During past recessions, many high school seniors elected to go to college and many college seniors elected to go to graduate school rather than face almost certain unemployment. This recession appears to be different.

Maureen Sharib, Telephone Names Sourcer/Trainer, drew my attention to a recent survey of 371 private institutions by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. According to the survey, two-thirds of the schools said they were greatly concerned about preventing a decline in enrollment. There are several reasons for the drop-off:

• Students are choosing to apply to and attend less-expensive state universities.
• Schools accepted more students under binding early-decision programs. The effect of each early acceptance is to reduce by eight to 10 the number of regular-decision applications.
• Some students are delaying their college plans.
• The cost of attending college or graduate school is many times greater than it was for previous generations even after inflation is taken into account so fewer students are able to afford to attend many of the schools.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 31, 2008 at 12:35 PM | Leave a Comment (2)

Is there any doubt by anyone that the way that Gen Y communicates is fundamentally different from the way previous generations communicated? I don't believe that the ways that Gen Y communicates are better or worse but they certainly are different. For example, this is the first generation to have grown up with cell phones.

Think about it. When did you make your first cell phone call? If you're like most adults, it was sometime in the mid-1990's. A small percentage made their first call in the early 1990's. Back then cell phones were typically hard wired into cars or were "portable" in the sense that they were in bags and you could unplug them from one car and plug them into another car. Big deal. Hardly a reason to describe a phone as being mobile.

Today's college students and recent graduates have taken the use of cell phones well beyond the way they were originally designed. In short, they're using the devices less and less as phones and more and more as information sharing devices. That distinction is incredibly significant as a phone can only take you so far in improving your productivity. But a personal communication / information sharing device has no productivity limits.

Art Koff of RetiredBrains.com recently emailed to me an article pointing out just how dramatic this distinction has become. For example, the proportion of U.S. mobile subscribers who access social networks on their cell phones nearly tripled to 9.6 percent over a year ago, according to eMarketer. Furthermore, by 2012, more than 800 million users worldwide will participate in social networks via their mobile device, up from 82 million in 2007.

To be sure, the absolute number of users remains relatively small but by 2012 the 20 percent of mobile social networking users "will have a disproportionate impact on marketing, media and mobile communications because creating and sharing digital content (user-generated and professional) forms much of the social networking experience." Consider that 15.6 percent of mobile users already use their phones to search the Web for local products and services, compared to 9.8 percent a year ago. And 14.3 percent searched outside their local area, up from 6.4 percent. Some 8.4 percent have watched a music video or other type of Internet video on mobile devices -- nearly double the 4.4 percent a year ago.

If your organization does not yet have a strategy in place to reach Gen Y via their mobile devices, you're already behind the curve and need to catch-up quickly. Some options are:

1. Watch our free webinar on the Best Practices for Boosting Your Brand On-Campus Through the Use of Cell Phone Text Messaging (SMS) Campaigns -- How to use targeted cell phone text messaging (SMS) campaigns to hire college students for internships and recent graduates and alumni for entry level jobs and other career opportunities. In our 48 minute webinar, we discuss what text messaging is, who receives ads on via text messaging, best practices for sending recruitment advertising via SMS, and some success stories.

2. Join me on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 12-1pm EST / 11am-12pm CST as I deliver the webinar, Lessons from the 2008 Presidential Campaign: Utilizing Mobile Communication to Reach Candidates and Engage Employees. Since the days of the AOL, "You've Got Mail," savvy recruiters have utilized email technology to reach current and prospective employees. But is email a dinosaur? Take a look at what Barack Obama's campaign did to recruit their target audience-- and recruit voters. They had a dedicated page for mobile content with wallpapers, ringtones and even an SMS alert service that tells you about local events, updates, and other tidbits to keep you involved and immersed in Obama. Can you do the same for your company through the utilization of mobile technology? Your workforce is global, virtual and tech savvy-- shouldn't your human capital department reflect these trends? Join us to learn the latest, and the future of, mobile technology. We'll decipher the terminology, the costs, and the potential benefits. We'll learn how a little knowledge can keep your company ahead of the curve-- and attract and retain the best and the brightest in the talent wars. Sponsored by Taleo.

