Which new college graduates are faring best when it comes to salary in the current economy? According to a new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, engineers are pulling down the highest starting salaries.

NACE's Summer 2009 Salary Survey report shows that engineering disciplines account for four of the five disciplines getting the highest starting salary offers. The average starting salary offers by engineering discipline are:

• Petroleum engineering = $83,121
  
• Chemical engineering = $64,902
  
• Mining engineering = $64,404
  
• Computer engineering = $61,738
  
• Computer science = $61,407
  

"Many of the engineering disciplines benefit from an imbalance in the supply/demand ratio," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. "Even in a tight job market, there are simply more opportunities requiring an engineering degree than graduates available to fill those positions. That drives salaries up."

In fact, out of the more than 1,524,000 bachelor's degrees awarded in 2007, just 450 were in petroleum engineering and only 4,492 were in chemical engineering.*

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 31, 2009 at 7:07 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

The legend of the fountain of youth occurs in many cultures going back centuries. One aspect often associated with youthfulness is a sense of optimism about the future. The Kenexa Research Institute (KRI) asked, "Is there any evidence to support the notion that being young brings with it a sense of optimism about the future or is the notion of youthful optimism just another one of those myths with little substance?"

A recent study conducted by KRI measured Employee Confidence in the workplace by contrasting younger (18-29 year olds) and older workers' (50+ year olds) levels of confidence. The study was conducted between June 2008 and June 2009.

A high level of Employee Confidence is achieved when an employee perceives his/her organization as being effectively managed with good business processes, competitively positioned with attractive products and believes he/she has a promising future with the organization, job security and skills attractive to other employers. Employee Confidence influences individual behavior, has implications for organizational performance and is a reflection more broadly of macro-economic conditions.

The results from a randomly selected group of more than 29,000 workers from 12 countries indicated that as of June 2009, younger employees reported higher levels of Employee Confidence. In most countries, younger employees outscored older employees in Employee Confidence by 5 to 15 percentage points.

In June 2008, the older employees in both Spain and China expressed higher levels of Employee Confidence than the younger employees did and in June 2009, both of those positions were reversed; the younger employees are now more confident.

Jeffrey Saltzman, principal at Kenexa, stated, "Prior to the current economic downturn, Chinese workers over 50 years of age expressed more confidence. According to the IMF, since 1978, China has seen annual economic growth above 9% with several years reaching 13% growth. That would mean that for the vast majority of their working lives, these older workers have experienced an economic boom with very little turbulence until this past year. The historical confidence that the long-term economic success had wrought has been eroded. The confidence pattern seen in China is looking now more like the majority of studied countries where the youth are more positive."

For all workers studied, the current gap between the young and old employees was the largest in the United Kingdom (14 percentage points), followed by those in Japan (11 percentage points), China and Germany (10 percentage points). The smallest gap between the younger and older workers was in Brazil, Canada and India (3 percentage points).

Saltzman continued, "A typical pattern seen in employee survey responses suggests that the most positive workers, the most optimistic ones, are those newest to the organization. Typically, optimism fades after about two years. There are exceptions. There are companies that can harness the optimism employees bring with them and keep it burning over the long-term. These are the companies that will outperform their competitors."

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 30, 2009 at 11:16 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

My blog article yesterday about how some corporate recruiters rudely ignore candidates touched a cord. I heard from a lot of candidates and a few recruiters who echoed my sentiments. I also heard from a few recruiters who expressed surprise that candidates actually want to hear that they're rejected and aren't quite sure what to tell them.

Folks, think about your favorite family member applying to a job with your organization. What would you tell them and when? Answer those questions and you've answered your own question about what you should tell all candidates and when for they all deserve the same consideration as you would extend to your own loved ones.

Most candidates that I speak with get that employers receive dozens and sometimes hundreds of resumes for each job opening and that the recruiters don't have time to send personalized emails let alone make phone calls to each rejected candidate. But it seems to easy to me for employers to simply set up an autoresponder in their applicant tracking system to thank the candidates for applying and telling them what will happen and when. Then, when the candidate is no longer being considered for the position, the employer can use the ATS to send another emailing again thanking the candidate and telling them not only that they weren't hired but also describing the person who was hired. That will allow the candidates to better understand why they weren't hired so they can either better target their future applications, get the additional experience they need, or both.

