Okay, this has absolutely nothing to do college recruiting, jobs, internships, work, employment, or any other career related issue. I was just cruising Twitter for some ideas for today's blog article when I ran across a flurry of conversations regarding the newly registered domain name, VoteForTheMILF.com. Apparently, the quasi-pornographic domain name is owned by John McCain's campaign and takes visitors to JohnMcCain.com.

Even amongst his most ardent supporters, few would consider McCain to be a MILF so what is going on? Well, it appears that visitors to JohnMcCain.com who are referred by VoteForTheMILF.com are shown a video of Sarah Palin. So could McCain be sending the message that he considers Palin to be a MILF? Given that McCain has admitted that he's a technophobe, I doubt he even knows what MILF means let alone was involved in plotting any type of strategy about what video to show visitors from the MILF site versus people who come to his site from other sites.

Bizarre but there may be an explanation. One strategy in owning domains is to buy domains that may be used against you by hostile entities. So we CollegeRecruiter.net and CollegeRecruiter.org and some other variations on that to prevent hostile competitors from owning and, in our eyes, misusing those domains. It is also one of the reasons we acquired the domain name EntryLevelJobs.net last winter.

So what probably happened is that someone in the McCain campaign made the wise decision that they didn't want a Barack Obama supporter buying VoteForTheMILF.com and then using it to create mischief. But McCain's campaign should have been smarter than to re-direct traffic from the questionable domain name to JohnMcCain.com. You can own domains and not use them. Whoever chose to re-direct it to the main site surely knew that. At least, I would hope that someone involved in issues like that for the campaign would have known that.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 29, 2008 at 1:31 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

My conversations with dozens and perhaps even hundreds of employers who hire college students for internships and recent graduates for entry level jobs have led me to believe that about 75 percent are searching social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace as part of their background checking process. But one question that was harder to answer was how many of those employers have declined to hire a candidate because of content on those sites.

Careerbuilder recently surveyed hiring managers and found that of those admit to screening job candidates using Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites, 34 percent admit to dismissing a candidate from consideration because of what they found on the social networking sites. The top areas for concern among these hiring managers were:

• 41% - candidate posted information about them drinking or using drugs
• 40% - candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
• 29% - candidate had poor communication skills
• 28% - candidate bad-mouthed their previous company or fellow employee
• 27% - candidate lied about qualifications
• 22% - candidate used discriminatory remarks related to race, gender, religion, etc.
• 22% - candidate's screen name was unprofessional
• 21% - candidate was linked to criminal behavior
• 19% - candidate shared confidential information from previous employers

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 26, 2008 at 7:37 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Nicole Bodem at HR Search Marketing just posted a play-by-play blog posting of the free webinar that we hosted today on how employers can use cell phone text messaging (SMS) to recruit college students, recent graduates, and alumni.

I'll post the recording of the webinar here within a week but in the meantime, Nicole did a great job of capturing all of the crucial details.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 25, 2008 at 5:43 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of my favorite employers of college students and recent graduates is RSM McGladrey. Unlike the stereotypical accounting firm, the folks at McGladrey are interesting, fun, and not afraid to take some chances. My experience with them is that the chances they take typically pay off but I'm sure that they'd be the first to admit that some have worked out better than others.

The most recent chance that they're taking has very limited downside and I'm excited to see how it turns out. Ben Gotkin, their National Director of Experienced-Hire Recruiting, reminded me earlier this week that a few months back he asked me if I was aware of any company that had created a site, blog, etc. specifically for parents or influencers of college students. In his email, he told me that despite the lack of such sites McGladrey went ahead and built one.

The McGladrey Career Influencers site is built on the Blogger platform, but it's meant to be static and not necessarily a blog. The site effectively an on-line brochure meant specifically for the parents of college students and other relevant influencers such as spouses, friends, etc. According to Todd Tinnel, National Director of College Recruiting, the site was specifically designed to "speak" to these people as they tend to serve as trusted advisors to or bugs in the ears of today's young professionals.

