about yourself on-line, ask yourself if you would feel comfortable sharing the same information with your favorite grandmother. If so, then you're probably safe.

But now it appears that tattoos may be easier to remove that those pesky photos of you waking up in a puddle of your own sick. While laser and other surgery to remove tattoos has long been an option, Cover FX Skin Care Inc. in Toronto, Ontario now offers makeup designed specifically to conceal tattoos and other body art.

Tattoos have become so common amongst Millennials that you have to wonder if they are no longer symbols of independence and have now actually become symbols of conformance. But regardless of whether the students getting the tattoos are trying to strike out on their own or fit in with their peers, getting tattoos and posting information on-line should be done with great thought for the ramifications that may not occur for years or even decades. It is so hard for a 20 year old to truly appreciate the significance of a decision that will effect them when they're 40, 50, or older. But when you're making a permanent mark upon your body or on-line persona, you need to.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 9, 2007 at 7:27 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

David Lefkow's excellent musings on ERE (The Rise of the Social Networks), was a reminder about the fundamental changes percolating through the staffing industry. Two days later Kevin Wheeler's enthusiastic ERE article on a new player in the job board/contact management space: Itzbig, A Sourcing Network on Steroids, reinforced our growing conviction that 2007 will be a time when staffing is reinvigorated with new models, new ideas and more employers willing to use them.

We've already been to three countries, more than 15 national/international conferences, three Colloquium meetings, as well as two of the most unusual gigs we ever attempted (one was a series of focus groups for another country interested in examining US career management practices and the other was an audit of the challenges facing the US Intelligence Community in hiring first and second generation US citizens- but that is another story). And the year is only half over.

While we are still preparing for the remainder of 2007, we cannot remember ever seeing an industry as ready for change since the inception of the Internet. The convergence of angry and increasingly scarce job seekers with disappointed but energized employers that are willing to spend for results has created a raft of new products and services for recruiters to spend their $$ on.

New models, some quietly developing for years, others newly bursting on the scene or quietly developing a proof of concept are proliferating in record numbers. It also doesn't hurt the impetus for change that we are now in the midst of the demographic shifts everyone has touted for twenty years - the staffing pain is plain to see and growing daily.

Here's a short list of what has been bubbling and boiling so far in 2007. Five observations/predictions that we have commented on privately:

1. Social networks are reinventing themselves and shifting from a few publicly accessible applications to hundreds of closed systems built around true affinity criteria. The news continues to focus on Facebook and MySpace but Affinitycircles and Selectminds are two of more than a dozen social network applications gaining market share and traction amidst the hype.

   While the more recognizable open and universally accessible virtual social networks have served us well over the last decade they began to gain traction about four years ago and served to educate many of us about the possibilities. Linkedin has especially been a training ground for staffing professionals as it continues to offer a powerful experience and exceptional value.

   Last year's pioneering launch of an internal corporate network by Starbucks based on a MySpace-like template received many accolades earlier this year (ERE Awards for example) and was seen as a call to action for many employers. This year it also seems every college alumni organization, fraternal group or professional association is or will soon be launching a social network restricted to their constituents - repeat restricted. Recruiters of course will easily gain access, but that's not the point. The point, as Dave Lefkow noted in his article, is that the real explosion of networking is yet to come.

   We see many of these "natural affinity" groups developing non-advertising network models supported by donations, subscription or membership fees to ensure the credibility of the organization as a trusted steward of personal information. The potential is enormous.

2. Print and other traditional media classifieds as well as their online job board analogs are in the last stages as a pure play- simply listing a company's openings and little else. Employers will soon stop paying for the exposure of their job openings. Employers will, however, pay for dynamic services (tools that work in real time and don't tick off the user):
   
   
   
   • Distributing job openings to the networks that produce more and better hires.
     
   • Targeting potential candidates in ways that look more like a rifle shot than a shotgun (search engine marketing, keywords, vetted lists, name generation, etc.).
     
   • Matching capabilities that can truly translate the language of job seekers and the language of employers so their discussion moves to a mutually helpful plane. Have you mapped an armed services rating to your internal job titles and descriptions?
     
   • Mapping and tracking a supply chain flow of leads to hires by screening leads to identify contacts. Screening contacts to identify prospects. Screening prospects to identify candidates.
   • Screening candidates to identify applicants. Etc.
     
   • Assessing and Testing applicants to predict which will be more successful - and sharing the data with them.
     
