The Wisconsin Dells is an area which has incredible natural beauty, is very close to Madison and a few hours northeast of Chicago, features many hotels with incredible waterparks, and may have the highest concentration of billboards of any town in the U.S. Get outside of the town and you are in heaven.

If you go to the Dells and drive through the town, you feel that you are almost literally in an obnoxious carnival. It is really unfortunate that the town leaders didn't have the foresight decades ago to limit or even prohibit the massive store signs and billboards which visually pollute their town and give you the urge to move your wallet from your back pocket to your front pocket or perhaps even a money belt.

So what does this have to do with CollegeRecruiter.com? As is the case with too many web sites, we have the tendency to add "just one more thing" to our pages. Each individual link and banner is fine, but once you've added a bunch of them the effect is to visually pollute our site design. We have, in short, transformed a very clean, Google-esq look-and-feel into something which closely resembles the Wisconsin Dells.

Within days, look for a much cleaner design with much easier navigation. We've listened to the job seekers, employers, consumer marketers, and other stakeholders who use our site and find it hard to find the articles and other information they want. I've seen the final mock-ups and they're a HUGE improvement over what we have now. We'll still have the Google-esq look-and-feel that we want, but without the clutter.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 30, 2009 at 11:26 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Isn't it interesting that one person's dream is another's nightmare? Many college students and recent graduates would just about kill for an opportunity to work for leading technology companies such as Google, Amazon.com, Yahoo!, Facebook, MySpace, IODA, Workforce Logic, Mashable, and Mahalo. Yet each and every one of those organizations gets the nod in a list of the 10 worst entry-level jobs in information technology:

• Online sales and operations account manager, Google
• Support engineer, Washington-Seattle, Amazon.com
• Content Acquisition Intern, IODA
• Customer support specialist, Fox Interactive, MySpace division
• Database administrator (temporary), Google, contracted through WorkforceLogic
• Support professional, product: Windows, Microsoft
• Executive admin to Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore
• Analyst, user operations, Facebook
• Operations finance, analyst intern, Yahoo
• Part-time guide, Mahalo

Source: Gawker

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 29, 2009 at 7:57 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

A tip of the hat to my twin sister, Marnie Tod, for sending to me a great video on Facebook manners. Amongst other nuggets, don't use Facebook to break up with your girlfriend:

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 28, 2009 at 8:06 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Our sales people are regularly asked by clients, especially ad agencies, for demographics on our site visitors. These buyers of advertising want to be sure that they'll be running their ads on a site that will help them reach their desired target market, whether that is college students, recent graduates, U.S. residents, or some other group.

But how do you get a rough idea of site demographics if they can't provide them to you, won't provide them to you, or you don't want to ask for them? Try sites such as Quantcast. Their methodology is somewhat flawed as they typically don't have access to the web site's server logs so at best all they can do is estimate the number and make-up of users to whatever site you're researching. Sites such as Quantcast typically do that by adding their tracking software to the computers of thousands of users. These users typically do so in return for being paid or provided some other type of incentive. That system ensures that they're not random and therefore not representative of the overall Internet population so you need to take the results with a grain of salt, but some information is usually better than no information.

Below are the demographic results that Quantcast shows for visitors to CollegeRecruiter.com. About the only number that really jumps out at me as being highly questionable is their estimate that 26 percent of our users are African-American. That's more than double the percentage that you'd expect to see in a random sampling and there's nothing that we do in terms of content or promotion of our site that would explain why such a large percentage of our users would be African-American. Again, take the results with a grain of salt.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 28, 2009 at 7:33 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Recent graduate, Amanda Hoffstrom, just posted a nice blog article about how she was skeptical about using Twitter as part of her job search but then read an article about 50 job search experts to follow on Twitter, followed them, and has found it helpful in her job search. One of those experts was the dude who posts career information to Twitter.com/StevenRothberg. Maybe you've heard of him.

Amanda wrote that "Twitter offers a quick way to stay connected to leaders in your chosen profession." News organizations are just as important for her to follow as career experts. She also follows companies she's interested in working for, previous employers, journalism and media job boards some friends. She's founder that "once you start following someone, they often follow you back, and may respond to you if you post a question or solicit advice about looking for a job. If you follow the right people, you can also find job openings." She has applied to positions via Twitter's job search engine and through links companies post on their account.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 27, 2009 at 11:05 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm a big fan of performance-based recruitment advertising, which essentially means that the advertiser only pays for ads which deliver the results promised by the publisher. For pay per click job posting campaigns, that generally means you pay the publisher each time someone sees your ad on the publisher's site and clicks on the ad to go to your site. For pay per lead job posting campaigns, that generally means you pay the publisher each time someone sees your ad on the publisher's site, clicks on the ad to go to your site, and then registers at your site. Employers buying advertising on a pay per lead basis will often refer to these campaigns as pay per resume or pay per applicant because they are paying for job seekers to submit their resumes or otherwise register at the employer's web site.

