I had the pleasure of speaking to 150 or so recruiters, human resource managers, and other professionals at the Atlanta Recruiting Roadshow Unconference this past Tuesday. My post-lunch keynote presentation was about how employers can and should use social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook to recruit college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry level jobs and other career opportunities. Want a peak?

My thanks to Shally Steckerl, Chief CyberSleuth of JobMachine, for the video.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 28, 2007 at 11:46 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

The U.S. Census Bureau just reported that more than three times as many blacks live in prison cells as in college dorms. The ratio is healthier for Hispanics, but only barely as 2.7 times as many Hispanics live in prison cells as in college dorms. The magnitude of those problems are evident when you compare those ratios to the ratio for non-Hispanic whites: twice as many live in college dorms as in prison cells.

Although the data is startling and very troubling, it isn't quite as bad as it seems. The data does not include those who go to college but live off-campus. While there are likely some discrepancies in percentages of whites versus blacks and Hispanics who live off- rather than on-campus, I suspect that this doesn't come close to explaining the differences in the ratios. Another factor is that the data is not broken down by age. The reality is that most prison inmates are 25 years of age or older while 96 percent of people in college housing are 18 to 24 years old.

No matter how you look at it, there has been a failure when anyone is forced to live in a prison cell rather than going to college. And it appears certain given the huge differences in the ratios that young black and Hispanic adults are far more likely to end up in a prison cell than in a dorm room. Those who end up in prison are far less likely to benefit their families or society than those who go to college so it behooves us all to work towards reducing and coming as close as we can to eliminating the number of people in prison, regardless of their race.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 28, 2007 at 8:32 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

There are certain cliches which are true: such as employees are the greatest asset of just about any organization. Yet how many employers truly pay close attention to what are the needs and wants of their employees? Not nearly enough, in part because it can be difficult to know. Some employers will attempt to understand what their employees need and want by talking with a sampling of the employees, but unless these samples are representative they end up creating misleading information so can do the employer and therefore its employees more harm than good. So what's the solution?

One solution is for employers to measure employee satisfaction by using employee surveys to simply ask the employees. Employee satisfaction surveys can give employers with great insight into issues such as whether its employees are happy in their current positions, what are the most important issues facing them today, and what changes they feel need to be made in the organization.

Interested but don't know what organizations offer these services? One to check out is Vovici.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 27, 2007 at 4:44 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Ami Givertz deserves a huge slap on the back for a job very, very well done. He was the driving force and organizer of the second Recruiting Roadshow Unconference and did a masterful job by pulling together John Sumser and some other great speakers. The conference on Tuesday was attended by about 150 mostly corporate recruiter and human resource manager attendees.

I had the privilege of delivering the post-lunch keynote on how employers can and should use social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. It was interesting that the material was new to almost everyone in attendance. I've spent a lot of time thinking, writing, and speaking about these issues over the past year or two so it was great to be able to help those in attendance become aware of the issues and hopefully to help them understand that the sites are neither evil nor silver bullets but used wisely can become another arrow in their recruiting quiver.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 27, 2007 at 11:49 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

New York state Attorney Generl Andrew Cuomo has launched an investigation into social networking site Facebook after New York undercover investigators posed as children as were allegedly solicited by sexual predators.

Cuomo said that agents posing as children were solicited by adult sexual predators and that the agents could easily access pornographic photos. Agents contacted Facebook but their complaints were often ignored. Facebook, to its credit, did take down some of the offending material and close the accounts of some of the predators but to its shame it apparently failed to do so on all and perhaps most of the time.

Facebook is only three years old. It was founded in 2004 in the dorm room of Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg, and opened its site to everyone in 2006. The company says it now has more than 42 million users. Unfortunately, some of those users are scum and we should be thankful that Cuomo and his staff are working to keep this wonderful resource as safe as possible for all.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 26, 2007 at 5:23 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

The Federal Bureau of Investigations released its annual crime report yesterday and violent crime nationwide increased for the second consecutive year. Murders reached their highest level in decades. Gen Y is responsible. Why? Read on.

Few would debate that the main perpetrators of violent crime are teenagers and other young adults and most of those reside within our urban communities. Much of their criminal activities victimize their peers and those who reside within their communities. In Minneapolis, for example, a 12 year old girl was shot in the head last week. Her only mistake was that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time: she was walking home from a party when someone fired a gun a block away at someone else but missed their intended target. In most cases the bullet would have lodged in the wall of a house, a vehicle, or a tree. But in this case it hit a girl. A 12 year old girl.