As a firm, McGladrey agreed that career influencers such as parents, mentors, advisors, teachers, and others were scarcely addressing in any of their recruiting literature or practices. A small task team was assembled and they surveyed several hundred of McGladrey's new hires and their influencers to learn what sort of information the influencers wanted and in what format. McGladrey had a great response rate and the team was able to get to what is now reflected in the influencer site.

In addition, the firm has established practices internally to enable McGladrey to learn who are the influencers of its candidates and how the candidates prefer that McGladrey communicate with those influencers. For example, do the candidates want the communication directly from McGladrey vs. the candidate? By email? Snail mail?

The site will allow McGladrey to be much more inclusive during their recruiting process and to reach an important constituency and provide information that they find valuable. Todd told me that this is a first step for McGladrey but one of which they're proud. They should be.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 25, 2008 at 6:28 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Interesting blog article by Recruiter Guy a/k/a Christopher Hoyt about ways that employers can better engage with today's college students. Christopher identified some traditional routes such as job fairs and college job boards but then spent most of the blog writing about some non-traditional routes.

Two of the non-traditional routes he highlighted are CampusAve and CampusBlvd. Both are quite interesting. CampusAve is a network of classified advertising opportunities on college newspaper and local web sites. Go to any of their partner sites and you'll see classified listings for housing, items for sale, and jobs. So if you're only willing to consider candidates from a small number of specific schools, CampusAve may be a good option.

More unusual and therefore more interesting to me is CampusBlvd. Employers are starting to catch onto the value of search engine optimization and this is a site which is designed to give a big boost to your SEO. One of the most important factors that Google and other search engines look at when determining how highly they should rank your site's pages is the number of links from other sites to your pages and the quality of those links. A link from a new, low traffic site is not worth as much as a link from a well established, high traffic site. But how do you get those quality sites to link to you? One way is to buy the links and CampusBlvd's business is to sell you those links.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Savvy marketers, and that includes human resource professionals, should not put all of their marketing eggs into one basket. If you engage in college recruiting, don't just go on-campus for interviews. Also post jobs on sites like CollegeRecruiter.com, send targeted emails, send targeted cell phone text messages, engage in search engine marketing by buying keywords from Google and other search engines, and work on your search engine optimization by making your site as search engine friendly as possible and increasing the number of quality of links to your pages from other sites.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 24, 2008 at 9:34 AM | Leave a Comment (2)

Over the past few years, we've seen an incredible increase in the number of clients and interest by those clients in our second largest product by revenue: cell phone text messaging (SMS) campaigns. On Thursday, we're going to share what we've learned with anyone who cares to listen.

Join us for our free webinar on best practices for using targeted cell phone text messaging campaigns to recruit college students, recent graduates,and alumni. Seats are limited and we already have hundreds of attendees signed up so don't delay. Register today!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 22, 2008 at 4:07 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the questions that I'm frequently asked as an expert on how to employers can and should use Facebook for recruiting is what candidates and others should do if they find that there is information on-line about themselves that is not positive. In short, how do you bury your digital dirt?

There are three primary techniques for burying your digital dirt:

1. Ask the owner of the blog or otherwise web site on which your digital dirt is located to remove the undesirable content. Many will. Some won't.
2. Generate lots and lots of positive Internet content about yourself. Get your own blog and post entry after entry, with each including your name. Post lots of comments to other blogs, with each including your name. Answer questions about your career experience through our Facebook Career Blog application. Submit lots of articles to free content exchange web sites, with each including your name. Create a profile at LinkedIn. Each of those blogs, comments, and articles creates a new entry in the search engine results at Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. and each new entry will likely force your digital dirt further and further down the search results. It is much less likely that someone will find your digital dirt if it is on page five of the search results than if it is near the top of the first page.
3. If you can, post a comment to the offending blog article or otherwise present your side of the story. In other words, fight speech with speech. Accept that the other side will have a voice but don't allow them to have the only voice in the discussion. Include yours and then let the readers decide which is more believable. Hopefully your voice will be the one of reason and be favored by the readers you most care about.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 20, 2008 at 2:49 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Well, not really, but I got a real chuckle out of a blog comment in which the Minnesota Vikings head coach was criticized for choosing to play in this Sunday's game the able back-up quarterback, Gus Frerotte, rather than our number one, Tarvaris Jackson.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 18, 2008 at 11:47 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

My wife and I are celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary this week. We rented a cottage in Lake Placid, New York. What a wonderful area of the country.

