Despite the generally negative economy and decline in overall employment in the United States during the first quarter of 2008, job-seeking seniors found a relatively robust job market, according to results of NACE's 2008 Graduating Student Survey.

The survey, which was conducted February - April 2008, found:

• More than three-quarters of those who applied for a job (77 percent) had at least one job interview.
  
• More than half who applied for a job (52 percent) received at least one job offer.
  
• Nearly half of those who were offered jobs (49 percent) accepted them by the time they participated in the survey.
  

The findings from NACE are consistent with what we at CollegeRecruiter.com have been hearing from the candidates using our site and our employer clients. There are many firms who are no longer hiring and some which are laying off but for every one of those there seems to be another organization that has started or increased their hiring of college students and recent graduates. The result is a flat job market as compared to 2007. Not up and not down but flat.

Fewer grads are reporting receiving multiple offers but they're also telling us that they're more inclined to accept the first offer they receive quickly so fewer grads are in a position to receive multiple offers. If the economy were stronger, they'd likely be more confident about holding out for the best match and therefore more likely to receive multiple offers.

At the end of the day, there seems to be equilibrium. There seems to be about the right number and quality of positions available for the students and grads who are properly seeking them. Note the use of the word "properly." When I hear from students who are really discouraged in their job hunt, I almost always learn that they are doing little to no networking and what networking they may be doing isn't really networking at all. They're hiding behind their computers and applying to advertised jobs day after day. When they do, ahem, network it is only to ask others to help them find a job. That isn't networking. Networking is about asking what you can do for others knowing that at some point some of them will do the same for you. But don't start off asking them to do you a favor.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 29, 2008 at 2:55 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Clearly there are a number of corporate recruiters who do blog and some of their blogs help them hire people. But why don't more corporate recruiters blog? Why is it that the recruiting blogosphere is dominated by job board owners, vendors, and corporate recruiters who do blog and some of their blogs help them hire people. But why don't more corporate recruiters blog? Why is it that the recruiting blogosphere is dominated by job board owners, vendors, and third party recruiters?

For answers, turn to the man who always seems to have great answers to great questions: Jim Durbin of StlRecruiting.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 29, 2008 at 12:27 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Those who know me know that one of my pet peeves is the atrocious customer service that most airlines seem to serve up most of the time even though similarly qualified and compensated customer service people who work for hotels seem to serve up great customer service most of the time. Why the airlines can't or won't figure out how to deliver customer service while their travel industry siblings did long ago is beyond me.

Want some examples? Well, too bad. Here they are:

• I traveled to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada this summer with my family. My wife, kids, and I spent a few days at my parents' cabin and then my wife and I had a few days to ourselves in Winnipeg. We stayed in the Hampton Inn in downtown Winnipeg. We've stayed there before and so have my parents and have always been well treated. This time was different. Nothing horrible happened but the service wasn't up to Hampton standards and wasn't corrected after I brought this issues to their attention. I wrote a letter to complain and the property owner refunded what we paid for both of our nights. They made some mistakes. They acknowledged them. They apologized. They made it right. I now won't hesitate to stay at that Hampton Inn or any other again because they proved that they stand behind their product.
• U.S. Airways canceled a flight that I was to take from Albany to Minneapolis in a few weeks. I booked the flight through an on-line agent and understood at the time that U.S. Airways was in its rights to cancel or change the flight. That stuff happens. Passengers don't like it but we understand that it happens. But the cancellation left them with no non-stops so they booked us on a flight from Albany to Philadelphia to Minneapolis. Again, we're not happy but we understand that can happen. They claim they notified the agent about the change and that it is the agent's responsibility to notify us. Maybe legally so, but if U.S. Airways really thought about it, why would they want to leave it up to another organization to ensure the proper treatment of its customers when the cost of sending an automated email is, well, virtually nothing? Bad enough? Wait. The connection in Philly that U.S. Airways arranged for us gave us about five minutes to get from one flight to another. Given that it typically takes at least five and often 10 minutes just to get off of one plane and their own rules require 40 minutes for the connection. I only found out about it because I knew that the airlines were changing a lot of their flight times and I wanted to see if the changes impacted us. So I called U.S. Airways and they re-booked us on different flights that would actually make it possible for us to make the connection. I then sent a letter complaining. I was very specific in the letter that I was not complaining about their need to reschedule us but I felt that we should never have been re-booked in such a way that we would have to re-re-book ourselves as that was a total waste of my time and therefore incredibly customer unfriendly. Their computer system be programmed to look for the closest equivalent (they claim it is) that is possible to make (clearly it isn't). The responses from their customer service people? Pardon my French, but total crap. I went back and forth and back and forth with them trying to get them to even acknowledge that I wasn't complaining about the need to re-book and that I knew it was within their rights to reschedule flights. Despite my numerous attempts to get them to admit that their computer system is crap, they refused to admit it for weeks. They claimed that they escalated my concerns and I would hear back from those people but I never did. What should they have done? Exactly what the Hampton Inn did. Acknowledge the problem. Make it right. U.S. Airways could have done that with a simple apology and promise to fix the system so that hopefully I wouldn't have it happen again. Instead, their refusal to even acknowledge the problem guarantees that it will happen again. When I'm next booking a flight, and I do so multiple times a month, I will choose to fly any other airline whenever possible.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 28, 2008 at 9:44 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Dr. John Sullivan, professor at San Francisco State University, recently posted a great article at ERE about how employers and use smart cell phones for recruiting. Some of his article dealt with your mobile phone as a tool in the hands of the recruiter so focused on ideas such as being able to check email while you're away from your desk but much of the rest was a great check list of strategies and tactics for how to use the phone for recruiting:

• Text messaging (SMS or simple message service) to introduce recruiters to candidates, set up interview times, answer simple questions, and direct new hires through orientation activities.
• Job opening alerts.
• Event alerts to drive candidates to your career fairs etc.
• Social networking through applications you can download from Facebook, Twitter, and other services.
• Text and reply information requests via keyword advertising. Want an example? Text the word "college" (without the quotes) to 876289.
• Physical world hyperlinks to allow, for example, college students attending a career fair to snap a picture. If they upload it to your web site, they can win a prize and you'll capture their contact information.
• Blog feeds. Subscribe to CollegeRecruiter.com Blog, for example, through your smart phone's RSS reader.
• Video messaging (MMS or multimedia message service) to send recruiting videos. Make 'em short! No more than 30 seconds and preferably 15 or so.
• Podcasts.
• Web links. Email or SMS potential candidates a link to your web site or other on-line content that is relevant to their interests.
• Temporary jobs. Send a message to a pre-defined group within minutes of learning that you have a sudden hiring need.
• Friends e-newsletter to build relationships with potential candidates.
• Text message options on your web site. If you don't provide your Gen Y candidates with the option to text message you, then you're going to lose many of the best and brightest to your competitors who understand that email is seen as archaic by this generation. You no longer insist on mailed or faxed resumes, right? So why should texting be any different?
• Candidate relationship management (CRM) touches to keep in touch with candidates over time. Don't think you have time? You'll have more time if you get more proactive by building a talent pipeline.
• Surveys/polling.
• Mini interviews. Don't laugh. Have a list of sales candidates and want to quickly narrow it down to those who have business-to-business sales experience? Text each in minutes, get the responses almost immediately, and spend the rest of your time talking with the finalists.
• Global positions system (GPS) allows for restaurants to send offers to potential customers when they're in the vicinity. Why not alert a candidate that they're near one of your facilities or career fairs and ask them to drop in for an on-the-spot interview?
• Mobile phones can also be used to deliver recruiting video games (think military on that one), music (is anything more powerful?), recruitment ads, trivia games, or best-practice sharing.

Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008

Time: 2-3pm EDT / 1-2pm CDT / 12-1pm MDT / 11am-12pm PDT

Space is limited. Reserve your free seat today.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 26, 2008 at 4:35 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

College students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry level jobs often have questions about when and how they should broach the subject of salary with a potential employer. One of the greatest blogs for this audience, Newly Corporate, has some great advice: don't. Wait until the employer asks you.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 21, 2008 at 7:31 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Inc.com, which bills itself as the daily resource for entrepreneurs, each year releases its list of the 5,000 fastest growing, privately held companies in the U.S. This year, CollegeRecruiter.com made the Inc. 5,000 list as the 1,403rd fast growing company, 17th in the fast growing education companies (apparently job boards fall into the education category), and 23rd in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area.