   
   Every new staffing tool seems to be touting features that encroach on traditional and established online models but building them in new ways at lower costs. Itzbig and Checkster are examples and recent entries from successful industry pioneers who have learned and returned with new ideas on new platforms. We recently described Itzbig's mashup (part job board, part ATS) as different from the established way of doing things as when Dick Fosbury decided to abandon the Western Roll and flop backwards over the high-bar. Checkster, on the other hand, gets jobseekers to engage in peer generated, self- assessment behaviors with an ease and depth we have not seen before.

   Job boards are evolving rapidly and Jobing which only recently had its coming out party (at the Palms in Las Vegas during SHRM's national conference) leaped into the spotlight. Jobing has actually been fine tuning its approach for years and is more evolved than any of its competitors will likely give them credit for. Their strategy employs little rocket science and mostly elbow grease. It is true grass-roots, organization by organization effort that is deep and has successfully been implemented in more than a dozen locales. Their one at a time approach works when most others are still trying to vie for attention by renaming stuff that doesn't as "hyperlocal."

   It was inevitable (in hindsight) that the three largest job boards would partner with just about every willing newspaper in the US. While we believe these partnerships are, for the most part, in name only they do offer an enormous potential play to leverage the strength of each toward a common goal- influencing hiring decisions of employers and job seekers in a local market. While this is still elusive (given the print mentality) there is at least some hope of translating traffic's faux results into serious hiring numbers. We're convinced the likely outcome is that one will buy the other out and then amazingly their combined classified income will match what newspapers alone made 15 years ago.

   In 2007 Job seekers will pay for:
   

   
   
   • Job Coaching - if the coach has the ability to help make the companies a job seeker targets truly transparent i.e. guide connections to people (using social network apps). There are now 30,000 coaches- most are still clueless. There are no standards.
     
   
   And, perhaps, the seeds are being planted for job seekers to soon pay for:
   
   
   
   • 
     The Truth about their chances to compete for a specific job. (Something employers will resist doing to the very last). We are finding a few more firms willing to play but delivering is still like searching for the unicorn - a difficult hunt without a horn, a horse and a lot of glue.
     Access to ALL the jobs existing on ALL company websites in a given location in a given industry with a specific title that were posted in the last 24 hours. Still a mystery. Only the claim is commonly found on most job boards today.
     
   
   
3. Candidate care is increasingly becoming the central tool employers use to measure whether their process is effective. There may not be consistent standards around whether the candidate is (as we maintain) anyone who throws their hat in the ring or, (as in most cases) restricted to the qualified candidates selected for final interviews. Still, this year, the interest in and the number of competitive companies who are actively developing, measuring and improving their candidate care efforts has exploded.

4. Online video is the medium of the moment. An explosion of video-related products in staffing is evident from almost any perspective you care to use. At the SHRM conference in Las Vegas where 750 vendors populated 1350 booths, we counted more than two dozen video resume, video screening, video interview, and video job description services. In addition to the publicity of YouTube, the ease of use, low cost and the ability to capture so much more information than text or even audio has contributed significantly to ramping up new approaches. We still think that searching the actual .wav or mp3 file itself to develop a paired comparison of qualified candidates against specific job criteria is a must and still a ways off. We are also fans of virtual job shadowing capabilities - combining videos, journals and blogs of new employees during their initial weeks of work.

5. International integration is the number one challenge facing companies that view themselves as global. Conflicting international mores about selection are the true poster children for cognitive dissonance. Increasingly, global staffing leaders have made the effort to learn what local practices will truly benefit the firm and what practices need to conform to a global model. Efforts to build global staffing pages have made significant headway in the last year.
   

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 8, 2007 at 4:55 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

The Big Four accounting firms of Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte & Touche, and KPMG have all nearly tripled their recruiting staffs and budgets over the last three years. They're using a large chunk of those funds to recruit college students for internship programs and recent graduates for entry level career opportunities by sponsoring campus leadership programs, developing a presence on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, throwing beach parties, giving away spring break trips, and more.

Jean Wyer, head of recruiting for PricewaterhouseCoopers, told the Washington Post that if "you don't reach [students] by their sophomore years, you've kind of missed out." She added that PwC will "probably be in fifth- and sixth-grade classes soon."