The scenery is incredible, the weather has been great, there isn't too much to do -- just perfect.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 17, 2008 at 11:55 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

There's no question that most college students prefer paid internships to unpaid internships. After all, not many people would prefer to do the same work for nothing than receive compensation for it. But what if you're a student and are weighing competing offers for an okay internship that is paid and a great internship which is unpaid. Which do you accept?

Students whose finances allow them to find a way -- any way -- to accept the unpaid internship should do so. The little compensation that they will likely receive from the paid internship will almost surely pale in comparison to the increased compensation they will receive upon graduation when they're able to convert that great internship into a great entry level job.

Many students, however, barely have enough money to get through school. The choice is more difficult for some of these students as they may have to take on an part-time job in addition to their internship merely to pay their rent, buy books, or eat. These students should try as hard as they can to take the unpaid internship while working part-time. They should not hesitate to ask the internship employer for flexible or even part-time hours so that they can better juggle the two jobs.

The final bucket are those students who cannot make ends meet if they take the unpaid internship. It is quite unfortunate but the reality for these students is that they will need to take the paid internship in order to pay their bills. They should, however, strive to replace the experience they lost by foregoing the unpaid internship so that they can graduate with the best of all three worlds: the monetary compensation for the paid internship, the okay experience gained from the paid internship, and the great experience gained from the unpaid internship.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 11, 2008 at 8:29 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the problems with being a college student searching for an internship is that you're typically a young adult and lack the job hunting experience that people who graduated years ago have accumulated. One of the strategies that those more experienced job seekers employ much better than a typical college student is networking.

Should you include networking in your internship search strategy? Absolutely. About 70 percent of jobs are found through networking. I've heard even higher estimates of 90 percent and similar estimates that 90 percent of candidates only apply to internships which are advertised through on-campus recruiting, corporate career sites, and job boards such as CollegeRecruiter.com. I've also heard estimates that less than 10 percent of internships are advertised. If that's the case, then 90 percent of candidates are chasing after 10 percent of the internships. Wouldn't it make more sense to be in the other bucket where 10 percent of the candidates are chasing after 90 percent of the internships?

My recommendation is to apply to the advertised jobs. They're easy to find and it is easy to apply to them. Then get out of your comfort zone and network. Find a mentor, or two. Job shadow. Set up information interviews. Join trade associations. Volunteer. But get out of your comfort zone...or did I already recommend that?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 10, 2008 at 5:25 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Peter Weddle, the executive director of the International Association of Employment Web Sites, put on a great conference yesterday in Chicago at the Donald Stephens Convention Center. About 200 attendees representing about 120 boards attended. Two themes dominated the conversation: the effect of the recession on the job board industry and issues surrounding the mergers and acquisitions that effect our industry just as they effect any other fast growing industry.

Everyone that I heard talk about the recession issue agreed that we are in a recession even if the economists can't agree upon that. Actually, an economist spoke who said we are in a recession and it would likely get worse before it gets better. The discussions weren't so much about whether we are in a recession though but rather what effect that is having on our businesses and what we should do to minimize the damage. The consensus was that the recession is hitting some sectors worse than others but that the vast majority of boards are seeing reduced sales, longer sales cycles, or both. The boards who seem to be weathering the storm the best advised the others to focus on customer service and proving to their employer clients that their job postings and other recruitment advertising products are working. That can be difficult as most employers rely on candidate self-identification for their tracking or use some other fundamentally flawed technique but all of us can be doing a better job. Another word of advise from yours truly was to stop competing by focusing on innovation. Introduce products such as targeted cell phone text messaging campaigns where there is no competition in your niche and clients who want that product will need to come to you.