According to Inc.'s analysis, our rapid growth is due to two primary factors:

• In 2004, we added new products and candidate-friendly software. Our innovative products include:
  
  • Pay per click job postings;
    
  • Pay per lead job postings;
    
  • Targeted email campaigns to our double opt-in database of 10 million college students, recent grads, and alumni; and
    
  • Cell phone text messaging (SMS) campaigns to the same database of 10 million college students, recent grads, and alumni.
    
  
  
• We found new ways to advertise its site to job seekers by creating CollegeRecruiter.com Facebook applications and even a Youtube channel with more than 350 career-related videos.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 20, 2008 at 6:37 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

A question from several of the 500+attendees to our free webinar last week on how employers can and should use Facebook for recruiting was whether employers would encourage negative comments about their organizations if those employers started blogging, using Facebook, etc.

My advice was that the negative comments will be made whether the employer has a presence or not so they should blog, actively use Facebook, and otherwise participate in Web 2.0 sites. To do otherwise would be to allow the negative comments to be posted without the employer's side of the story. Don't get personal. Don't post comments saying that the blogger is an idiot. But do give your side of the story. If your organization could have done something better, admit it and provide details on what you'll be changing and when in order to rectify the situation.

A few days later I was on a webinar organized by the Human Capital Institute. One of the other guest was Kristine Rhodes, Talent Strategist National Director of NAS Recruitment Communications. During the HCI webinar, we talked about whether it is better to ignore the negative comments or have a voice in the discussion. I used as an example the approach of Robert Stephens, founder of the Geek Squad home computer repair service. He apparently monitors the blogs for negative comments about the Geek Squad and personally posts responses to them. They're transparent, truthful, and informative. His approach converts gripers into cheerleaders for the Geek Squad.

Kristine added some brilliant advice: it is great to post a comment saying that your organization could have done better and then describe what you'll do to fix the situation and when but don't stop there. Create a note in your calendar to go back to the same blog on that promised date and post an update. Don't just say that you're going to fix the problem, prove it.

Wow. Think of the power of that message. Think of the positive effect on your employment brand.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 19, 2008 at 5:13 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

A number of recruiters and other human resource professionals asked what might seem to be a stupid question both during and after last week's free webinar on how employers can and should use Facebook for recruiting. The question was how can they create a Facebook Fan Page for their organizations so they can have a corporate rather than personal page on Facebook.

You'd think that Facebook would make it easy for people to figure out how to create Fan Pages. If so, well, you'd think wrong. I've been to dozens and perhaps hundreds and it is always amazing to me how hard Facebook makes it. Go to any Fan Page and scroll all the way to the bottom. You should see the link there or just go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 18, 2008 at 4:20 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

My daily newspaper reported this morning that Barack Obama's campaign is using cell phone text messaging (SMS) to better connect and motivate his supporters. Want periodic updates on the campaign? Text "obama" (without the quotes" to 62262. Want to know the identity of his vice presidential running mate before the media does? Text "vp" to 62262. Brilliant.

Obama is using an SMS keyword campaign to recruit, retain, and motivate his supporters. So why aren't employers? Well, some are and many more will soon be.

SMS keyword advertising like Obama is using allows an employer to send information about their employment opportunities to candidates at virtually no cost. And when candidates opt-in to receive the information, the employer knows their cell phone number and can follow-up directly or at least build a mailing list. If an employer uses different keywords for different opportunities, then they can immediately and at virtually no cost text job openings to candidates who have already expressed an interest.

Some employers ask why they should SMS when email works well. Well, email does work well for some candidates but if you want to reach virtually any college student or recent graduate then you need to use SMS and not email. The emerging perception on-campus is that email is too slow and too cluttered with spam. SMS, on the other hand, is fast and almost free of spam.

Obama understands the power of SMS. Does your organization?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 18, 2008 at 2:58 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the tenants by which I try to run CollegeRecruiter.com is not to make strategic decisions based upon tactical problems or vice versa. For example, if an employee is taking an lunch break that is too long, don't fire her. The excessive lunch break is comparatively minor and therefore tactical. The termination of an employee is comparatively serious and therefore strategic. Tactical issues tend to be those which most influence an organization in the short-term while strategic tend to have the greatest influence over a long period of time.

Another example would be the auto manufacturers. Just months ago Ford was adamant about shutting down the Ford Ranger light pickup truck manufacturing facility in Saint Paul,Minnesota. By all accounts the product was high quality and so were the workers. But Ford wanted to get rid of the Ranger because they wanted to sell more of the monster pickup trucks from which they could make big margins. That despite Ford's claims that it was an environmentally focused company.