Hmmm. Is that such a bad idea? I've spoken with a number of employers who have no interest in recruiting college sophomores let alone freshmen or high school students and they're either planning or are selling high school students on the attractiveness of working in their industry. The employers know that they can't actively recruit a ninth grader for a position they won't be ready to start for seven or eight years, but they can plant the seed in two ways. First, that ninth grader will be more likely to enter accounting or whatever profession the employer is pitching. That expands the pie and makes it more likely that the employer will have enough qualified candidates to choose from for years to come. That's very strategic recruiting. Second, that ninth grader will be more likely to choose that employer in seven or eight years, especially if the employer maintains regular contact with that student and her friends.

Not enough employers engage in truly strategic recruiting. It is nice that the Big Four seem to be headed that way. Hopefully we'll allow follow their lead.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 8, 2007 at 7:15 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

"College graduates are in some of their peak [hiring] years," said John Challenger, CEO of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "It's not just the A students and the engineering or technology grads who are doing well. The benefits of the strong market are reaching out into the B and C students and liberal arts grads. It's a job seekers' market."

So why are Challenger and employers so optimistic? Today's employers emphasize soft skills like oral and written communication, critical thinking, and responding to constructive feedback. Those are the same skills possessed by many liberal arts graduates. Employers are also generally optimistic about their long-term financial prospects and recognize that their Baby Boomer employees and candidates are starting to retire. As those retirements accelerate, the need for college grads will as well as more and more employers are seeing that they must hire college grads today in order to have them properly groomed to become the next generation of their leaders prior to the departure of their seasoned Baby Boomer managers.

Source: Campus Career Counselor

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 7, 2007 at 7:04 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Studying abroad has long been viewed as a fun experience for students, but did you know that a large percentage of employers place a significant value on it too? About 200,000 American college students study abroad each year and they're not all studying foreign languages or hoping to cash in on favorable currency exchanges. Study abroad programs are available in almost every discipline to students at almost every school.

As fantastic as these programs are, I'm a bit fearful. You see, Congress is getting into the act. (Pun intended.) The Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program is urgent that half of all American college students participate in study abroad programs within the decade. "What nations don't know can hurt them," the group wrote in a report. "For their own future and for that of the nation, college graduates today must be internationally competitive."

That is a laudable goal and I hope that it happens but I also hope that Congress lets the inherent attractiveness of these programs drive their success rather than forcing their "success" through legislation.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 6, 2007 at 4:53 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

The competition for top performers is heating up as 96.1 percent of organizations are actively recruiting, according to the preliminary results from the Compensation Data 2007 survey. Also up from 2006, voluntary turnover is at 12.3 percent for all industries, while total turnover is 18.3 percent.

In 2007, voluntary and total turnover rates were highest in the hospitality industry at 24.1 percent and 34.3 percent. Higher than average, health care organizations had 14.6 percent voluntary turnover and 20 percent total turnover in 2007. Utilities had the lowest voluntary and total turnover rates, 6.4 and 8.6 percent respectively.

As turnover rates continue to rise, companies look to a variety of methods in recruiting new employees. When advertising positions, the Compensation Data 2007 results showed 84.4 percent place ads on the Internet, which has increased by 7.8 percent since 2005. Newspaper advertising remains high at 74 percent, and job fairs are used by 54.8 percent of companies. Employee referral programs are another method used for recruiting by 59.2 percent of companies. Also, some organizations, 20.6 percent, target their search by advertising with trade or professional associations.

“Concerned with the decreasing talent pool, many HR professionals are working to find new ways to attract and retain the best individuals for the position,” said Amy Kaminski, manager of marketing programs for Compdata Surveys, the nation’s leading compensation and benefits survey data provider. “Using a targeted approach and new sources can help organizations identify the appropriate pool of qualified job candidates.”

Monetary incentives continue to be used in a variety of different forms. Sign on bonuses are utilized by 31.5 percent of organizations. Another tactic for recruiting top employees is to offer increased starting rates. This is used by 24 percent of companies, and 13.5 percent offer more raises during the first year.

-- Article courtesy of Compdata Surveys, a leading compensation and benefits survey data provider.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 3, 2007 at 5:44 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Perhaps it was inevitable and perhaps it is a sign of improving work conditions for women, but it appears that the recent domination of college campuses by women is spilling over into the workplace as young, college educated, female adults are now earning more than their male counterparts in many of the largest metro areas in the country.