But what do these campaigns really cost? For those who have never purchased advertising on a pay per click or pay per lead basis, the jargon and math can be a little daunting. First, let's look at a pay per click campaign. If you pay Google, Yahoo, or a job board like CollegeRecruiter.com $0.50 per click (the amounts vary considerably depending on the publisher and your target audience) then for each click you pay $0.50. Easy enough, right? Not so fast. What employers really care about is their cost per hire. In other words, what is their total cost to hire one person?

Let's use numbers gathered by CareerXroads from large employers to help guide us. They reported that the average employer saw about 68,000 visitors reached their staffing pages, about 18,000 of the visitors completed an application for a specific job, about 6,000 of the completed applications were qualified applicants for the jobs they applied for, about 2,000 of the 6,000 became finalists, and the 2,000 finalists turned into 500 hires. So for every hire, the employers had four finalists, 12 qualified applications, 36 applications, and 136 visitors.

If the employers paid $0.50 per click for each of these visitors, the cost of one hire would be 136 visitors times $0.50 per click, which is $68. Not bad. Another way of buying performance-based advertising is on a per lead basis. Lead-based campaigns also vary widely in pricing depending on the publisher and the target market but let's use the standard $5 per lead that we charge. If the same employers had run a pay per lead instead of pay per click campaign, they would have paid $5 per lead times the 36 applications they received, which works out to a cost of $180. That's a little less than three times the cost of a pay per click campaign so on the surface pay per click is a better deal but remember that the numbers vary considerably depending on the publisher and the needs of the advertiser.

Remember when I wrote that I'm a big believer in pay for performance? This is why. The risk of the ad not performing well is all on the publisher. If we don't deliver the candidates that we should, we don't get paid. But if we do deliver, we are paid and should be paid more because we shouldered the risk of non-performance. If you ran an ordinary job posting ad for 60 days then we'd charge $175. You'd probably hire someone but maybe not. Either way, you're paying $175. If you shift some of the risk to us and run it instead as a pay per click campaign then using the numbers above we'd make $68. If you shift all of the risk to us then we'd make $180 using the numbers above.

Pay for performance isn't about saving money for the advertiser or making more money for the publisher. It is about better aligning their short- and long-term interests. Both sides have a powerful financial incentive to do everything they can to make the ad work. The advertiser wants to hire someone and the publisher wants to generate the right candidate flow so they make money from the advertising. And wouldn't it be great if all of your vendors had their interests fully aligned with theirs?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 27, 2009 at 6:20 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Most of our largest employer and consumer marketing clients work with advertising agencies. The employers tend to work with recruitment advertising agencies and the consumer marketers tend to work with consumer marketing agencies. A small number of the agencies send ad campaigns to us for both types of clients. One of those agencies is Minneapolis-based Campus Media Group.

The CEO of Campus Media is Tom Borgerding. I met Tom way back in the 1990's when he was the president of the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association and I was a lot younger. Tom and his co-workers at Campus Media have done a lot of work with CollegeRecruiter.com over the years. We receive proposal requests from them often and they're a pleasure to work with. You've heard the expression under promise and over deliver? That's Campus Media. They consistently make the lives of their clients easier and the outcomes of their campaigns better.

Tom recently asked me if some of our recruitment and consumer marketing clients might be interested in a free review of their media strategy and I told him yes. Most? Maybe not. Some? Almost certainly. I asked Tom to send to me a description of the offer so that I could get the word out to our clients:

Why are we offering a review of your college recruitment strategy and campaigns:

1. Someone loves you very much to have passed this on to you. We only offer this through companies we trust to pass this on to brands/companies that they feel can use it.
   
2. There are many companies that try recruiting and marketing to students and get burned because they aren't familiar with the space. For those who are serious about marketing to students, we want to help you be more successful.
   
3. There are many channels out there that can do great things for recruitment and brand building.
   
4. We see so many brands making many mistakes in marketing to students. It only hurts everyone involved - student, brand, and media - if those efforts aren't successful. Students can tell when a brand doesn't take them seriously.
   
5. We know there's a need for a pragmatic approach to youth marketing. Many brands don't have or take the time to know the opportunities as well as we do since this is the only thing we do.
   In the economy we are in it is a good idea to make sure what you are doing is successful and priced right.
   