Well, $4 per gallon gas sure turned them around. Now they're talking about expanding the Ranger production because so many buyers of pickup trucks are tired of spending their entire paychecks on the gas it takes to get to and from work. But is the problem confined to Ford? Hardly. Take a good look at the vehicles and advertising coming out of the other manufacturers such as Honda and Toyota, which won't make the fuel efficient Prius in nearly the quantities demanded by the marketplace.

Message to the auto manufacturers: stop trying to solve the strategic environmental and energy problems facing all of us with tactical solutions like advertising and pretending.that you're green when you're anything but. Your customers can smell that nonsense a mile away and the nonsense smells even worse than what is spewing out of the tailpipes coming out of the rear ends of your monster trucks.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 17, 2008 at 2:48 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Yesterday we had well over 500 attendees to our first free recruiting-related webinar. The topic was how employers can and should use Facebook for recruiting. It was such a success that we've already scheduled the next webinar. Join us.

Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008

Time: 2-3pm EDT / 1-2pm CDT / 12-1pm MDT / 11am-12pm PDT

Space is limited. Reserve your seat now.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 15, 2008 at 7:15 AM | Leave a Comment (3)

One of the questions sent to me after today's free webinar on how employers can and should use Facebook for recruiting was the following:

The resistance we tend to get about Facebook and MySpace (and this is often the extent of people's familiarity with these sites) is that ex-employees - and perhaps even current ones - post nasty things about companies, to the point that the whole social networking arena is considered poison for those not willing to accept it as the unavoidable future. Is there any way to limit nasty postings, quell these fears, etc.?

My answer was as follows:

The nasty stuff will be posted whether you participate or not. But by participating in the discussion, you'll have an opportunity provide your side and probably even temper the conversation.

If your concern is about candidates etc. posting nasty comments to your Facebook page (the "Wall") or blog, no fears. You can delete Wall comments you don't like and you can set up any blogging software to require your approval before comments go live. I had a guy post two comments to my blog today, actually, and I approved one and rejected the other. The one I rejected wasn't nasty but it was a sales pitch for their product.

Have a voice. Be heard.

Speaking of being heard, our next free webinar will be on how employers should use cell phone text messaging to recruiting college students. It will be on Thursday, September 25th. Seats are limited. Register today.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 14, 2008 at 3:22 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

We had well over 500 attendees to our free webinar on how employers can and should use Facebook for recruiting. Within minutes, HR Search Marketing posted a fabulous recap. A tip of the hat to Nicole Bodem!

Our next free webinar will be on how employers should use cell phone text messaging to recruiting college students. It will be on Thursday, September 25th. Seats are limited. Register today.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 14, 2008 at 2:46 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

We've all seen billboards, television shows, print ads, and on-line ads urging us to use our cell phones to text a keyword such as "college" to a cell phone short code number such as 876289. In fact, do just that. Text the word "college" (without the quotes) to 876289. You'll instantly receive an automated response from CollegeRecruiter.com and we'll instantly receive an emailed notification that you sent that request.

Think about your ability to engage with your target market as you add this incredibly engaging response option to some or even all of your ad campaigns. Just pick a keyword that best identifies the opportunity you wish to promote, every one of those ads becomes interactive, and tracking the responses to those ads becomes automatic. Put the keyword and short code on your brochures, business cards, web site, billboards, emails, print ads, job postings. Anywhere you put your web site address, put the keyword and short code.

When people respond to your ad by texting your keyword to our short code number, we'll automatically send on your behalf to their cell phones a text message of up to 145 characters. That's about two sentences. You can include in that text message a phone number for more information, link to your web site, or other instructions for how they should contact you. Rather than sending a text message to you every time someone responds, we'll immediately send an email to whatever address you prefer. You can then follow-up by phone or text message, add them to your database, or both.

And the best news? Cell phone text messaging keywords are cheap. The cost per keyword is $50 per month. The monthly costs for the data storage and automatic responder are:

• 0 to 500 leads = $500
• 501 to 999 leads = $900
• 1,000 to 2,999 leads = $2,000
• 3,000 to 4,999 leads = $2,500
• 5,000 to 9,999 leads = $4,000
• 10,000 or more = call/email for quote

Let's assume that you want to promote two different opportunities, want to receive up to 999 leads, and that it takes three months to generate those leads. The cost would be $300 for the keywords ($50 per keyword per month) plus $900 for the leads for a total of $1,200. That's it!