Some employers will argue that telling a candidate that they've been rejected and why could open them up to legal liability. Bull unless you've got a flawed hiring process. And if you do, then you know that you need to fix that. And when you do fix that, don't forget that part of that hiring process should be treating your candidates with the same consideration as you would extend to your loved ones.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 29, 2009 at 10:01 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I hear that question almost every day from job seekers. "I read their job posting. I'm qualified. I applied through their web site. I hit the submit button and then nothing. No confirmation by email. No 'thank you for applying' email. No rejection letter. Nothing."

Could we as a profession be more rude? Could we as a profession be more short sighted? In addition to these complaints by job seekers, I also hear human resource professionals complain about not having a seat at the table when senior management is making strategic decisions. Could it be that senior management doesn't like how HR treats the biggest fans of their organization -- people who want to work with them? Could it be that the way HR treats those fans -- many of whom are or at least used to be customers -- is the same way that they treat their colleagues in other departments?

Rather than HR complaining about not having a seat at the table, how about if they spent just a little of that energy treating their candidates with the respect that they deserve. If your sister, mother, or grandmother applied to work for your organization as you ask most candidates to apply, would you be proud of how your organization treats your loved one? And if you're not, then why are you putting the loved ones of others through that process?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 28, 2009 at 4:53 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

A handful of our fans alerted me over the past hour or so that six or seven scammy-looking jobs were running on our site and automatically sent out to our Twitter and Facebook accounts. It took an hour or so of back-and-forth with them to figure out which jobs they were concerned about but within a few minutes of receiving the links we reviewed the postings and are pulling them off of our site right now.

As best as we can tell right now, an ad agency misrepresented to us what jobs they wanted to post to our site. They're a well known and at least had been legitimate agency. It appears to me that they decided to cross the ethical line and post these, ahem, jobs to our site in order to make a quick buck at the expense of some of the millions of unemployed and under employed Americans who are suffering through the worst recession since the 1930's. The agency's name was no where to be found on the postings so they only stood to gain a few bucks and suffer no harm to their reputation. We made some money when we thought the postings would be legitimate and suffered some harm to our reputation but the real victims here are those who can least afford to be: the job seekers who may have been suckered into these "opportunities."

I just don't get how these scammers sleep at night. Actually, I hope they don't. Jerks.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 23, 2009 at 3:09 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

Facebook Fan Pages are for organizations what their profile pages are for individuals. Becoming a fan of CollegeRecruiter.com is like becoming my friend. If you're my friend on Facebook, then my updates appear on your home page so you can see what I'm thinking, doing, whatever. Also, your updates appear on my home page so that I can keep up-to-date on what you're thinking, doing, whatever. The more that you know about a business acquaintance or colleague, the more opportunities you have to work together.

Are you a fan of CollegeRecruiter.com? See below to find out. If you're not, please become a fan by clicking on the link. There's no charge and you can change your mind later if our updates aren't what you want to see, but we're pretty selective about the information that we provide to our fans so hopefully you'll see a lot more quality than the quantity that some other pages pump out.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 23, 2009 at 12:07 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Today, July 23rd, is Work Strong day at Amazon.com. Work Strong is one of the best career guides and, even better, was written by my friend, Peter Weddle.

Visit Amazon.com today and buy your copy of this revolutionary new guide to career success, and you'll receive your book AND:

• Amazon's 24% discount off the regular $24.95 purchase price PLUS
• A Work Strong bracelet (just like Lance Armstrong's) absolutely FREE!

To receive your FREE Work Strong bracelet, send a copy of your Amazon.com receipt to
WEDDLE's LLC, 2052 Shippan Avenue, Stamford, CT 06902. Please allow two weeks for
delivery.

Increase the paycheck and the satisfaction you bring home from work. Work Strong!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 23, 2009 at 12:01 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Returning from the eduWEB 2009 Conference in Chicago, I recorded on my Flip Video some thoughts about what college hiring looks like for the fall.

Many clients of CollegeRecruiter.com are planning to ramp up their hiring of students for internships and recent graduates for entry-level jobs but the healthcare reform being pushed by Barack Obama's administration and Congress could kill those hiring plans.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 22, 2009 at 5:17 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Are Today's Employers Ready to Develop the Emerging Adults Joining Them Now Into the Executive Managers of Tomorrow?