Another interesting part of the six hour long conference was the information about the mergers and acquisitions which have occurred in the job board industry. Allen Paschel of onTargetjobs led a panel of job board leaders who have purchased other sites. These leaders represented Dice, Jobing, JobServe, and Workopolis. They did a good job of explaining how they approach acquisitions, what they want to see, and how much they pay. For the last piece, they walked a fine line between giving the members some guidance on the ranges and multiples they've paid without violating any confidentiality agreements they have in place. For example, they all told us the least and most they've paid for acquisitions but didn't give any hints about how much they paid for any single acquisition.

I suspect that most industry trade groups are collegial groups who are led by people who genuinely care about their clients. While each member competes against other members, they all share common strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks. The associations work best when the members work together to maximize their strengths and opportunities and minimize their weaknesses and risks. And this association certainly works very well.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 9, 2008 at 4:55 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

Our search engine optimization expert friend, Joel Cheesman, recently posted a congratulatory note to some of the fastest growing job boards as ranked in the annual Inc. 5000 awards.

The winners that Joel highlighted were:

• Jobing - the 558th fastest growing privately held company from 2004 through 2007. They had 585.3 percent growth during that period with 2007 revenues of $36.2 million and 386 employees. That's $93,782.38 per employee.
• CollegeRecruiter.com at 1,043. Our growth rate was 269.5 with 2007 revenue of $2.4 million and eight employees. That's $300,000 per employee.
• Beyond.com at 1,297. Their growth rate was 292.3 with 2007 revenues of $10.3 million. That's $137,333.33 per employee.

One job board that Joel missed was Guru.com at 1,818. Their growth rate was 207.0 percent with 2007 revenues of $18.5 million. That's $925,000 per employee. Wow. And I thought that we were doing well.

Congratulations to all 5000 winners. None of us are doing everything right, but we all must be doing a lot of things right for our clients in order to achieve the type of growth we demonstrated over those four years.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 5, 2008 at 1:48 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm in Chicago on Monday for the International Association of Employment Web Sites Congress. Many and perhaps most of the member job boards will be represented there but certainly a number of the boards will be unable to send anyone or perhaps will only able to send some of the people they would have sent in an ideal world.

For those members unable to attend, I'll be writing frequent blog entries on the association web site. The blog provides an opportunity for you to participate in the dialogue and tap into the content of the conference from your own desktop or laptop, wherever you might be. We'll miss not having you there in person, but at least you'll have real time access to both the program and the views of your peers.

My plan is to give you the highlights of each and every session, solicit your feedback and questions, and add them to the interaction at the Congress. That way, you may not be seen, but you will be able to read what's happening and be heard at the Congress. To join the Congress Blog:

• Visit EmploymentWebSites.org and log into the Members Only area at any time during the Congress (12:00-6:00 p.m., September 8th);
  
• Scroll down to the section entitled Member Discussion Area and click on the link; and
  
• Click on the forum entitled 2008 IAEWS Fall Member Congress.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 5, 2008 at 8:38 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Imagine that you're considering a home remodel and are looking for an architect or designer to help you with the plans and perhaps also the construction. How would you find and choose that design / build residential remodeling firm? If you're like most, you'd talk with your neighbors, friends, and family and also go to search engines such as Google. But either way you're likely going to end up reviewing the remodeling firm's web site to learn more about them. Before they even know you exist, you'll likely know a lot about the projects they've completed and markets they serve.

When you're at the remodeling firm's web site, what would you want to see? Probably testimonials. Lots of them. Lots of quotes from happy clients. Lots of photos. Lots of success stories.

Now imagine that you're a job seeker and are looking for a new job. How would you do so? Probably in a very similar way. You'd talk with neighbors, friends, family, and go on-line. You'd go to the employer's web site and you'd know a lot more about them before they even know you exist. And if you're a highly qualified candidate with lots of options, why would you choose to apply to one employer versus another? Not because you're qualified and need a paycheck. Remember, you're highly qualified with lots of options. You'd choose to apply to one employer versus another because of their people.