Your monthly lead budget can be broken down into multiple keyword campaigns. Example - 50 regions can all have their own keyword but all responses can be gathered in one database. These responses can be sorted in the database by Keyword. You would pay for each individual Keyword but lead storage and responder. The responders can still be unique.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 14, 2008 at 7:21 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Since job boards essentially came into existence 14 years ago, the pricing model has overwhelmingly been a flat rate for a specified period of time. For example, we charge $175 for a job posting ad for 60 days. Many sites charge more and many sites charge less.

Vertical job search engines such as Indeed and SimplyHired should take a bow as they have been instrumental in educating the recruiting industry that there is a better way to pay for advertising than on a flat rate basis. The job board industry loves flat rate because the clients assume all of the risk if the postings don't work. But what is in the best interests of the client is also in the best interests of the job board so we're excited to announce that we've become one of the first premium job boards to allow clients to post jobs on a pay per click or pay per lead basis.

Rather than paying the standard $175 for a job posting for 60 days regardless of how many candidates respond, our clients will now have the option of paying $0.50 per click and we will guarantee that 350 candidates will click on the apply button to go to the web site of the client or to our application page, whichever the client prefers.

If the client prefers to shift even more of the risk to CollegeRecruiter.com, they can pay $5 per lead (resume / application) and we will guarantee that 35 candidates will apply to the job on our application page.

Want more information? Go to our job posting page for more information about job postings, to sign-up, or log into your account.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 13, 2008 at 5:03 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

The ten cities with the best combination of high starting salaries, low costs of living, and strong employment markets are:

1. Houston, TX;
2. Dallas - Fort Worth, TX;
3. Austin, TX;
4. Denver, CO;
5. Seattle, WA;
6. Atlanta, GA;
7. Charlotte, NC;
8. Raleigh-Durham, NC;
9. Washington, DC; and
10. San Francisco, CA.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 12, 2008 at 11:19 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Eric Shannon and the rest of the LatPro team recently created a new site, JobBoardBlogs.com. It promises to deliver career tips, job-search tips and other news from top job boards to readers -- updated every 15 minutes and available to by RSS.

The goal of JobBoardBlogs.com is to help candidates, employers, and others stay informed and anticipate or react to changes in online recruiting. My blog, CollegeRecruiter.com Blog, is a member and therefore included in the JobBoardBlogs.com feed. Others include Accounting Jobs Today, Diggings, EmploymentMetrix, Hispanic Jobs, Indeed, InsuranceJobsBoard, Job Dig, Minnesota Jobs, Mountain Jobs, MyFirstPaycheck.com, New Media Hire, PostJobFree, Simply Hired, Six-figure Learnings, Skilled Trades Blog, Talent Zoo Journal, Trovix, and Wired & Hired.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 11, 2008 at 1:02 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Two of my favorite recruiting experts recently teamed up to shoot a short video. The topic? One which is near and dear to my heart: tactics and strategies that employers should use to attract the best Gen Y / Millennial talent to their organizations.

In the video below, Bill Vick interviews Alexandra Levit. If you've never read Alexandra's work, you'll love it. If you've read her insights before, you'll likely be reminded of some great ideas and learn some new ones.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 11, 2008 at 8:44 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

You've heard the express that "a picture is worth 1,000 words," right? Well, if that's true, then how many words is this recruitment video from Whirlpool worth?

Whirlpool is a fine employer but let's be honest. It isn't as sexy as Google or other new economy organizations. It has a strong consumer brand but its employment brand isn't as strong as McKinsey or other top employers of college students and recent graduates. But man do the folks at Whirlpool understand soul. After watching this video, the only candidates who aren't more likely to want to work for Whirlpool are those without souls.

Any other nominees for the world's best career video?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 8, 2008 at 5:00 PM | Leave a Comment (4)

We'll likely hit 400 registrations later today for next week's free webinar on how employers can and should use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace for recruiting. Some good friends of ours such as Jason Davis at RecruitingBlogs.com and Dave Mendoza at SixDegreesFromDave.com have let their readers know about the webinar and many of them have registered.