3. Join me on Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 1pm EST / 12pm CST, as I deliver the webinar, How Employers Should Use Cell Phone Text Messaging to Recruit College Students. Only a decade ago most people didn't have cell phone and only a few years ago most users of cell phones hadn't even heard of text messaging. The rapid acceptance of cell phones and text messaging by all segments of the population is dwarfed how integral they are to the lives of today's college students and recent graduates. Quite simply, if you want to communicate efficiently and effectively with Gen Y, you need to be able and willing to communicate via text messaging. In this fast-paced, humorous, 60-minute presentation, you and your team will learn what the most effective top criteria for determining whether targeted cell phone text messaging campaigns are right for your organization, how they fit within your recruitment marketing mix, and creative approaches that break through the clutter and instantly grab the attention of today's entering workforce. This webinar will be held in conjunction with the Midwest Association of Colleges and Employers. The entire fee of $75 for MwACE members and $150 for non-members will go to MwACE. The registration deadline is January 8th.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 29, 2008 at 3:32 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Kevin Donlin of TheSimpleJobSearch.com tipped me off to a great, integration of Facebook and YouTube by a staffing company. Curious? I thought so. Have a look at what was built by Express Employment Professionals.

Kudos!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 23, 2008 at 6:39 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio's Jeff Horwich for his In The Loop show about the job market this year for college seniors. It is, without a doubt, the most difficult job market for college seniors in decades.

My portion of the show starts 7 minutes and 14 seconds in, but listen to it all of the way through. As is always the case, Jeff's show manages to be both informative and entertaining at the same time.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 19, 2008 at 6:40 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

On December 11th, Mike Palmquist and I hosted a free recruiting webinar on the five secrets for how employers should use Facebook to recruit college students for internships and recent graduates for entry level jobs and other career opportunities. It was, by far, our best attended webinar to-date and generated a whole lot of great questions from the attendees. We had over 800 attendees and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Miss the webinar? Watch it here:

To watch some of our other webinars or register for an upcoming webinar, visit our webinars page.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 19, 2008 at 3:08 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

It may seem merely intuitive that college students and recent graduates overwhelmingly report that they only act on emails which are relevant to them, but that probably comes as a surprise to some of the organizations out there who are engaged in what can only be generously referred to as email marketing.

Our biggest product by revenue for years has been targeted email campaigns so this is an area that we watch closely. We have an email database of 10 million college students, recent graduates, and alumni (the largest in the industry) which is 100 percent double opt-in (the highest standard in the industry), a single click for unsubscribing (also the highest standard in the industry), and up to 700 fields of data per candidate (far more than our competitors so we can do a much, much better job of targeting than can they). We're good at what we do and it shows: our average response rate is about three times the industry average.

We've seen the industry average response rates to email marketing messages drop and many of our competitors drop out because so many didn't get that email marketing is more than just sending marketing messages out by email. Many of our competitors and some of our clients refer to the product as an "email blast," which always causes me to cringe. That seems to imply that we're delivering emails on behalf of our clients using a shotgun approach: send enough out and something is bound to stick. And then those competitors and clients wonder why only a tiny, tiny fraction of the emails are actually opened (read) and only a tiny, tiny fraction of those are acted upon by the recipients. The reason is that the messages are going to the wrong people, or at least too high a percentage of them are going to the wrong people.

Employers and others who want to promote their opportunities need to think of email marketing as more akin to hunting with a rifle than a shotgun. It is far better for us to deliver 50,000 well targeted emails than 200,000 poorly targeted emails even though we would make almost four times the money on the latter blast. Why do we prefer to make less money by sending to 50,000 than 200,000? Simple. We know that if we were to deliver 200,000 poorly targeted emails then the response rate will be poor and we won't get repeat business and referrals. But if we deliver 50,000 well targeted emails we will likely deliver a great response rate, get renewals from that client for a long time, and get a lot of great referrals from that client.