So why do I blame Gen Y? I don't. I don't blame the entire generation. But I do recognize that violent crimes such as the Minneapolis incidents are largely carried out by teenagers and other young adults and those members of our society are all members of Gen Y. Each generation before Gen Y has been responsible for these types of crimes so it isn't a surprise that it is now Gen Y's turn. But what scares me is that the largest high school graduating class in our nation's history is the class of 2009. So these kids are now about 16 years old. They're just entering the age when they will be most likely to commit violent crimes. I hate to look at it this way, but the reality is that we're heading towards a surge in violent crime that likely won't subside for another six to 10 years.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 25, 2007 at 5:07 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

The economic news out of the college career service offices is beginning to sound like a broken record, but few mind as the news is again good news for students searching for internships, recent graduates hunting for entry level jobs, and those who view a strong job market as being a good sign for the economy and therefore for all of us.

A recent poll by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) of its thousands of college career service offices reveals that nearly 78 percent report that their 2006-07 graduates had more and better job opportunities available to them than did 2005-06 graduates. Only eight percent believed that the prospects facing 2006-07 graduates were bleaker than those facing 2005-06 graduates.

The news was also good virtually across the board when starting salaries are broken out by business discipline:

• Accounting majors gained three percent for an average starting salary offer of $46,292.


• Business administration / management majors saw a 5.1 percent increase to $43,256.


• Economics starting salaries now average $47,782. Most earned higher as the most popular position for these grads was consulting and those positions averaged $52,740.


• Finance graduates received an average of $46,442 and the most popular position for them was financial / treasury analysis and those positions averaged $48,902.


• Management information systems (MIS) salaries were up 4.7 percent to $47,507.


• Marketing graduates saw their salaries jump 5.6 percent to $39,269. Most of these graduates are going into sales and those who do are seeing average salaries of $39,473.


• Computer science majors are seeing 4.5 percent increases to their offers with average starting salaries now at $53,051.


• Information sciences and systems graduates are faring even better with average offers up 5.9 percent to $49,966. Many of these graduates accept software design and development positions.


• Chemical engineering graduates saw average offers increase 5.2 percent to $59,218. Petroleum and coal products manufacturers paid these graduates an average of $64,294.


• Civil engineers saw offers increase 6.3 percent to $48,998.


• Electrical engineers are also doing well with average offers up 3.8 percent to $55,333. Many of these graduates are being hired by aerospace companies for an average offer of $59,087.


• Mechanical engineers were not overshadowed by their engineering brethren as they saw increases of 4.3 percent to $54,057.


• Liberal arts graduates benefited from a strong demand for sales representatives and saw average starting salaries increase by 4.6 percent to $32,717. Also, for the first time in seven years, every major within the liberal arts category saw an increase in average starting salaries.


• History majors were celebrating with average increases of 6.1 percent to $35,092.


• Political science / government majors were even happier with average increases of 6.5 percent to $35,261.


• English majors weren't quite as happy yet the news was still positive. They saw average increases of 1.7 percent to $31,924.


• Sociology graduates received offers up by 3.4 percent to $32,161.

The career service offices also looked forward to the prospects for the Class of 2008 and reported a lot of optimism. Most expect to see more employers on-campus this fall and most employers concur.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 24, 2007 at 3:17 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Deloitte & Touche USA LLP recently launched the first-ever Deloitte Film Festival. The employee-generated content that flowed from Festival was designed to bolster the accounting and consulting firm's Gen Y recruiting activities and drive workforce engagement.

What made this effort different from some of those by other firms?

• All of Deloitte's personnel were encouraged to participate. Over 370 short films were submitted by teams of Deloitte personnel with each team being made up of one to seven individuals.


• The videos were first posted on an internal YouTube-like intranet site where they were viewed and ranked by fellow Deloitte employees.


• The best will be integrated into their campus recruiting programs.


• Deloitte planned to buy production equipment for 250 teams but ended up buying it for 350 teams. The equipment will be donated to non-profit organizations, including FilmAid International.


• Most importantly, each video offers a candid and unfiltered view of Deloitte's culture of inclusion, leading edge talent and innovative workplace. Did someone say, "transparency?"

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 21, 2007 at 2:38 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

What horror stories have you heard about or perhaps even happened to you as a result of information that was posted to blogs or social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook?

One of the worst that I've heard was from a friend of mine who was hiring a technology sales representative. He ran a Google search on her name after he and everyone else at his firm had decided they wanted to hire her. Although she had been careful not to include her name on her page, her friends weren't so smart and created a link from her name on their pages to the candidate's MySpace profile page. Google is smart enough to have understood that although the candidate's MySpace page didn't have her name on it, because her friends linked using her name that people searching for the candidate by name will want to go to the candidate's MySpace page.