We've had a few questions that I thought I should address:

1. One person wrote to tell us that she was unable to get the registration page to load. Should you still have difficulty then perhaps you're on a network that blocks certain domains. If you can't connect, then email Sarah@CollegeRecruiter.com, let her know you tried without success to register for 8/14/08 webinar, and provide her with the following information:
   • First Name:
   • Last Name:
   • Email Address:
   • Address:
   • City:
   • State/Province:
   • Zip/Postal Code:
   • Phone:
   • Organization:
   • Job Title:
2. Another person wrote that she will be traveling during the scheduled time for the webinar (Thursday, August 14, 2008 from 2-3pm EDT / 1-2pm CDT / 12-1pm MDT / 11am-12pm PDT). The software that we use does not yet have the ability to record and replay the webinars but a couple of suggestions:
   • You can watch a free, on-line video of similar presentation that I did in Dallas for CTN: The Energy Network. It was recorded about nine months ago so some things have changed but most of the information is still valid.
   • We do plan to host these free webinars on a regular basis but have not yet set the dates or topics for the second, third, etc. webinars. If we feel that a lot of people missed out on this because of conflicts such as your travels then we'll schedule another Facebook webinar sooner rather than later. Other topics that we're looking at include new media such as how to use targeted email campaigns and cell phone text messaging for recruiting.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 7, 2008 at 9:47 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the outstanding authors in the employment space is Alexandra Levit, founder and president of Inspiration at Work, a career consulting firm. After leaving her gig as a nationally syndicated career columnist with Tribune Media Services, Alexandra turned her attention to blogging for HuffingtonPost.com and GetTheJob.com. She's also authored several books, including the just released Success for Hire: Simple Strategies to Find and Keep Outstanding Employees.

One of the reasons that I read everything that I can of hers is that she writes in a clear, concise, no nonsense style. She's one of those rare authors who understands that if a book can communicate its message in 100 pages then it should be 100 pages, not 250 because some publishing house guru thinks that it will look better on the shelf at 250 pages. Another reason that I read her works is that a disproportionately large number of them focus on issues related to Gen Y / Millennials.

If you care as I do about how employers can and should deal with the impending retirement of many and perhaps most Baby Boomers and their replacement in the workforce by Gen Y, then you need to read Alexandra's new book: Success for Hire. It is written for hiring managers and human resource professionals to help them deal with this impending crisis in an efficient, effective, thoughtful manner.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 5, 2008 at 1:26 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I recently received a book from one of my Peter Weddle a/k/a Mr. Job Board. Peter's book, Recognizing Richard Rabbit: A Fable About Being True to Yourself, is a quick, easy read about recruiting. But that's not why you should buy a copy and read it for yourself. What delights me about Recognizing Richard Rabbit is the very unusual and effective way in which it delivers its content.

Rather than reading through a book chapter-by-chapter as you normally would, this book is set up with dozens of pairs of pages which face each other. Pages 54 and 55, for example, face each other and are paired with each other. The right side of each pair encourages the reader to use their creative side while the left side of each pair encourages the reader to use their reasoning and logical thinking abilities.

By the end of the book, both sides of the reader's brain (the creative right side and the reasoning, logical thinking left side) are on the same page: the best type of recruiting is not about the best technology. Rather, it is about the one-to-one relationships that form when we are honest and candid with ourselves and each other.

Peter is a man who has given many gifts to our industry. Recognizing Richard Rabbit is yet another and for that we should be very grateful.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 4, 2008 at 1:28 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Facebook and MySpace are two of the most popular sites amongst U.S. college students and recent graduates and dwarf the traffic from any job board, including sites such as Monster, Careerbuilder, and HotJobs. Yet very few employers are using the social networking sites for recruiting and very few of those are using them well.

I regularly speak at recruiting conferences and am quoted by national print and broadcast media about how employers can and should use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to help them recruit college students and recent graduates. If you haven't been able to attend the conferences or want more information than what the media soundbites deliver, then join me for an interactive, humorous, free webinar on Thursday, August 14, 2008 from 2-3pm EDT/ 1-2pm CDT / 12-1pm MDT / 11am-12pm PDT.

During the "How to Use Facebook for Recruiting" webinar we'll discuss how employers can and should use these sites. We'll examine the risks and potential rewards. And we'll look create a best practices check list that will help all employers create or improve their web 2.0 recruiting strategies and tactics.

Space is limited so register today.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 1, 2008 at 8:55 AM | Leave a Comment (1)