I've written before that a significant majority of college students and an even larger majority of college graduates are women, but a study by Queens College demographer Andy Beveridge shows that all women from ages 21 to 30 living in New York City and working full-time made 117 percent of men's wages, or a median wage of $35,653, and even more in Dallas, where the women made 120 percent of what the men made. Some of the other cities where young women earn more than men are Minneapolis, Chicago, and Boston.

Other than during times of war, broad cross sections of women have never earned more on average than their male counterparts in recent history. So why has the balance tipped? Demographers point to the higher college graduation rates for women as one reason and also point to more of those women working in major urban areas where there are diverse opportunities and less gender discrimination than in smaller cities and suburbs. Women also aren't marrying as young as they used to so they're able to focus more on their careers and therefore increase their earning power.

While I agree with the above reasons, I believe that there is more to the story. I'm reminded of the story of the why the lion is considered to be the king of the jungle. Almost all animals walk with either their heads or tails held high. The analogy is that they either consider themselves to be high and others low or they consider themselves to be low and others high. They cannot raise both themselves and those around them. But we consider the walk of lions to be majestic because they walk with their heads and tails held high. They seem to understand that they need now lower those around them in order to raise themselves up high.

The demographic story of women earning more than men is kind of like the issue with lions. Women aren't raising their earnings by lowering the earnings of men, but women are earning more than men in part because women's earnings are rising and in part because men's earnings are slipping. Fewer men are attending college and even fewer are graduating. More are dropping out of the education system to start their own businesses. While that will likely pay dividends for many and perhaps most in the long-term, those of us who are entrepreneurs understand that the first years in a business are typically lean so these young, male entrepreneurs are earning less now than they would be in corporate environments. So far, young women have not flocked to entrepreneurship like their less risk averse male counterparts so the women are increasing earning the large corporate salaries while their male peers are struggling to get their businesses off of the ground.

So where is this taking us? Over time, expect to see large corporations increasingly dominated by women and small organizations increasingly dominated by men. As is normally the case with demographic shifts, there are many reasons for the shifts and some of those reasons are obvious, some are subtle, and some don't become known for years until we have the benefit of 20-20 hindsight.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 3, 2007 at 8:55 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

My discussions with recruiters and other human resource professionals often include conversations about the increasing concentration of the recruiting industry due to the never ending list of acquisitions and alliances. While many of these acquisitions and alliances have led to better products and services at better prices for the clients, the reality is that some acquisitions and alliances have led to quality and pricing problems with formerly great products and services. If you share in these concerns, then you'll want to quickly sign up for the October 17, 2007 event that is sure provide tremendous value to its attendees. Only 100 seats are available and the event is almost sold out.

Two of the leading information providers to the recruiting industry, ERE Media and Interbiznet, have teamed up for the first annual Supplier Summit: Building Alliances in the Recruiting Marketplace. This full day interactive forum will be held in Washington, D.C. one day before the main session and exhibit hall of ERE Expo 2007 Fall opens. The Supplier Summit will feature a combination of critically important content and structured opportunities to develop alliances within the recruiting industry. Most of the attendees will be senior level representatives from job boards, advertising agencies, applicant tracking and talent management firms, enterprise software operations, staffing and search firms, and any other service provider to the electronic recruiting industry.

ERE CEO David Manaster and Interbiznet Founder John Sumser will cover the current state of the business and its likely the wild future. The day promises to be a practical problem-solving forum full of sessions led by leaders in our industry. I'm honored to have been invited to be one of the group leaders for the Structured Networking session led by David Saunders, Vice President of Quality for Arbor Education and Training. In our groups, we'll collaborate on the development of a short partnership specification. The goal of the session is to simultaneously create an experience of working together while building network relationships. Should be a great learning experience and a lot of fun.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 3, 2007 at 7:55 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I occasionally get asked by employers and consumer marketers how they get their opportunities, products or services mentioned in leading blogs? Simple. Pay for the placement. That's right. There are web sites that broker advertorial advertising in blogs. You submit the request to the web site, including what you want written about your opportunity, product, or service; how much you're willing to pay for the mention in the blog; and which blogs you want to appear in. Then the blog advertising broker contacts the blog owner and passes along the request. If the blog owner accepts the request, the blog owner receives the bulk of your payment and the blog advertising broker receives the rest as a commission.