The problem wasn't that she had a MySpace page. The problem was that the content indicated that she likes to get drunk and have sex with strangers. My friend declined to extend the job offer to her not because of that (he doubted she'd get drunk and have sex while on the job) but because her posting of that information on-line indicated a lack of good judgment.

And the problem isn't just with MySpace and Facebook. Any information that you post on-line can come back to haunt you. A Texas teacher was fired because of naked but PG-13 photos of herself that she posted to file sharing site Flickr.

Any stories that you can share about candidates not being hired or not being admitted to schools or employees being fired or students being expelled because of what they posted?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 21, 2007 at 12:21 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

One of the other people who attends a lot of the recruiting trade shows and conferences is industry thought leader Don Ramer of Arbita. I've known Don since the 1990's and am thrilled to announce that clients of Arbita will now be able to post their internship and entry level jobs through Arbita's fully automated job posting system to CollegeRecruiter.com. Arbita provides world class Internet recruiting solutions to hundreds of customers including General Dynamics, eBay, Pfizer, and Cox Communications. Arbita's OnePost system is used in the U.S. by many government contractors to meet OFCCP and EEOC posting and reporting requirements.

We look forward to working with Arbita for years to come to help make more and better matches between highly qualified candidates and employers offering high quality positions.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 20, 2007 at 8:10 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Ever used Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia? It is written by some of the most brilliant and, ahem, not so brilliant people in the world in a collaborative manner that is truly remarkable. You can post an article about a topic you know a lot about, or about a topic that you know nothing about, and I can edit your words to improve, or damage, the quality of your article. The theory is that if enough people edit an article, the quality of the article will be improved. That's the theory and it usually works well. Usually.

The reality of Wikipedia is that because anyone can post an article or edit someone else's article, all articles must be read with some skepticism. The errors in the articles may be accidental or deliberate and very few of the contributors are scholars.

So along comes Scholarpedia, which takes the best of Wikipedia but using similar wiki technology but gets rid of the worst but only accepting articles and edits from actual experts. Here's how they describe their venture:

Scholarpedia feels and looks like Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Indeed, both are powered by the same program - MediaWiki. Both allow visitors to review and modify articles simply by clicking on the edit this article link.

However, Scholarpedia differs from Wikipedia in some very important ways:

• Each article is written by an expert (invited or elected by the public).


• Each article is anonymously peer reviewed to ensure accurate and reliable information.


• Each article has a curator - typically its author - who is responsible for its content.


• Any modification of the article needs to be approved by the curator before it appears in the final, approved version.

Herein also lies the greatest differences between Scholarpedia and traditional print media: while the initial authorship and review processes are similar to a print journal, articles in Scholarpedia are not frozen and outdated, but dynamic, subject to an ongoing process of improvement moderated by their curators. This allows Scholarpedia to be up-to-date, yet maintain the highest quality of content.

Wikipedia will likely continue to be the biggest. But if you're looking for accurate information, are you better off with the wiki with the most quantity or quality? As Yoda said, "size matters not."

Ain't the Internet great?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 20, 2007 at 7:58 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I believe that it is incredibly important for all of us to give back to our communities. Not only does giving back improve the health of the communities in which we live, but it also improves our own mental health. Nothing feels better than making a positive difference in the life of someone who needs a helping hand.

Today's college students understand the importance of community service. Thousands compete for positions with organizations such as the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, and Teach for America. But a significant difference between Gen Y / Millennials and Gen X'ers, Baby Boomers, and other generations is that Gen Y'ers are much more interested in not only working for service organizations for a while after graduation but they're also interested in creating their own service organizations.

The thought of thousands of new service organizations being created by energetic, college educated professionals is very exciting. Yet I wonder how realistic it is for most. While their hearts may be in the right place, their wallets may not. This generation is facing financial pressures like none before it due to the incredible escalation in the cost of post-secondary tuition and the resulting incredible escalation in student loan debt.

Service organizations tend not to be the creators of big paychecks for their employees or owners so how will a student with thousands of dollars in monthly debt payments be able to afford to create and run such an organization? The unfortunate truth is that, in most cases, they won't.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 19, 2007 at 7:00 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Think your for-profit organization faces a crisis with the number and quality of your Baby Boomer leaders who are on the verge of retiring? Feel fortunate that you're not in the non-profit world.