Advising employers challenged by a new generation of employees who they cannot relate to, can't retain and who drive up costs related to staffing and productivity, Judy Anderson and Terese Corey Blanck are experts in an emerging, specialty field: they have researched and understand how the millennial generation of 18-28 year olds think, self-motivate and develop while transitioning into adulthood.

Because they are emerging into adulthood later than the boomers and other generations that are employing them, a unique complexity is added to the workplace. So different from those managing them, an understanding of millennial identity, cognitive and brain development is just the beginning.

The reality that Anderson and Corey Blanck will make evident is that many employers need to learn how to think about and work with Millennials in a new way. The good news is, developmental issues can be impacted and growth can be accelerated; and, you'll understand how the differing developmental stages your 18-28 year old employees occupy can have a tremendous impact on the workplace if recognized and acted upon decisively.

Watch the full webinar at http://workplaceimpact.eventbrite.com/ or play the video below to watch a sample.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 20, 2009 at 7:03 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Why do 18-28 year old "Millennial" Employees, As Emerging Adults, Represent a Unique Challenge in the Workplace That Can Impact Their Employer's Success?

Generational understanding is increasingly valuable as it relates to impacting communication and collaboration among managers and staff within the workplace. However, the Millennial generation is a bit more complex.

This webinar provides a new framework pairing an in-depth understanding of the youngest generation along with new information specific to identity, cognitive and brain development. Experiences in the workplace resulting in much frustration are NOT all generational. The fact is that most entry-level employees have not yet reached adulthood by the time they enter the work force; and, as a result, their behavior is not what employers expect.

Watch the full webinar by going to http://itsnotallgenerational.eventbrite.com/. Click on the video player below to watch a sample.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 17, 2009 at 5:01 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

We just launched a great new service on CollegeRecruiter.com, the leading job board for college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry-level jobs and other career opportunities.

For years we've been selling career-related books for $9.95 through our bookstore but we just entered into a partnership that will allow us to buy gift certificates from Restaurants.com at such a significant discount that we are now including in every book purchase a $25 gift certificate from Restaurants.com. You can use that gift certificate at any of thousands of leading restaurants. That's right -- buy a book for under $10 and you'll get the book AND the $25 gift certificate with no strings attached.

Sound good? I thought so. Head over to our bookstore and get your book and $25 restaurant gift certificate today for $9.95.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 16, 2009 at 11:46 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Yesterday's blog article about Black & Veatch Corporation hiring a new college relations leader struck a cord with some of my followers so I thought that I'd follow-up with a similar blog article about another job opening but this time on the other side of the fence. I just saw a posting on LinkedIn from Dan Ryan that University at Buffalo is hiring a new career services director.

Interested? Contact Dan. For those who have not yet had the pleasure of communicating with him, Dan is one of those people who everyone in the industry seems to know or at least be acquainted with. At least as important is that I've always heard only good things about Dan and the work that his team does. It is so critical to work with good people. Those who work with Dan get that.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 16, 2009 at 10:52 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Despite the poor job market, the the college Class of 2009 hasn't seen a drop-off in starting salaries. The average starting salary offer for new college graduates now stands at $49,307. That's off less than one percent from the average $49,693 that 2008 graduates posted last year at this time.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Summer 2009 Salary Survey report also shows that, as a group, graduates with bachelor's degrees in the business disciplines saw their average offer nudge up less than one percent to $47,239. Accounting majors did better than the average, and posted a 1.9 percent increase for an average offer of $48,993.

Conversely, the average offer to business administration majors fell 2.1 percent to $44,944. (One factor in the decline: Many of their offers came from retail/wholesale firms, which offered an average starting salary of $40,220--down 6 percent from the average offer of $42,758 retail/wholesale employers offered business administration graduates just one year ago.)

Economics graduates also saw a decrease to their average salary offer, which fell by 1.3 percent to $49,829.

In terms of salary, finance graduates and marketing graduates fared well in comparison to many of the other business disciplines. The average offer to finance graduates rose 2.9 percent to $49,940, while marketing graduates posted a 3 percent increase for an average of $43,325.

In spring 2009, the broad category of computer science-related fields (computer science, computer programming, computer systems analysis, and information sciences and systems) experienced a 5 percent drop off in the group's overall average offer compared to spring 2008. Currently, however, the average offer to this group is up 1.9 percent over last summer to $59,418.