If there's an idea, there's an Internet site for it.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 3, 2007 at 7:06 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Just received an email from Harry Joiner saying he was booted off of Facebook for following their instructions to upload his email program's address book. Apparently, his 4,600 Gmail names were too many for Facebook even though they state no limit and accepted his request to email the "make me a friend" request. Why they don't just code in a hard limit that would be acceptable to them is beyond me.

Harry might be interested to know that I did pretty much the same thing with my Outlook address book. Not to one up him, but my address book was, ahem, much larger. But when I uploaded I only asked Facebook to send the "make me a friend" requests to people who are already Facebook members. I didn't want to start selling the merits of Facebook to others, even though I think it has tremendous potential for all.

By the way, if you're interested in becoming my friend, and I could definitely use some as life can get pretty lonely, here's my Facebook badge:

If you want to be my friend, click on my name, then the link to "Add Steven as a Friend," and then follow the instructions.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 2, 2007 at 4:24 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I had the good fortune to spend four months living, working, and traveling in the United Kingdom. It was one of the most enjoyable summers of my life and came after my sophomore year in college. So whenever college students ask me about whether a work or study abroad program is a good idea, they get very positive responses from me.

One of the neatest cities that I traveled in was Edinburgh, Scotland. In fact, all of Scotland was fantastic. But although I spent time in very small towns and in some of the biggest cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow, I never worked in Scotland. All of my work was for a large retailer headquartered in London but if I wanted to find a job in Edinburgh or any other Scottish city, I likely would have had to turn to the newspaper classifieds or go to a temp agency. But that was 1986 and in 2007 we have better options. Now if I wanted to research Edinburgh jobs, I would go to a web site such as Edinburgh Classifieds. Isn't the Internet great?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 2, 2007 at 3:36 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I've already heard from a number of clients, vendors, and partners asking if our Minneapolis-based employees and their families are fine or if any were killed, injured, or missing as a result of the collapse yesterday evening of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River near downtown Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) campus. We're all fine and we very much appreciate the concern. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

Tragedies such as these do have positive benefits for the rest of us. These tragedies bring us all closer together and help us realize what is truly important: our family, friends, and health. I saw a comment posted by a Twin Cities resident who put this into great context. Yesterday morning the news in the Twin Cities was dominated by the trade of Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics and Johan Santana's criticisms of the Minnesota Twins management for trading one of their best hitters and not adding any personnel even though the club's biggest weakness is hitting. Then the bridge collapses. Suddenly Garnett's trade and Santana's criticisms aren't quite so important.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 2, 2007 at 7:34 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I received a most welcomed call from Ami Givertz (is there any other type of call when Ami is ringing?) the other day. He both wanted to find out more of the good, the bad, and the ugly from the Minneapolis Recruiting Roadshow Unconference, which was organized by Paul DeBettignies a/k/a The Minnesota Headhunter. Ami also wanted to ask if I would be interested in participating in the second Roadshow, which is scheduled for September 25th in Atlanta.

After telling Ami what a masterful job Paul did and what incredible hosts Josh Kahn and the other folks from Accenture and Best Buy were, I recommended that Ami make the Atlanta Unconference longer to provide more time for networking. The Minneapolis attendees were very happy with their experience but one of the consistent pieces of feedback was that they wanted more and specifically more time to meet each other and talk informally with the presenters.

Ami and I then talked about the September conference. Ami told me that for Atlanta he plans to have a number of breakout sessions throughout the day so that the group sizes will be smaller, which will facilitate better networking amongst recruiters with like interests. We talked about the possibility of me flying down to be one of the presenters and I enthusiastically signed up to be one of the keynotes. I'll be talking about how recruiters can and should use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. I've spoken at conferences about the same topic a number of times, including at the Minneapolis Unconference, but I am far from being tired of it as the best practices keep changing and the enthusiasm for the topic only seems to increase. It is also fun to poke fun at what some of our more exhibitionist Millennials do on-line and how Gen X and Baby Boomer tut tut that behavior yet end up admitting to themselves that they would have done exactly the same things when they were in college if there was an Internet and cell phones with cameras in them.

Ami is one of those recruiting blogosphere characters with tremendous passion and smarts. He's going to do a great job in Atlanta and I'm thrilled to be a part of it and to again have an opportunity to work with John Sumser of Recruiting.com and Interbiznet, one of the driving forces behind this great series of free, informal, recruiting conferences.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 1, 2007 at 11:22 AM | Leave a Comment (1)