According to Bridgespan Group, a management consulting group for non-profits, about 640,000 new senior leaders will be needed over the next decade by non-profits. That's about 250 percent the current number. Why the huge increase? Burnout and the above mentioned retirements.

One step in the right direction is American Humanics, a national program that offers a non-profit management certification that compliments an undergraduate degree. Students are required to complete classwork and 300 hours of internship activities. American Humanics is currently connected with some 70 campuses across the country and works with 300 to 400 students a year. Not quite 640,000 but a good step in the right direction.

Source: Campus Career Counselor, Christian Science Monitor, August 13, 2007

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 18, 2007 at 6:20 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Much has been written in the media about the dangers of blogging so it is so refreshing to see that colleges, or at least some colleges, are actually encouraging their students to blog. The career centers of Harvard University and University of Washington are leading what I hope will become a trend. They understand that blogs are like knives: they're dangerous in the hands of careless people but wonderful tools in the hands of those who are somewhat thoughtful and careful as they provide bloggers with a tremendous opportunity to improve both their personal and professional brand.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 17, 2007 at 6:02 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I was honored to receive an offer from Ami Givertz the organizer of the Atlanta Recruiting Roadshow Unconference, to speak at the conference. I had just spoken at the first of the Unconferences in Minneapolis, had a great time, and was happy to participate in the second of the events.

Ami's plans built on what was delivered in Minneapolis by making the conference all day rather than half a day and by adding multiple tracks rather than using a single track model. As a result, I was confident that Ami would have a good turnout but never would have guessed that the conference would be sold out 1.5 weeks early. Awesome.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 14, 2007 at 5:16 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

When I was in college way, way back in the 1980's, very few students had internships. Heck, we were just happy to find a job that paid us enough money that we could buy some pizza at the end of the week. The thought of finding a position, paid or not, which was career-related was beyond the realm of comprehension for most of us.

Fast forward to today's college students. The vast majority graduate with at least one internship and often multiple internships. They are, without a doubt, far better qualified when they graduate than my classmates and I were. But as great as that is, it isn't the whole story. Not only are internships far more prevalent amongst college students today, but many others are also interning. The real story is that the internship has now also become popular amongst high school students, recent graduates of colleges, masters students, recent graduates from masters programs, and more.

Wow. A world (or at least a country) of even better qualified candidates. Can there be a downside?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 14, 2007 at 3:27 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Thanks to our recently implemented partnership with CareerTV, we're able to bring the users of CollegeRecruiter.com so truly fantastic career-related videos. One of my favorites is Internships Rock, which explain the importance of internships and how to find them. If you're a college student searching for an internship or even a recent graduate trying to bolster your experience through a post-graduate internship, you'll want to invest the few minutes it takes to watch this great video.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 13, 2007 at 7:58 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Because of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, a growing number of mortgage and finance professionals are hitting the streets, looking for jobs. Yet, these layoff victims largely lack the most important career skill of all: How to market themselves.

"The moves most mortgage and financial professionals have made to advance their careers to this point are probably exactly the wrong things they should do to find work in the current job market," cautions recruiting professional David Perry, managing director of Ottawa, Ontario-based Perry-Martel International.

Here are 3 typical wrong moves most mortgage/finance job seekers are making now:

• Networking with colleagues


• Searching on Monster.com


• Reading help wanted ads in the newspaper

None of these techniques address the real problems in finding a job today, according to Perry and job-search expert, Kevin Donlin, President of Edina, Minn.-based Guaranteed Résumés.

Donlin and Perry are offering a free job-search webinar Thursday, September 13 at www.MFjobsearch.com. Attendance is at no cost or without obligation, but limited to the first 1,000 participants to sign up at the webinar site.

During the webinar, mortgage professionals hit by the sub-prime meltdown will learn how to:

• Google for the best jobs


• Craft a compelling resume that cuts through the clutter


• Apply "job search judo" techniques in the interview


• Get more job leads using Social Networking tools like LinkedIn and ZoomInfo

"In today's job market, if you don't actively sell yourself to employers, you don't eat," says Donlin. "Odds are you've never thought of yourself as a product that must be sold, like a vacuum cleaner or a set of snow tires. Good news: You're not alone. Bad news: You're part of a whole generation of people who don't know how to ferret out career opportunities."

Donlin points out that employers are interested in only two things. "Can this job candidate make me money, and can this candidate save me money?"

"To get noticed and get hired, you must get inside the head of your future employer and do a rain dance. Specifically, you must show that you can make it rain profits," urges Perry. "How? You match employers' needs to your detailed achievements. By detailed I mean exact dollars, percentages and numbers. It's that simple. And that difficult. Because 90% of job seekers -- even those in the financial sector -- have never been trained to understand their true, specific value at work."