A recent study by eROI backs up our thinking. They surveyed college students about email marketing and found that only 16 percent read marketing emails on a frequent basis and 66 of students rarely or never take action on marketing emails. Why? Again, most college students feel that companies' advertising is not effectively speaking to them personally:

• 60 percent of students take action upon receiving an email only if they are interested in the product;
  
• 47 percent; take action if they are attracted to a special offer; and
  
• 11% of students take action because of the design of an email.
  

Tip of the Hat: Art Koff from RetiredBrains.com for bringing this information to my attention.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 19, 2008 at 8:15 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

We keep close tabs on how college students and recent graduates use email because our biggest product by revenue is our targeted email campaign product. The trends are interesting and not well understood by many of the employers with whom we speak.

A common misconception by the employers is that the best email address for students is the address provided to them by their schools. Wrong. That is probably the worst address to use when trying to deliver emails. In addition to many of the schools having anti-spam filters that are lousy because they incorrectly identify a lot of legitimate email as spam, the systems are often archaic and sometimes even require the students to login in the on-campus computer labs. Today's students have a mobile lifestyle and are used to much more advanced email systems which are web-based. They simply don't tolerate archaic technology, nor should they. Boston College understands this and just became one of the first colleges in the nation to abandon its email system and is now helping its students shift over to Gmail.

A recent survey by eROI looked at how college students and recent graduates communicate digitally. As we've been seeing for years, most have multiple email addresses. The survey put the mean at 2.4 and indicated that the average student acquired their first email address 8 years ago at the age of 13.

Most interesting to me, though, was that students identified Gmail as their clear favorite for their primary email service:

• 32% of college students use Gmail as their primary email address
  
• 19% select Yahoo Mail
  
• 18% pick MSN/Hotmail
  
• 17% use their school email address as their primary address
  
• 14% use another address as their primary
  

So what does this mean for organizations who are trying to reach today's college students and recent graduates via email? You better be sure that you or your vendor are sending those emails to personal email addresses such as Gmail and not their school email address. When students register with CollegeRecruiter.com and opt-in to receive targeted email messages from our clients, we purchase from consumer marketing organizations additional data on those students such as their personal email addresses. So if a student registers with a .edu email address, we will know that they also have a Gmail address and we'll deliver your emails to the Gmail address. Far more of the emails get through and far more are read.

Tip of the Hat: Art Koff from RetiredBrains.com for bringing this information to my attention.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 18, 2008 at 8:42 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently announced what many involved in college recruiting have suspected for months: Americans between 20 and 29 years old have the highest unemployment rate of any age group. The national unemployment rate is 6.7 per cent. For those aged 25 to 29, the unemployment rate rose from five percent in November 2007 to a whopping 7.3 per cent in November 2008. Even worse was the unemployment rate for those between 20 and 24 years of age. In November 2007 it was 7.7 percent but in November 2008 it had climbed to 10.4 percent.

So what are we hearing? Most employers are telling us that they've scaled back their plans to hire more college students and recent graduates this year and instead the overall hiring plans seem to be roughly flat. In other words, an employer that a year ago hired 500 people may have planned as recently as a few months ago to hire 600 this year but they've likely since scaled that back to the same 500 as they hired last year. In addition, those same employers are deferring their offers so they can be more certain about what the economy will be like next spring and beyond and when they do extend those offers they're extending fewer of them. That's partially due to the scaled back hiring but also because candidates are far more likely this year to accept the first offer they receive so employers are getting a higher percentage of acceptances.

There is little doubt that this is the worst labor market for college students and recent graduates in decades.