6. If we can show you some great ideas, we'd love to help you be more successful.
   

• To help you more effectively plan/buy youth recruitment media and marketing (save you money on media purchased)
  
• To provide an objective, outside view of the strategy and plan(s) put together
  
• To provide recommendations for future plans
  

• Confirm you are effectively and efficiently executing your plans/strategies to fit your brand and goals
  
• Give you a written report of suggestions/recommendations/confirmation of your strategy
  
• Provide you with some new thinking about how you look at your campaigns
  

• Up to 10 hours of consulting time
  
• Review existing brand positioning, media plans and marketing strategies (up to 5 hours)
  
• Media and marketing costs analysis to make sure you are getting the best rates available (or a thumbs up on what you are currently doing)
  
• Analysis of your overall reach to your target market
  
• Confidentiality assured
  

• Contact us - Tom Borgerding, President/CEO
  
• 952.854.3100 x18
  
• Tom@CampusMediaGroup.com
  
• www.CampusMediaGroup.com
  

Campus Media:
We are a leading national youth media and marketing company that specializes in knowing how to buy, help manage, and use all the various media channels and recruitment and marketing tactics available to build your brand on and near campus. You could also say that we're a group of professionals who know a lot about college campuses and the young people that populate them, which allows us to bring a variety of useful ideas to life. And you could definitely say that our ability to plan and execute unique campaigns will save you time and money. You can learn more about us at www.CampusMediaGroup.com or by calling us at 952.854.3100.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 24, 2009 at 10:27 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm hearing more and more rumbles from college students and recent graduates that Facebook isn't relevant to them. Maybe their passion for it has waned. Maybe it is repulsive for them to go to a social networking site where the fastest growing group of users are Baby Boomer women. But regardless of the rumblings, Facebook is still the most popular site for Gen Y. Consider these stats:

• 200 million people globally have accounts
• 50 percent of those with accounts access Facebook at least once a day
• 8 million college students have Facebook accounts
• 85 percent of those college students access Facebook at least once a day

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 24, 2009 at 8:02 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Do you know of a student or recent graduate who is unable to find an internship for the summer? If they can't find one, tell them to create one.

Heather Huhman, the entry level careers examiner at Examiner.com, posted an article today about how students and recent graduates can propose internships to employers. I had some additional ideas for Heather but missed her deadline. Here are my ideas:

If a student or recent graduate is interested in proposing an internship program to an organization at which they would like to work, the student or recent graduate should provide the potential employer with a paragraph or two of information about the value to employers of having internship programs as many employers don't realize that internship programs can be beneficial to both the candidate and the employer rather than just the employer.

The candidate should explain their thought for the specific internship position that should be created and the value to the employer of creating that position. They need to show the employer that the hiring of an intern for the specific position will increase the employer's revenue, decrease its costs, or both. The candidate should explain why they are well qualified for the position.

The format the proposal should be created will depend upon the employer. I recommend asking the employer how they prefer to receive it. Larger employers with multiple recruiters may have as many preferred formats as they have recruiters. Some recruiters prefer Word, others email, others PowerPoint. If the candidate doesn't know, I recommend send the proposal in the body of an email and offering to send the same information in a Word, PowerPoint or other program if the employer prefers. If the candidate sends the information to the employer contact in the format that the contact prefers, then it is more likely that the contact will read and take positive action on the proposal.

The student or recent graduate should first find out who is the appropriate contact and ask how they prefer to receive the information. The student or recent graduate should then send the information and follow-up with the contact by phone to make sure that the contact received the information and get an estimated date by which the contact will have reviewed it. The student or recent graduate should then follow-up with the contact a business day or two after that date and repeat if necessary. All of these follow-ups should be courteous and the language used by the student or recent graduate should about trying to help the contact, not about the needs or wants of the student or recent graduate. For example, you wouldn't want to say that you are calling because you want to find out if they are going to hire you. Instead, say that you're calling to make sure they received your proposal because sometimes spam filters delete emails that shouldn't be deleted and you want to make sure that the contact received the email that they asked you to send.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 23, 2009 at 12:06 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Brill Street + Company recently conducted a study that asked Generation Y workers about their place in todays workforce. The conversation focused largely on technology and new media as respondents discussed the marketing power of social networks, the amount of time they spend online, and how employers often limit the use of new media tools that could help make a company more relevant.

"The power of this generation in corporate America cannot be underestimated," said Brandi Blades, VP of Marketing for Brill Street. "Our study provides valuable insights into the way Gen Y works."

Brill Street CEO Joe Dwyer remarked, "When new minds utilize new technology, brands and businesses grow. With the proper tools and a relevant corporate culture, Gen Y can make the difference between a ho-hum brand with average sales to one with extraordinary market share." Dwyer added that "surveys like this one give employers a sense of how to harness the power of the fresh talent pool."