For more information on the free job-search webinar visit www.MFjobsearch.com.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 12, 2007 at 7:46 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Very few cities in the U.S. are truly alive. Those which come to mind include Chicago (I'm there on business today), New York, and San Francisco. Many other cities are wonderful but don't have that vibrancy, that character, that excitement.

Next week I'll be in San Francisco for the Salesforce.com annual user conference, the International Association of Employment Web Sites conference, and the OnRec recruiting conference. I arrive Sunday morning and fly out Wednesday late afternoon and will likely be on the go pretty much non-stop the entire time. It should be an interesting time juggling my time when the Salesforce conference runs from Sunday evening through Wednesday afternoon so overlaps with the Monday afternoon IAEWS conference and the Tuesday and Wednesday OnRec conference.

If this trinity were taking place in just about any other city, I'd probably still go but would be gritting my teeth at the thought of having to juggle the agendas. But given that this is in San Francisco, I'm excited.

Anyone else planning to take in all three or am I the only nut?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 11, 2007 at 10:45 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Well, I do. And so does one of our clients whose identity will remain anonymous for reasons which will become apparent a little later in this blog entry.

I recently learned from one of our clients that they've hired several thousand outside sales representatives since 2000 but only seven percent are still employed by the client. Of the 93 percent who turned over in the past seven years, an astonishing 70 percent left within a year and 96 percent within three years. Ouch.

The average sales rep at this client generates a little over $150,000 in gross revenues in their first year. They're paid a 15 percent commission so receive about $23,000 per year. The top third make about $35,250 and the bottom third make about $15,000. Double ouch.

So, aside from the problem of how much these people are being paid to be outside, commissioned sales representatives, what other problems does the client have? Well, the local managers have pretty much refused to hire entry level people for these obviously entry level sales rep positions. They've been somewhat successful recruiting experienced sales reps but those reps leave as soon as they understand what kind of money they're likely to make -- hence the retention problem.

The solution? I didn't need to tell the client. They already knew. The local managers need to be educated and convinced that it is critical to hire the right person for the job. Hire someone who is over qualified and the result is that they get bored and frustrated. Hire someone who is under qualified and the result is that they get stressed and make a ton of costly mistakes. Either way, you've got a retention problem because the over qualifieds quit and the under qualifieds get fired.

The position that this client has is an excellent opportunity for a college student or recent graduate who wants to make a living in sales. It is an entry level sales position because of the earning potential so the managers need to hire entry level people. So who says you need to recruit entry level people for entry level jobs? Hopefully now everyone who is involved in the hiring process.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 10, 2007 at 4:13 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I haven't blogged since Wednesday. I'm going through withdrawal. Am I ill? Nope. Uninterested? Nope. Traveling on business. Yep.

I've been in Florida since Wednesday to meet with a couple of clients, speak at one of their conferences, and meet with a key vendor. Traveling from Minnesota to Florida at the beginning of September is like traveling from Florida to Minnesota in January. The change in temperature and humidity are not for the faint of heart.

Also not for the faint of heart was the amazing tour that we received of the new Valpak manufacturing facility. Valpak, a client, is the publisher of the blue envelopes that magically show up in your mailbox each month and which contain offers from local and national merchants. Their new facility is incredible. My background is in printing so I've seen my share of large commercial printing facilities, but none come even close to approaching the level of robotics and other automation in this plant. There are virtually no workers involved in the process of printing and mailing literally billions of targeted direct mail pieces each year. The automation has allowed Valpak to reduce the time it takes to turn a piece around from four days to four hours.

Their hundreds of franchisees will now have a much better cost side of the income statement to work with. CollegeRecruiter.com, along with other partners, will now be able to help the franchisees increase their net income even further by helping them hire hundreds of new entry level sales representatives.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 8, 2007 at 8:53 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

The State of Maine recently passed legislation that should greatly increase the number of college students who choose to remain there upon graduation. One of the biggest burdens upon this generation is the enormous student loan debt that they have. It is many times that of their parents and much larger than even the debt incurred by their older siblings.

But now, "if you live, work and pay taxes in Maine, you're not going to have this student debt hanging around your neck." Nice? Yes, but also very smart for the State of Maine and its future prosperity. That giant sucking sound that you hear is the sound of college graduates refusing to leave Maine for its neighboring states.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 4, 2007 at 7:12 AM | Leave a Comment (0)