Among the specific disciplines in this group, computer science grads saw their average salary offer rise 1.6 percent to $61,407. Information sciences and systems grads, however, saw their average offer slip slightly to $52,089, down less than one percent from last year at this time.

As a group, engineering graduates enjoyed the highest salary increase. Overall, the average offer to engineering graduates rose 3.7 percent to $59,254.

Chemical engineering graduates posted a 2.7 percent increase to their average salary offer, which now stands at $64,902. Computer engineering graduates saw their average offer rise 3.6 percent to $61,738. Much of that bump up can be attributed to the types of positions these graduates were offered. Software design and development jobs were the most common offering, and the average salary for these jobs rose 5.6 percent over last year, from $62,155 to $65,619. Electrical engineering graduates earned one of the larger increases; their average offer rose 5.6 percent to $60,125. Civil engineering graduates, however, saw their average offer just nudge up slightly--0.8 percent--to $52,048.

As a group, liberal arts graduates did not see much change to their average salary offers. Their overall average offer fell less than one percent from $36,419 last year to $36,175.

Among the liberal arts disciplines, English majors posted a 1.1 percent increase in their average salary offer, now standing at $34,704. History majors also posted an increase; their average salary offer rose 1.7 percent to $37,861. The average offer to those majoring in psychology increased 2.1 percent to $34,284. Conversely, the average offer to sociology majors fell 4.4 percent to $33,280.

NACE research indicates that many Class of 2009 graduates continue their job searches, but shows that those who have secured employment have starting salaries that are comparable to those offered a year ago, underscoring employers' reluctance to tamper too much with starting salaries, even in a tight economy.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 15, 2009 at 3:25 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of my saddest days at work over the past year occurred early last fall when one of my favorite client contacts was let go by her employer not because of poor performance or anything of the sort but instead because her employer was hard hit by the recession and needed to quickly reduce the number of people it employed or it would likely go out-of-business and then everyone there would be out-of-work. There's never a good time to lose a job but it is particularly hard in a recession. Unfortunately, that scenario repeated itself many times over the fall and into 2009 with many organizations terminating the employment of many recruiters and other human resource professionals. One of the saddest days occurred when one of our sales people called me and told me that she had to cancel one of her sales calls for the day because she was supposed to speak with the three people in the employer's college relations team but two of them were let go earlier that day.

Some of these people who have been laid-off have approached me for help in finding a new position and I've been able to help some but not most as there simply aren't all that many recruiting and other human resource positions available. But earlier today I spotted a position that looks great. One of our clients, Black & Veatch Corporation, is hiring a College Relations Leader for their Overland Park (suburban Kansas City) head office.

Does this mean that the worst of the recession is behind us? Hardly. I hope that it is but just because one organization is hiring doesn't mean that most are staffing up again in anticipation of a busy college hiring season this fall. I would love for that to be true but I'm too much of a realist. The recovery from this recession promises to be long and painful to many. But as more organizations start to hire people like Black & Veatch is doing, more will regain the ranks of the employed and that will be incredibly beneficial to the people who are employed again, their employers, and the economy.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 15, 2009 at 10:31 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

The conventional wisdom is that 90 percent of job seekers are typically spending almost all of their time chasing after the 10 percent of job openings which are advertised. What that also means is that only 10 percent of job seekers are chasing after the 90 percent of job openings which go unadvertised.

So if you're searching for a job, which bucket would you prefer to be in? The second, of course. But how do you get into that bucket? Network, network, network. Want some examples of three job seekers who were hired because of their networking efforts? Listen to this podcast by Kevin Donlin of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Guerrilla Resumes as he interviews Candice Arnold, our content coordinator, and me.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 14, 2009 at 3:19 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Probably the best recruiting-related blog is Cheezhead, written by Joel Cheesman and his team of staff writers. Today's article was great, well, mostly great. It included a list of the best internships and that was great, but it also made the fundamental error in not recognizing that in order to call a job an internship that job must be career-related.

You cannot, for example, put a finance major in the mail room and accurately call that an internship any more than you can refer to a job cleaning toilets as an internship, which is exactly what the article did. These "poop-swabber" jobs can only be described as internships for those whose chosen career path is in the cleaning industry. I trust that the error was an oversight and will be corrected by the good people at Cheezhead.