I had the pleasure of Brandi at the Campus Recruiting Forum yesterday in Chicago. Employers should put them on their short list when searching for a talent acquisition agency that specializes in connecting emerging Gen Y talent and employers across all industries.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 22, 2009 at 4:58 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

American industry has always been at the leading edge of innovation as our focus on maximizing productivity and profitability are powerful motivators. But recently there have been rumors that the owners of our dwindling number of sweatshops are no longer holding up their end of the bargain and have lost the edge to their southeast Asian competitors. This video makes it clear that those rumors can no longer be discounted.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 21, 2009 at 7:57 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I've been speaking with employers privately, at conferences, on webinars, and by smoke signals for several years about how and why they should use social networking sites such as Facebook and other social media sites as part of their recruitment strategy. Most of the surveys that I see indicate that about 25 percent of employers admit to using the sites yet about 75 percent admit to Googling candidates, at least as part of their background checking process. What many in that 75 percent group apparently don't understand is that when they Google a candidate, they are searching many and perhaps most of the pages on the social media sites so even if they aren't directly using the social media sites, they are using the social media sites.

The frustration level by employers is pretty high when I talk with them about the importance of sites such as Twitter. Just when they're starting to feel comfortable with the importance of their web pages coming up high in Google search results (search engine optimization), buying ads on the search engines (search engine marketing), and social networking sites such as Facebook, along comes yet another opportunity. They just don't feel that they have the time or mental energy to tackle yet another web-based tool and I don't blame them. Time and energy are limited commodities. If we add Twitter to our daily activities, something has to give. So what's a recruiter to do?

Pizza Hut apparently decided that Twitter is a web-based tool that is important but that their regular staff didn't have the ability or willingness to properly use it so they're hiring an intern. According to Bob Kraut, vice president for marketing communications, the intern will attend advertising shoots, product meetings and other corporate events. "They'll be our social media journalist, chronicling in 140 characters or less what's going on at Pizza Hut," said Kraut. The intern will also monitor Twitter for any mentions of Pizza Hut's brand and alert superiors whenever anything negative about the Hut is being said so they can respond as appropriate. No mention as to whether Pizza Hut will have the intern use Twitter to help with recruitment, but hopefully.

The days are long gone when organizations could exclusively rely upon traditional public relations outfits to monitor and shape the dialogue taking place in the media about them. Just as many organizations don't have the ability or willingness to be on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other social media sites, neither do their public relations firms. If this problem describes your organization, then don't pretend the problem isn't there or can be dealt with tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. There are huge opportunities and risks to all organizations from these social media sites. You can either sit back and wait for bad stuff to happen and for your stakeholders to know about it before you do, or you can get out in front of it and be part of the dialogue so when bad stuff does happen, you can minimize the damage and perhaps even turn a negative into a positive.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 20, 2009 at 10:06 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Just got off the phone with my buddy and owner of The Simple Job Search, Kevin Donlin. He alerted me to a new video about a new video about new rules for those who want to become Canadian citizens.

I left Canada 21 years ago -- I just that I moved from Winnipeg to Minneapolis for the weather. But Canada is a wonderful place to live, especially if you're a hockey nut like Kevin. Truthfully, Kevin's hockey knowledge is admirable with two minor flaws:

1. He still believes that the U.S. men's hockey team should have won gold at the Olympics in Salt Lake City and therefore still owes me the six pack of Summit beer.
   
2. He's a Detroit Red Wings fan. Nuff said.
   

Here's the video. Enjoy, eh!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 17, 2009 at 7:44 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

The job market for this year's 1.4 million college graduates is not exactly bleak, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, but employers will continue to be very selective, meaning they will look for candidates with more experience and motivation and knowledge on the industry they want to enter.

Brent Peterson, interview expert and Founder of Interview Angel says the keys to standing out are research, knowledge and preparation. "It almost seems ridiculous to enforce this almost 'old school' and common sense approach to securing a job," said Peterson. "Still, far too many people today treat job interviews like closed book exams, walking in blind. Everyone has to get back to really preparing and researching the company and job in which they're interviewing. Stop being 'job seekers' and become 'problem solvers' for companies."

Peterson says what graduates have to understand is that they will be competing with an unprecedented number of unemployed and underemployed Americans that are more experienced. "Unfortunately, there is no college course created to prepare graduates for this phenomena and that's where something like Interview Angel fills in the blanks."