Okay, so the people with whom you'll be working are important. How can an employer's site communicate that to you? A great way is through the use of, you got it, testimonials. Lots of them. Lots of quotes from happy employees. Lots of photos. Lots of success stories.

All employer web sites should have the testimonials. Few do and fewer do them well.

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

Know of anyone who is looking for a well paying, legitimate, home-based, media sales opportunity? CollegeRecruiter.com is hiring inside sales representatives to sell recruitment advertising such as targeted email campaigns, cell phone text messaging campaigns, job postings, and banner ads to our employer clients.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 4, 2008 at 12:22 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Last month we hosted a free webinar on how employers can and should use Facebook to recruit college students and recent graduates. We were very pleasantly surprised to have well over 500 attendees so we decided to make this a regular thing but we're adding a bit of a twist to the second.

The topic for our second free webinar will how to use cell phones for recruiting college students and recent graduates. The date will be Thursday, September 25, 2008 and time will be 2-3pm EDT / 1-2pm CDT / 12-1pm MDT / 11am-12pm PDT.

So what's the twist? We're auctioning the sponsorship for the event on eBay and will donate the proceeds to the clean-up efforts for Hurricane Gustav and other natural disasters. If your organization is looking for a great way to get wonderful exposure to hundreds of leading human resource and staffing professionals while also making positive contribution to a very worthwhile cause, then bid on the sponsorship today.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 3, 2008 at 7:04 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

This is definitely one of the most unusual press releases that I've run across in the 17 years since I founded this organization.

Press releases typically trumpet good news. You know, feel good stuff. But the folks over at WorkBlast apparently felt strongly enough about letting the world know that they've terminated their relationship with CareerTours that a press release trumpeting the not-so-good feeling stuff hit the wires.

Perhaps feelings hitting the wires isn't the best way of describing what appears to be a nasty break-up. Perhaps a better way of describing this announcement is something else hitting the fan. One has to wonder what happened between these two partners to cause that certain something to hit the fan. Here's the WorkBlast press release:

Los Angeles, CA - August 28, 2008 -- WorkBlast.com, the online leader in video resumes and career portfolios, has announced that it has terminated all ties to former partner company, CareerTours, among concerns regarding the company's vision for the future.

WorkBlast executives initiated the termination, and CareerTours agreed to end the relationship. The affiliation was terminated after less than 6 months.

WorkBlast CEO Nick Murphy is excited about what the future holds for the emerging online company. "WorkBlast is continuing to innovate and overcome obstacles associated with being a leader in an emerging industry. Unfortunately, sometimes obstacles arise from within strategic relationships, and you have to remove the friction that's slowing you down," Murphy said.

"WorkBlast has a specific vision for our business and for what we create for working professionals," COO Travis Cloyd added. "In order to move forward, we had to eliminate some challenges. We wish CareerTours nothing but the best with their local job board in Arizona."

Nicely written but apparently WorkBlast only wishes CareerTours the best with their local job board in Arizona and not their national aspirations or anything else. Hmmm.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 2, 2008 at 1:24 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Ever heard the expression that if you ask me to speak about something for an hour that I can be ready in five minutes but if you ask me to speak about something for five minutes that I won't be ready for an hour? Twitter is kind of like that. Rather than posting a blog article of any length, Twitter only accepts blog articles (Tweets) of 140 characters or less. Try condensing your next multi-paragraph piece of advice or thought into one or two sentences. It isn't easy. You really have to focus on what is the most important pieces.

If you're not yet using Twitter, see what it is like at my Twitter page. If you are using Twitter, I invite you to follow my Tweets. I'll be notified that you're following and promise to check out your Tweets as well.

Oh, and it doesn't really take me an hour to write a Tweet. Five minutes is pretty typical.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 2, 2008 at 10:16 AM | Leave a Comment (0)