Source: Globe & Mail

Tip of the Hat: Charles Cassels, Systems Engineer

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 17, 2008 at 4:05 PM | Leave a Comment (2)

One of the benefits of having a full-time content coordinator like Candice Arnold is that we are able to keep a close eye on what type of content is of most interest on our site. We track which blogs, videos, Q&A's, podcasts, etc. are generating the most clicks from search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN and then try to add more of that productive content and reduce the types of content which have proven to be of less interest to college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry level jobs.

We recently noticed that many of the most popular articles on our site included information specific to certain metro areas, states, or other regions. After Candice and I discussed the finding, we agreed to invest some resources in the creation of a new blog. The CollegeRecruiter.com Career Locations Blog features articles about great places that you may have never considered before, giving a brief overview of various places where students and recent grads can go to live, work and study. Enjoy!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 16, 2008 at 3:54 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Yesterday we delivered a free recruiting webinar on how the five secrets for how employers should use Facebook to recruit college students for internships and recent graduates for entry level jobs and other career opportunities. It was, by far, our best attended webinar to-date and generated a whole lot of great questions from the attendees.

We've been delivering these free monthly recruiting webinars since August. The highest number of registrations was about 500 and we typically see about half of the registrations converting into attendees. Based on information from other organizations who deliver webinars, we believe that the average attendee equates to two people as it is normal for one person in an organization to register and to watch the webinar with others. Some are undoubtedly gathered around a conference room table with the PowerPoint projected onto a screen and the speaker phone turned on. Can't you just picture a handful of recruiters and other human resource professionals munching on turkey sandwiches and sipping on sodas?

The Facebook webinar we delivered yesterday generated over 800 registrations and 539 attendees, so we probably had well over 800 and perhaps 1,000 actual people attending the webinar. The feedback we received during and afterwards was excellent. That is always so gratifying. We always hope to deliver high quality content with a minimum of sales-speak as we want the webinars to raise the level of conversation around these issues and to further build our brand. As more and more employers discover our site and learn that we know what we're talking about, they'll be more and more likely to spend a higher percentage of the recruitment advertising dollars with us.

So what were the questions?

Q: Why has linked in moved into the personal realm if it so successful?

A: LinkedIn has become more social to make itself more engaging and to better compete against sites such as Facebook. Interestingly, Facebook has moved more into the business realm over the past couple of years. These two sites are moving closer and closer together to increase the number of visitors and the number of pages viewed by those visitors. More visitors and more pages translate into more advertising revenue.

Q: Which percentage of your contacts do you think react or become also fan of the same group as you when they see it on your profile?

A: When a Facebook user becomes a "fan" of an organization's page, they are essentially doing the same as when individuals become "friends" of another person's page. When you become a "fan" or "friend," your other friends see that activity in their newsfeed and some will take notice, check out the organization you just became a "fan" of and do the same. Their friends then see their activity and it can become viral very quickly. That's a good thing for the organization as it generates a lot of fans quickly. But how many? I have no numbers but I suspect only a small percentage. But remember that a typical college student will have hundreds and often thousands of friends so the branding alone is great and if only five percent of their 1,000 friends also become your fans, then you just picked up 50 fans. If they each have 1,000 friends and five percent of their friends become fans, then you just picked up 2,500 fans.

Q: Where does "Plaxo" fit in to all of these different Social Networking sites?

I don't like Plaxo. It has similar functionality to many of the other social networking sites but I only hear about people using it as a reminder to send free birthday cards.

Q: When evaluating a potential candidate through Facebook, what is an acceptable balance between person/professional content? What content would turn off a recruiter?

Every recruiter is different. I talked with a rental car company about photos on Facebook and was astounded to hear that they liked the photo of a young male drinking a beer at a party. I was thinking that rental cars and alcohol didn't mix but the recruiter set me straight. They want people who party responsibly with their friends after hours. Those people have bigger personalities than those whose weekends consist of sitting in dark rooms watching films with subtitles.

Q: What is the difference between a fan page and a Group?

A fan page is like your home page on Facebook. It is your focal point. A group is like a discussion list or listserv. You use a group to engage in conversations with many people at the same time. You can trade emails back and forth very quickly about whatever topic your group is about.