That said, here are Cheezhead's choice for the top 10 organizations for which to intern:

1. The New York Times


2. National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA)


3. White House


4. Google


5. Microsoft


6. Nike


7. St. Jude Medical


8. Walt Disney


9. PriceWaterhouseCoopers


10. Teach for America

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 14, 2009 at 12:34 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the key disadvantages that younger workers have is that they simply haven't had the opportunities to gain experience. The cliche about with experience comes wisdom is very true, but there's also no need for every young professional to have to go through the same experiences personally in order to gain wisdom if those young professionals are able and willing to really listen and benefit from the lessons learned by others.

So if you're a young professional, listen carefully to these five tips from Hilary Harwell, CEO of An Inspired Mind LLC and former investment banker:

1. Define your own idea of success. Don't be governed by the ideals and values of others.
2. Get in touch with your most important values and strengths. There is something you can do better than anyone else. Use it!
3. Be mentally disciplined. Live each day like it was your last and create your opportunities through tenacity and perseverance.
4. Do not be afraid of failure. It is the times we fall the hardest that create the greatest opportunities for growth.
5. Enlist in the services of a mentor or coach to help you challenge limiting beliefs and plot a course for the achievement of your success!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 13, 2009 at 4:07 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Wednesday I wrote about our new webinar series for employers and college career service office professionals and discussed in some detail the first of what will be hundreds and perhaps thousands of webinars that we'll deliver over the coming months to:

• Recruiters, hiring managers, and other employer professionals;
  
• College career service office professionals;
  
• Admissions office professionals;
  
• Consumer marketing professionals;
  
• Job seekers / candidates; and
  
• Parents.
  

Today I'm going to write a bit about one of our new CollegeRecruiter.com Star Webinars, this one being for college career service office professionals. Everything Internships For College Career Services Professionals stars Lauren Berger, better known as the Intern Queen, for a live discussion and Q&A in this webcast which covers these topics:

• Internships in a struggling economy
  
• Big city vs. small town challenges
  
• They CAN juggle a job and internship
  
• Marketing savvy and student cover letters
  
• Promoting internships to students
  
• Managing their internship targets
  
• Sell your school - no matter the size
  
• Promoting internships to students
  
• Turning internships into jobs
  
• Facebook: where it helps and hurts
  

Traveling the country, the Intern Queen is a frequent speaker engaged by colleges and universities, leading employers and news organizations. Lauren's mission is to reach out to students, parents, college career service office professionals, educators and employers regarding the importance of Internships and best to locate them.

Through her campus appearances, website, Twitter tweets, and blog, Lauren Berger dispenses valuable how-to's, resume and cover letter advice, information on hiring trends and the latest opportunities.

Over 20,000 students per month follow her internship listings from companies the like of Sony, Seventeen Magazine, NASCAR, and Universal Music Group. You can too, and will enjoy her exuberance, lively discussion and interactive Q&A in this pre-recorded video webinar, "The Intern Queen presents: All Things Internships For Career Services Professional."

Still not convinced? Watch a short clip from the webinar for a sampling of what you'll get:

Now, buy the webinar, download it, watch it, and share it as much as you want and with whomever you want in your organization.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 10, 2009 at 8:30 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Virtually every major job board shares at least some of the jobs posted to it with other job boards. The boards each do this to help ensure that they have plenty of jobs postings for virtually every candidate who runs a search at their sites. Some boards, for example, may have a lot of postings for candidates in the eastern United States but not have enough for candidates who are searching for a position in the western United States so they'll pursue crossposting partnerships with boards which are strong in the west but not in the east. By sharing postings, candidates using either board are almost always sure to find multiple positions of interest so they'll be more likely to register, apply to the jobs, come back repeatedly, and refer their friends.

A good analogy is the menu at a restaurant. If you look at the menu outside of the restaurant to decide if you want to eat there and see only one item on the menu that is of interest to you, then you'll be more likely to opt to go elsewhere than if the menu had 10 items of interest to you. Furthermore, if the menu has 10 items of interest to you, then you'll be more likely to come back and refer your friends.