Peterson says that there are specific things first time candidates need to think about, consider and prepare before the interview. Here are a few:

• Narrow down the list of the organizations in which you'd like to work and thoroughly research them and the problems they face. Even an entry level employee can offer inventive ideas and problem solving skills.
  
• Define and write out your goals, experiences, and value before meeting with an employer.
  
• Find a mentor. Ask a professor, family friend or meet a professional in the field you want to enter to mentor you. They can offer valuable referrals, support and advice on how to present yourself to hiring managers.
  
• Be prepared to fill an employer need, not a job vacancy. Even if it's filing papers, making coffee and doing research, show that you are ready to do it to the best of your abilities and desire longevity with the company.
  
• Preparing prior to the interview will ensure that you clearly communicate your value and experience. No one likes to walk out of an interview thinking "I should have said this..."
  
• It's not enough to just walk into the interview. KNOW the company and position you're after. Let them know you could easily the position and transition in tomorrow.
  

• The obvious is dressing professionally, being courteous and making an effort to thank the hiring manager for their time. Let them know that you are interested in the position and clearly re-state the value you will bring to the company.
  
• Be energetic. You may not have a lot of "meat" on your resume but presenting yourself in the interview as energetic, knowledgeable on the industry and willing to learn and work hard can make all the difference.
  
• Communicate your goals in working with the company. Do you aspire to be vice-president, invent a new product, increase online presence or help them triple sales? Share your dreams and inspire the hiring manager.
  

Peterson adds that he has seen many people come in unprepared for interviews, knowing almost nothing about the company in which they're interviewing. "It's disrespectful to the company, and a waste of both our time. If you want to get that job, then inspire the hiring manager to believe that fact. It will show in everything you do and say in your interview." But, he warns that appearing too overeager can have an adverse outcome.

"It's like a business presentation. You wouldn't pitch new ideas or business without a plan, so create a career plan that focuses on presenting the very best of yourself in interviews. You will definitely increase your odds of landing the job of your dreams."

He continues, saying "Just about everyone who has taken my advice on interviewing and/or used Interview Angel said it made the difference in whether they got the job or not. They worked hard to create and fine tune their interview style and increase their knowledge, and almost immediately they received offer letters."

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 16, 2009 at 3:01 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

One of the greatest resources for corporate and third party recruiters is ERE.net. Today was certainly no exception. ERE published a great article by Jeff Dickey-Chasins about features that job board clients want and don't want in the job boards they use:

1. Make it easy to buy from a salesperson or on-line -- whichever the client chooses. We do that. It never ceases to amaze me how many of our competitors do a pretty good job of describing their products and then have the infamous "call for pricing" verbiage on their sites. As a business-to-business and business-to-consumer buyer, my reaction to "call for pricing" is that I call another vendor for pricing.

2. Make your job board easy to use. We went through a complete re-design 11 months ago to make our site incredibly easy to use. We've since found some things that are making our site harder to use than it should be -- mostly our navigation. We're about to fix those things.

3. The job board should remind the client of tasks they should or need to do, including when the client's package expires. We send an email to all active clients on the first of each month that lists all of the positions they had running the previous months along with detailed statistics on each, the number of postings remaining in their account, etc. But we're working on improvements to this report to also show remaining inventory for emails, cell phone text messages, etc. that the client has purchased.

4. The client should be able to send their postings to the board via an XML feed and also use intermediate services that allow the client to post a job once and have it to go multiple boards. We do this quite well since our re-launch almost a year ago.

5. Allow different clients to post jobs in different ways. I'm not quite sure what Jeff was envisioning here, but I suspect that he wants to be able to use formatting and graphics in his postings so his postings won't look the same as the postings coming from his competitor. We have a WSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor that allows our clients to format their jobs postings just like they format a Microsoft Word document, including being able to upload graphics.

6. Don't try to sell something to your clients every time they visit your site. Jeff singled out Monster and Careerbuilder as the biggest offenders of using interstitial ads. Those are the ads that appear in between the page you're on and the page you want to go to -- sometimes inaccurately referred to as the similar but different pop-ups. A lot of job boards use interstitials. We don't. The annoyance factor isn't worth the very small additional revenue they generate.

7. Don't add features that slow down your site so that your net value to your client decreases. I've heard complaints about this from some clients of Monster. Some of them have told me that Monster's re-designed site has great "wow" factor but it takes them hours to post jobs and search the resume bank when before it took them minutes. If it now takes an hour to find a resume and before it took 10 minutes, then the new design needs to deliver a resume that's six times as good just to break even. If the few complaints that I've heard from Monster are widespread, then that would explain the rumors about their sales revenues for first quarter being only 40 percent of their goals.