Q: What is the cost to run a social ad on Facebook?

As little as $0.01. You choose how much per click to pay Facebook but Facebook's systems will automatically run the ads that generate the most revenue per average impression. Let's say that you pay $0.01 per click and every tenth person who sees your ad clicks on it. That means that Facebook will earn $1 for every 1,000 times they show your ad. Now let's say that I pay Facebook $0.50 per click (that's much closer to the typical amount you'd likely pay) but only one person in the 1,000 clicks on my ad. That means Facebook generated only $0.50 for the 1,000 impressions. They're going to run your ad over my ad even though I'm paying 50 times as much per click.

Q: What does college recruiter charge to create a fan page for a company?

I thought you'd never ask. We have several Facebook Recruiting Fan Page options ranging in price from just under $10,000 to just under $25,000. The standard package is $15,000 and includes the development of the page, 100 job posting ads on CollegeRecruiter.com which we can, if you wish, link to your Facebook page, and none of our branding on your page unless you want it.

Q: On our company page, is it possible to reach out to them and ask them to be our fan? Or do they have to make the first move to be our fan?

It is possible for you to create a Facebook Fan Page and then proactively ask users to become your fans. I would be very careful. If you already have a relationship or if you're asking for the fans through the ads, fine. But don't start messaging strangers who just happen to go to your target schools or otherwise fit your hiring criteria. They'll be turned off.

Q: LinkedIn claims that the average household income of its members is $110,000, 64 percent are male, the average age is 41.

A: Thank you. I did not have the average age at my fingertips during the webinar. Should have. Now we all do!

Q: Is there a site meter to keep track of the traffic.

Yes. Facebook provides you with some interesting metrics, especially once you get over 10 fans. When you hit that number, you start to get more detailed breakdowns. They don't want to give you those detailed demographics when you only have a couple of users because then you'd be able to infer the demographics of each of your users.

Q: Is it worth while to pursue senior candidates or highly technical candidates on Facebook? And if so how? We tend to focus on the intermediate and senior level in IT and there must be a different strategy to recruiting those individuals.

A: Facebook is going to be a more powerful strategy for recruiting college students and recent graduates than people with years of experience but that doesn't mean that people with years of experience aren't on Facebook. Many are. Just not as many. Ask your employees and candidates if they're using Facebook. If so, you need to be as well.

Q: Is it a good idea to outsource the day to day maintenance of a company's fan page if you don't have the internal resources?

A: Few organizations outsource their recruiting departments. This is part of recruiting. If your organization wouldn't outsource your recruiting function, then don't outsource the answering of recruiting questions whether they're coming from Facebook or anywhere else.

Q: In the legal industry there are blogs that are ruthless about law firms and gossip/rumors related to those firms. Therefore, we are considering doing a Facebook page that is not interactive and doesn't provide them the chance to blog. What are your thoughts on this and also how do you differentiate the content of this from what is on the website?

A: You're referring to the Wall, which is like a message board. You can adjust the settings so there is no Wall, a Wall where only your authorized employees can post information, or everyone can post. Even if you allow everyone to post, you can delete postings which are objectionable. But remember that Gen Y values open, honest, and transparent employers. Criticism of your organization is expected and valued. If the Marines can have a MySpace page and allow comments to be posted about them, then surely so can your law firm.

Q: If your company blocks social networking sites for IT reasons, what kind of work-arounds would you suggest or justifications tips would you offer to help get these sites approved to visit during work hours?

I.T. departments should not be setting business policies. If they do, your organization needs to adjust their thinking. I.T. departments exist to carry out business policies. Make the business case to those in charge that you need Facebook in order to network and communicate with your next generation of leaders. If you're blocked from using Facebook, then you're blocked from effectively communicating with the best and brightest candidates.

Q: If Facebook is to be used for networking, would you recommend our personal pages be PUBLIC?