The boards which share postings, and virtually all do, typically disclose that to their employer clients by talking up their network. CollegeRecruiter.com, for example, promotes to its employer clients that it has 11,000 sites in its network. That means that when an employer posts a job to CollegeRecruiter.com that we will send that job to all of the relevant sites in the network of 11,000 sites. If the job is for a sales person in Vermont, we won't send it to the accounting or Texas sites but we will send it to the sites which target sales job seekers and the sites which target Vermont job seekers.

Sometimes these relationships are paid and sometimes they're unpaid. We trade postings with some sites where no money is exchanged. Essentially, we run some of their jobs on our site and they run some of our jobs on their site. When we run a job on another site and a candidate reads the job and clicks the apply button, they're brought to our site to apply. That generates traffic for us. The goal in these crossposting relationships is for our partner site to send about the same number of candidates to our site as we send to theirs. In other cases we are paid by our partner to run their postings and send our candidates to the partner site. That's more of an advertising model under which we're paid to drive traffic to the other job board.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 9, 2009 at 10:22 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Yesterday I wrote about our new webinar series for employers and college career service office professionals and discussed in some detail the first of what will be hundreds and perhaps thousands of webinars that we'll deliver over the coming months to:

• Recruiters, hiring managers, and other employer professionals;
  
• College career service office professionals;
  
• Admissions office professionals;
  
• Consumer marketing professionals;
  
• Job seekers / candidates; and
  
• Parents.
  

Today I want to spotlight the second in the two-part webinar series from Terese Corey Blanck and Judy Anderson of CTC Consultants. As you can tell, I'm just a little pumped about these webinars. Well, maybe quite pumped.

The second webinar from Terese and Judy is entitled, It's Not ALL Generational: Are Today's Entry-Level Employees Self-Directed Adults? In the webinar, Terese and Judy will answer the question, "Why do 18-28 year old "millennial" employees, as emerging adults, represent a unique challenge in the workplace that can impact their employer's success?"

Generational understanding is increasingly valuable as it relates to impacting communication and collaboration among managers and staff within the workplace. However, the Millennial generation is a bit more complex.

This webinar provides a new framework pairing an in-depth understanding of the youngest generation along with new information specific to identity, cognitive and brain development. Experiences in the workplace resulting in much frustration are NOT all generational. The fact is that most entry-level employees have not yet reached adulthood by the time they enter the work force; and, as a result, their behavior is not what employers expect.

Judy Anderson and Terese Corey Blanck are experts in an emerging, specialty field. They have researched and understand that the millennial generation of 18-28 year olds who employers are counting on to maintain corporate productivity and success are themselves an entirely new breed of individual. Not yet fully emerged into adulthood, they stand cognitively and developmentally apart from the Boomers and Gen-Xers who preceded them. With motivations that are all their own, if you're not providing for them as they think you should, they'll move on within 18 months.

The reality that Anderson and Corey Blanck will make evident is that employers who are challenged and blame their frustration on their millennial employees need to understand the developmental forces at work in shaping these emerging adults. Then perhaps they'll realize that "It's Not All Generational." Among the topics discussed:

• Who are the Millennials?
  
• The Impact of Emerging Adulthood Later in Life
  
• The Demographic Gap (Boomers / Gen X / Millennials)
  
• The Millenial Filter: 12 Deal Breakers
  
• A NEW Life Stage: Change that is Not Generational
  
• Cognitive Development: "How Do I Think?"
  
• The Manager's Disconnect With Employees Who Live By A Different Definition of Adulthood
  

Intrigued? I thought you would be. Want to see a snippet from the webinar? Click on the video below:

Want to watch the entire webinar? Buy it, download it, and then share it with anyone and everyone in your organization.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 9, 2009 at 8:12 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Job boards fall into two main buckets:

1. General boards like Monster and Careerbuilder and
   
2. Niche boards like Dice and CollegeRecruiter.com.
   

An employer who wants to hire an intern or recent graduate is far more likely to hear only from students and recent graduates if they use a college job board like CollegeRecruiter.com than a general job board like Monster or Careerbuilder. Similarly, a job seeker who wants to find an internship or entry-level job will find far more of those both in absolute numbers and by percentage on a college job board than on a typical general job board. In addition, the articles, blogs, videos, and other such content on a college job board will be far better suited to a student or recent graduate than the content on a general job board.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 8, 2009 at 10:08 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Last August, CollegeRecruiter.com began to deliver recruiting-related webinars to employers and career service office professionals. I figured we'd get maybe 50 attendees to the typical webinar, with some coming in a little higher and others a little lower in terms of attendance. By early 2009, we were seeing 800 registrations and the conventional wisdom in the webinar industry is that the average connection converts into about two attendees, so we were getting the equivalent of about 1,600 registrations. Not all registrations converted into attendees, of course, as some people registered but didn't show up. But then others watch the recorded versions of the webinars so the no shows were likely offset by those watching the recorded versions. Bottom line: rather than 50 attendees we were seeing well in excess of 1,000 and perhaps 1,500 attendees to many of our webinars.