8. Listen to your clients as they often have useful comments or suggestions. We definitely do this but there's always room for improvement. One of the problems that we have and share with the vast majority of niche boards is that our development budgets are far, far smaller than the development budgets of sites like Monster and Careerbuilder. So they can afford to buy a company for $80 million for that company's technology. Many niche boards don't even come close to generating $1 million in sales per year. We're well over that, but many aren't. If you're generating $800,000 in sales a year, you can't afford to buy better technology for $80 million. But most suggestions don't require an $80 million investment. Most are fairly inexpensive tweaks, like the comments we've been receiving about our navigation. They'll take a developer a day or two to fix. That's not terribly expensive.

9. Regularly improve and update your job board. Jeff wrote that some sites he uses have gone two to three years between revisions. He added, quite correctly, that going two to three years between revisions is 60 or 70 years in Internet time. I suspect that virtually all of the boards that Jeff uses are making revisions but many and perhaps most are behind the scenes so not very obvious to him. But then they should do a better job of communicating those improvements. If your clients don't notice the improvements then how valuable can they be and if they aren't valuable then why are you spending money on them?

10. Provide reporting so your clients can justify spending part of their budget with your job board. We definitely provide reporting. We're actually incredibly transparent. Take a look at any job posting running on our site and you'll see the number of candidates views and apply clicks. We email the same information out on the first of each month. And we provide similar reporting to our email, cell phone text messaging, and banner ad clients.
    

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 14, 2009 at 1:24 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Starting salary offers to the college Class of 2009 have fallen slightly compared to offers received by the Class of 2008, according to new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

According to the Spring 2009 issue of NACE's Salary Survey report, the overall average offer to a 2009 bachelor's degree graduate stands at $48,515--down 2.2 percent from the average of $49,624 posted in Spring 2008.

"This report illustrates the effects the recession is having on the job market for new college graduates. The decrease in average offer is one sign that demand is down," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.

There are other signs that the recession has hit the new college graduate job market.

"More disciplines are seeing their starting salary average fall compared to last year at this time. In our current report, 42 percent of the disciplines that experienced a change in their starting salary average saw that average decrease. In comparison, last year at this time, that number was just 14 percent," says Mackes.

The engineering disciplines fared best, as a group, posting a 2.3 percent increase in their overall average offer, which now stands at $58,438. By specific engineering discipline, chemical engineering graduates posted the largest increase among the engineering fields. Their average offer rose 2.8 percent to $65,403.

Computer engineering graduates posted a 1.8 percent increase, pushing their average salary offer to $61,017. Experiencing similar increases were civil engineering grads (up 1.7 percent for an average of $51,793) and mechanical engineering graduates (up 1.6 percent for an average of $58,749).

Computer science majors didn't fare as well, losing 3.6 percent off their average, bringing their current starting salary offer to $57,693. One reason for the tumble: There were fewer offers for software design and development positions reported in Spring 2009 than in Spring 2008, and the average offer to computer science grads for these positions fell 11 percent from $65,379 in Spring 2008 to $58,837 currently.

The business disciplines appear to be holding their own; as a group, their average offer rose 1 percent to $46,973, and some of the individual disciplines saw modest increases in their average salary offers. For example, the average salary offer to those earning degrees in accounting rose 2 percent to $48,377, while finance graduates saw their average offer rise 2.3 percent to $49,754. Business administration/management graduates fared well in comparison, posting a 3.6 percent increase for an average offer of $45,778.

Data are limited at this time, as liberal arts graduates tend to get job offers later in the year, but show that activity for liberal arts graduates as a group remains relatively flat. In Winter 2009, liberal arts graduates saw their average offer fall 1 percent compared to Winter 2008. In this report, their average offer rose 1 percent over Spring 2008 to $36,807.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 9, 2009 at 11:34 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

In response to recent reports that job seekers are struggling to find jobs, CollegeRecruiter.com compiled lists of the five best and worst states for finding internships and entry level jobs. The data was gathered through a state-by-state search on the site; the lists will be updated every month to help students and entry level job candidates know how many opportunities are available to them and in which states. The results? Very encouraging.

We were very pleased to see that almost every state, large and small, recorded significant increases in the number of internships and entry-level job openings. There has certainly been a lot of doom-and-gloom related to the economy over the past year but an increase in the number of advertised job openings means that more employers are finding it difficult to attract the talent they need to fill the openings they have. Historically, increased entry-level hiring is one of the earliest signs that an economy in recession is recovering.

For more details, see the press release that we just posted.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 8, 2009 at 9:09 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'd like to offer you a special one-time opportunity for you and a colleague to attend the 2009 Campus Recruiting Forum at a greatly reduced rate. The Forum is the premier 1-day campus recruitment training conference held annually in cities across the country.