Yes, provided that your personal pages are G or PG-13 rated. If they're not yet, then make them so. That goes even if you choose not to make your personal pages public. Your friend today may be your enemy tomorrow. What you post on-line anywhere is public. There is no such thing as privacy in today's society. We can be upset about that and say that's not good, but it is so. We need to learn to live with it and leverage it.

Q: I understand your average age portion but it gives us a rough estimate of the people using it, do you happen to know how ages are distributed in a statistical manner?

A: The presentation indicated that the average age of a MySpace user is 35 and the average age of a Facebook user is 25 so about half are older and about half are younger. Virtually none will be under 13 because of federal laws while virtually none will be senior citizens because these sites are targeted at a much younger audience. The heaviest users of Facebook are young adults. There are far more of them registering with the sites, using the sites, using the sites on a daily basis, and looking at more pages.

Q: If you create a banner ad that you only want sent to individuals that work at a certain company, will Facebook be able to tell you how many people are in their "database" that are from that company so you know how many potential people you may hit?

A: I'm sure that Facebook has that information but the self-service ad placement engine does not release that information. If you're targeting a specific organization, type in the name of that organization to pull up its "network." Those are all of the people who are affiliated with that organization (i.e., are employed there). Have a look that way. You may not be able to see the people in the network. Different networks are set up in different ways.

Q: I know how to find Friends. How do you find Employers on Facebook?

A: The same way. Type in the name of the employer in the search engine. If that doesn't work, click on the link to the advanced search and use that to search the fan pages.

Q: Is it effective to do boolean searches on Facebook to find candidates? If so what is the best way to do this?

A: Facebook has a better way than boolean searches. They have a Profile Search feature which allows you to enter your desired criteria into one of more of about two dozen fields. Some aren't likely to be terribly relevant like movies people have indicated they like but others are great like geography and education fields.

Q: How do you link an existing fan page to your own personal profile?

To create a link from your personal to your Fan page, enter your Fan Page web site address (URL) into the web site address field. To link from your Fan Page to your personal page, become a Fan or enter your information in the description field. Those are just a few ideas but there are a number of options.

Q: How can I get a print out of the presentation and is it being recorded for access later by people who did not make the meeting today?

I can email a copy of the PowerPoint to you. Email me at Steven@CollegeRecruiter.com. You're better off watching the recording though. That will be live on our Webinars page sometime next week. The recording made by the webinar software needs to be edited a little bit and then uploaded to Google Video.

Q: E&Y is a well known brand so perhaps don't need to actively attract Fans. What do you do to attract Fans if you are a lesser brand?

A: Network. E&Y is a well known brand and has huge, huge recruiting needs. I'm not saying they have a lot of recruiting problems. I'm just saying they hire a lot of people. Chances are your organization is less well known because it is smaller and hires fewer people. If you hire 1/100th of the numbers E&Y hires, then you have 1/100th of the needs so you can do just as well on Facebook with 1/100th the number of fans. A great strategy is to ask your current employees to become your fans and to invite their friends to become fans as well. Even if they don't invite their friends, their friends will learn about your Facebook Fan Page when your employee becomes a fan as Facebook will automatically inform the friend of your friend's activity. You can also promote with advertising. Many firms will buy the social ads from Facebook. We believe that a better strategy is to buy targeted email or cell phone text messaging campaigns to drive your desired candidates to your Facebook Fan Page.

Q: Do you think that candidates are more likely to accept a friend request from a company versus a recruiter from a company?

A: It probably depends upon the comparative strengths of the organization and personal brands. If the organization has a much stronger brand than the personal brand possessed by the recruiter, then the organization will likely get more candidates to accept the "become my fan" offer than the recruiter gets from their "become my friend" offer.

Q: Do you have statistical information on percentage of people using Facebook and MySpace for job searching?

A: Very, very few go to those sites to search for jobs. But we're all candidates all of the time. Even those who aren't actively looking for a job and can best be described as passive are candidates. Present just about anyone with a much better opportunity than they have now and suddenly they're actively looking for a job and that job is the one that you're offering to them.

Q: Can you and do you recommend having different pages for personal and business?

No. I don't think that in 2008 we need to pretend that our personal lives are completely separate from our personal lives. They never have been and never will be. We are who we are. People connect to us because of who we are personally and professionally and those connections occur in our personal and professional lives. If you love softball and play with your non-work friends, what's the harm in a candidate seeing that? And there's potentially great benefits to a candidate seeing that. Think of the great candidate who you're struggling to engage who coincidentally likes softball. Hmmm.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 12, 2008 at 5:33 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Yesterday and again today I was contacted by recruiting professionals asking for my assistance in helping them find a new job. Both were recently laid off by their employers after years of service. I feel for both of them. There is never a good time to be laid off, but especially not in a volatile recession like we're experiencing right now.

The point of this blog entry isn't to criticize these two professionals but instead to use their behaviors to illustrate a point. I've been trying to talk with both of these people for years about how CollegeRecruiter.com can help their organizations hire college students or recent graduates through one or more of our products including job postings, targeted email campaigns, cell phone text messaging campaigns, and more. Neither returned any of my calls or emails. Not even to say, "Thanks, but no thanks." Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

But now that these individuals are in need all of a sudden I'm their best friend. Well folks, it doesn't work that way. This isn't how networking is done. Networking is not about what others can do for you. Instead, it is about what you can do for others. Some of those others will someday return the favor and some won't. You don't worry about which ones which and which ones won't because you need to remember that with networking it is all about giving away nickels. You see, they tend to come back as dollars. Not all of them. Not even most of them. But enough of them that networking is a valuable activity both for you and those in your network.

Recruiters always talk about how much they prefer passive candidates and complain about how college students don't network well. Interesting that as soon as the recruiters are the ones looking for work their job search skills don't hold up so well. Next time you talk with someone who is complaining about the networking skills of their candidates, turn the tables on them and ask them about what they've been doing for their network. How many nickels have they been giving away? That might be a hard conversation to have, but perhaps you'll be helping them not be the third recruiter who calls me looking for help.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 10, 2008 at 1:17 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

It is no secrets that career fairs have seen better days. With more and more employers directing candidates to apply on-line, more and more candidates are avoiding the hassles and stress of attending in-person job fairs because they're largely unproductive. You wait forever to get in and speak with a recruiter but get only a few minutes and perhaps just seconds of their time. They listen, nod, and tell you to apply at their web site. So why even bother going?

Perhaps the failures of this sourcing tool explain why Monster.com and its partner National Career Fairs seem to have greatly pumped up their volume of unsolicited, bulk, commercial emails. I've gone from rarely receiving emails about career fairs just weeks ago to multiple emails a day. Have a look at my spam folder for today.

One email every once in a while I get. But 16 in a day and still seven hours to go before this day is officially over? Ridiculous.

Is it just me or are these guys spamming the heck out of everyone who moves? I don't have a resume on Monster.com and have never opted in for their mailings. Same with National Career Fairs. I pity those who actually did give permission to these organizations. If I'm getting 16 without having provided my opt-in, I can't even imagine how many emails must be going to those who did provide their opt-in.

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

I just found out from Mike Palmquist, one of our national account executives, that almost 700 people have registered so far for our webinar this Thursday, December 11th on how employers can and should use Facebook to recruit college secrets and recent graduates. During the webinar, I'll discuss the five secrets that those with more experience don't want revealed to those with less experience.

There's still time to register. We have a limited number of "seats" so don't delay. Register today even if you can't attend as we'll email a link the video recording out to all registrants.

Mike and I look forward to delivering another of our free, monthly webinars. See you there this Thursday from 2-3pm EST / 1-2pm CST / 12-1pm MST / 11am-12pm PST!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 8, 2008 at 11:48 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Anyone who has been using the Internet over the past few years has noticed the incredible rise in popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. But what many have failed to notice is the accompanying rise in the sites by employers who are always looking for new and innovative ways to exclude candidates from their hiring pools.