I keep hearing from college recruiters that they need to keep hiring, but their budgets have been slashed.

That's what we're hearing from just about every employer these days. So here's what we are doing to save you more than $500 on your Campus Recruiting Forum registrations:

Get 2 full registrations for the price of 1! (You'll save $50 on your first registration and get the second for only $50!)

This offer is valid until April 16th only. To learn all about the Campus Recruiting Forum, please visit www.CampusRecruitingForum.com. (See below for details on redeeming this discount.)

As a program sponsor, we at CollegeRecruiter.com are able to offer you this special discount for each of these upcoming Forum dates & locations:

• Chicago, IL - April 21st
  
• Seattle, WA - May 12th
  
• Los Angeles, CA - May 28th
  

What is the Campus Recruiting Forum?

The Forum is an intensive one-day conference that will provide you with the most current expertise in the field of campus recruiting in today's market through a series of workshops, keynotes, and networking opportunities.

The Forum features:

• Expert presenters sharing strategies and cost-effective tactics that will improve your recruiting;
  
• Ideas and approaches for adapting to the changing economy and shifting recruitment marketplace;
  
• A concise 1-day format to save your travel budget and time away from the office;
  
• Insights into the best methods for attracting, recruiting, and retaining the most talented students today; and
  
• An opportunity to connect with other employers who will share their successes and help you avoid pitfalls.
  

Please contact the event coordinator, Carly Pisterzi, NOW at (250) 294-4531 or carly@brainstorm.ca and she'll provide you with special registration instructions to collect your $50 discount and to register a colleague for only $50. (Or simply register online now with this special discount code: CRC241; they'll take care of the rest.)

I hope that you (and your colleague) can make it to an upcoming Campus Recruiting Forum.

P.S. Are you already registered? You can also register a colleague for $50. Please contact Carly at 250-294-4531 or carly@brainstorm.ca?subject=CRC241. (New registrations only.)

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 7, 2009 at 3:51 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Why do employers allow the big and some of the niche job boards to get away with telling their employer clients what content they can run in their job postings and what content they can't? I'm thinking specifically of recruitment videos. I've been hearing an increasing amount of frustration by employers who are being told by expert after expert to include their videos in their job postings because they absolutely, positively greatly increase the quantity and quality of responses yet some of the job boards won't allow any videos in their job postings unless the employer client pays thousands of dollars for the privilege. There's no technical reason -- it is all about the money.

It is unfortunate and short-sighted that a number of the highest traffic job boards prevent their clients from including video. The reasons are all financial but the boards should see that the inclusion of video leads to higher quality and quantity of applicants and that's got to be in their long-term best interests.

Keep in mind that even though a few of the highest traffic boards don't allow you to include your videos in your postings that many niche boards, including CollegeRecruiter.com, actually encourage employers to include the videos. Anything that is good for the employer clients and good for the candidates has to be good for the board in the long run and most of the niche boards tend to be very focused on maximizing the value they deliver to their employer clients and candidates.

If you have good recruitment videos, get them onto video sharing sites like YouTube. From there you can click on the "embed" link and copy the snippet of code. Then paste that code into your job posting ads on whatever sites you're using. If the site prevents your video from showing in your job posting, complain. If the site allows it, rejoice.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 6, 2009 at 10:10 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Employers expect to increase the pay they offer college students for internships, according to a new study conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Overall, employers taking part in NACE's 2009 Experiential Education Survey say they will offer bachelor's-degree-level interns an average hourly wage of $17.13--up 4.9 percent from the average they offered last year's interns.

Interestingly, the increase in intern salaries is paired with a 21 percent decrease in the number of internship opportunities available.

"We are seeing that intern hiring and full-time hiring are down this year due to the current economy. The increase in intern salaries may reflect a long-term strategy on the part of employers to ensure their internship programs continue to attract top students," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.

Intern salaries are affected by the student's major and year of study as well as the location of the internship.

"There are a variety of factors that determine salary," says Mackes. "For example, in general, the further along the student is in school, the higher the salary, with sophomores earning more than freshmen, and juniors earning more than sophomores. By field, students in engineering and computer sciences earn the highest salaries on average."

The average hourly wage for engineering students is $18.26, while those studying computer sciences earn an average hourly wage of $17.20 as an intern.

Students who have previously held an internship are also likely to get a higher salary.

"More than 60 percent of responding employers say they pay more to interns who have previous internship experience--even if the internship was with another organization. They recognize the value of internship experience," says Mackes.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 5, 2009 at 11:59 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the benefits of being a job board owner is that I get to speak at and attend a lot of recruiting conferences, including this week's ERE Expo 2009 in San Diego. Some conferences are great. Others are okay. But they're all wonderful places to be for those who want to learn from the giants of our industry.