That may sound a little harsh but it is true. Too many hiring managers and human resource professionals are looking for the perfect candidate or feel that they have too many well qualified candidates. So what to do? Well, make your job easier by finding ways to eliminate candidates from consideration. I'm not saying I condone that behavior. Quite the contrary. But it happens. Too often. And to the detriment of the candidates and the employers. Recruiting isn't supposed to be easy. The most important things rarely are. But I digress.

I recently ran across a survey by Careerbuilder that indicated that 22 percent of hiring managers said they use social networking sites to research job candidates. That's twice the number the same survey found in 2006. While that increase is significant, I bet that the vast majority of the 78 percent of hiring managers who claim they aren't using the sites don't realize or don't want to admit that they actually are. When you run a candidate's name through Google, you are indirectly searching MySpace and other social networking sites which do not require users to login in order to view profile pages.

What else was in the survey? Some 34 percent report they found content that caused them to dismiss candidates from consideration. Of course, the vast majority of those hiring managers probably did the same stuff while they were in college but there were no digital cameras or social networking sites back then so the use of that information to exclude candidates from the hiring process is troubling at best and often quite hypocritical.

On the positive side, 24 percent of hiring managers indicated that they favored some job seekers over others because of their social networking profiles. These favored job seekers included attractive information about themselves in their profiles such as:

• Candidate's background supported their job qualifications;
  
• Great communication skills;
  
• Good fit for employer's culture;
  
• Profile page was professional;
  
• Great references;
  
• Wide range of interests;
  
• Awards or other accolades; and
  
• Profile was creative.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 3, 2008 at 8:54 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm about to leave for a trip to Washington, D.C. No, I'm not about to be announced as one of the new Obama Administration appointees. Thank goodness. What those people have to put up with is incredible. All the infighting, double crossing, political games, back stabbing. No wonder very little gets done by politicians in the Beltway and what does get done so often seems to be a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

My trip will be mostly business and perhaps a little time for a museum or two. I've got several client meetings lined up for Wednesday, I'm speaking at Brainstorm Consulting's very promising college recruiting conference on Thursday, then more client meetings on Friday, then home. This will undoubtedly be one of those trips when I fall asleep on the plane shortly after boarding and don't wake up again until we've begun our descent. It is pretty weird that I'll sometimes wake up and not even be aware that we've taken off. Ah, the romance of business travel.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 2, 2008 at 5:16 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

There are a lot of employers out there today who are faced with a difficult predicament: they're receiving enough qualified applicants for their current openings or they're not hiring or they're laying off staff. In that kind of environment, who would advice them to continue to spend money on recruitment advertising? Well, I would.

Employers who slashed their college recruitment spending in the 2000-03 recession lived to regret it. Actually, some didn't live to regret it in part because they were penny wise and pound foolish.

It is tempting to slash your college recruiting budget when you're receiving enough qualified applications, not hiring, or even laying off but the budget should be re-allocated from spending which is designed to solicit applications to spending which is designed to build a quality, long-term brand. During the last recession, many employers forgot that college hiring is strategic and, faced with a tactical budgetary problem, they cut their college hiring budgets. That decimated their brand with professors, college career service office professionals, and the students. Many of those organizations are still struggling to re-build their brands and relationships and are spending far more money today because they didn't continue to spend far less six years ago.

So if you're faced with the tactical problem of enough qualified applicants, lack of hiring, or layoffs then re-allocate your recruitment advertising budget. Don't spend it on products such as job postings or resume searching as those are primarily designed to generate applications. Instead, spend your budget by building your brand for tomorrow. Send targeted emails or cell phone text messages to the candidates who you will want to recruit a month from now, a year from now, or even several years from now. Build a Facebook Fan Page. Run banner ads. But don't

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 1, 2008 at 4:09 PM | Leave a Comment (0)