It is very rare when you see a candidate attend these conferences but that's not much of a surprise as it costs thousands of dollars to attend most of them. But there's so much great information at the conferences for the candidates that it is a shame that more of them can't afford to share lunch or even a few minutes with one of the giants. Well, that's not entirely true. You see, there's a guy by the name of Peter Clayton of Total Picture Radio and he is present at a lot of the conferences. Peter does a great job of sitting down with industry experts and getting them to talk about what is happening in their niche or even across the entire recruiting industry.

Visit Total Picture's web site and you'll see that it delivers on its promise to present a "total picture" of emerging trends, thought leaders, and for-real gurus to help high-potential professionals succeed in their career goals. Total Picture fills the media vacuum regarding career advice and advocacy by providing the latest trends, knowledge, actionable information and resources to its listeners.

Peter stopped by the CollegeRecruiter.com booth at ERE on Tuesday and shot this photo of Paul Bell, our new manager of e-learning, and me.

Thanks for the pics, Peter!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 3, 2009 at 9:40 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the questions that a lot of graduating college seniors are asking right now is whether they should consider starting their own business. I started this business in November 1991 so we were on the verge of going to war with Iraq and businesses were very reluctant to spend any unnecessary money, many had hiring freezes, and few were hiring or advertising. It was a terrible time to start a business yet I did so because I had done my research and my downside was very, very limited. The business had virtually no fixed costs so all I needed to earn was what I needed to eat.

There is no perfect time to start a business but there are some times which are easier. In the short-term, you're better off starting a business during a strong economy as you're more likely to cover your costs and perhaps even earn a profit. But you're also likely to be less appreciative of the need to conserve cash and watch your nickels. In the long-term, you're better off starting a business during a recession because you're forced to learn to be frugal and all successful entrepreneurs are frugal.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 3, 2009 at 7:03 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I was at the ERE Expo 2009 conference in San Diego from Monday through Wednesday evening. The conference was smaller than the most recent ones but that was certainly due to the economy and not ERE's way of putting on a recruiting conference. ERE does a great job.

My flights back to Minneapolis were somewhat interesting. I flew American Eagle out of San Diego to Los Angeles. As we're about to board, a tiny, tiny plane pulled up to the regional gates. Two props and about eight passenger seats. Yikes. Another group boarded that plane. Phew. Ours then pulled up. Regional regional jet. Phew.

We took off and the pilot said we were flying at 10,000 feet but the flight was so short I would have thought it would make more sense to fly at tree top level. The guy across the aisle from me kept checking his watch like the flight was taking too long. Dude, we were only in the air for about 20 minutes. Chill.

The flight from Los Angeles to Minneapolis was typical for me after a conference. I fell asleep before we took off and woke up halfway through the flight. I looked at my wristwatch and saw that I had been sleeping for about 1-1/2 hours. Great, but that mean that I had about 1-3/4 hours to go. Back to sleep. Bing. Time to land. Sweet.

So we're 20 minutes from the airport, I'm awake, and the guys next to me are awake. One asks for the time. I guess he needed a new watch or forgot his at home. I told him. Big smile. He slept the whole way too.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 2, 2009 at 12:48 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

We received a voice message yesterday from a man who identified himself as Robert and said he was a producer with a television show called, "The World's Greatest." He said that they're planning to do a television show that would take viewers behind the scenes of a leading job board and asked to speak with the appropriate person on our staff.

His message just didn't sound right so I Googled the phone number he left 561-819-0877 and found a bunch of links which identified his organization, Crown TV, as scammers. This appears to be one of those deals where they pose as journalists who are interested in doing a story on your organization and then after you've spent a lot of time with them they tell you that there are fees for them to shoot or air the story. No legitimate television or other media outlet charges the subject of a story.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 1, 2009 at 8:37 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

We received a voice message yesterday from a man who identified himself as Robert and said he was a producer with a television show called, "The World's Greatest." He said that they're planning to do a television show that would take viewers behind the scenes of a leading job board and asked to speak with the appropriate person on our staff.

His message just didn't sound right so I Googled the phone number he left 561-819-0877 and found a bunch of links which identified his organization, Crown TV, as scammers. This appears to be one of those deals where they pose as journalists who are interested in doing a story on your organization and then after you've spent a lot of time with them they tell you that there are fees for them to shoot or air the story. No legitimate television or other media outlet charges the subject of a story.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 1, 2009 at 8:37 AM | Leave a Comment (0)