Fast forward to June 2009. With an incredible amount of work by manager of e-learning Paul Bell, we successfully re-launched our webinar system with brand new technology and a brand new approach. Rather than focusing on satisfying the desires for immediate feedback that most speakers crave, we've chosen to focus on the needs of our clients. Very few employers and career service office professionals are able to set aside an hour to watch any webinar -- especially when the choice of when that hour falls isn't within their control. In addition, many of those people would prefer to watch or at least share the webinar with others and trying to get multiple people together at the same time becomes exponentially more difficult. Solution: record the webinars and send the recordings out to the employers and career service office professionals so they can watch them when they want and share them with anyone within their organizations. You don't quite own the webinars as you can't share them with people outside of your organization, but you can do just about anything else with them that you want. Nice, huh?

Our first Star Webinar -- so called because our expert speakers are stars -- feature two of my favorite people: Terese Corey Blanck and Judy Anderson of CTC Consultants. Judy and Terese advise employers challenged by a new generation of employees who they cannot relate to, can't retain and who drive up costs related to staffing and productivity. Terese and Judy are experts in an emerging, specialty field: they have researched and understand how the millennial generation of 18-28 year olds think, self-motivate and develop while transitioning into adulthood.

Because they are emerging into adulthood later than the boomers and other generations that are employing them, a unique complexity is added to the workplace. So different from those managing them, an understanding of millennial identity, cognitive and brain development is just the beginning.

The reality that Anderson and Corey Blanck make evident in their new CollegeRecruiter.com Star Webinar is that many employers need to learn "how to think about and work with Millennials" in a new way. The good news is, developmental issues can be impacted and growth can be accelerated; and, you'll understand how the differing developmental stages your 18-28 year old employees occupy can have a tremendous impact on the workplace if recognized and acted upon decisively. Among the topics discussed:

• How millennials define their adulthood
  
• Growth via "Acceleration Experiences"
  
• How managers can better connect
  
• The balancing of Structure and Flexibility
  
• Essential management practices
  
• How to neutralize flaws and test skills
  
• How to identify the gaps in your plan
  

Want a free sample? Click on the video below.

Want to watch the full video? Buy it, download it, watch it, and share it.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 8, 2009 at 7:46 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Gen Y career and workplace expert Lindsey Pollak just posted a great blog article about how students can make the most of a jobless summer. Rather than pinning the blame for being unemployed on the unemployed, she wisely took the high road by understanding that few want to be unemployed and most are victims of the economy, bad advice, or lack of advice.

So how can high school and college students make the most of a jobless summer? Lindsey recommends three courses of action:

1. Volunteer. I've heard hundreds candidates complain that it isn't fair that they can't get hired without experience. They typically say something like, "If I don't have experience, how can I get the experience that employers require?" The answer is to volunteer. If you're an accounting major, volunteer to do the books for a non-profit or small business. Many will say that they need to make money and can't afford to volunteer. Wrong. Find a job in an industry like fast food which requires little to no experience and work there to make money. Then volunteer to get the experience you need for your chosen career path. Will it be tough to work two part-time jobs? Yes. Will it be tougher to be unemployed? Definitely.
2. Take On a Project. Employers don't hire students or recent graduates to sit in classes and take tests. Employers hire people to get work done so you need to show them that you can get their work done. One way to do that is to create a project for yourself that will give you the ability to demonstrate that you can get the work done. If you're looking for a writing position, read one or more books on a topic that will likely be of interest to your future employer and then review it on a site like Amazon.com. Then when you sit down with that employer you'll be able to talk about the writing project that you successfully completed and point them to the tangible outcome of that project -- the review.
3. Start a Small Business. Lindsey's provides a handful of excellent ideas including dog walking, tutoring, computer programming, babysitting/nannying, and social media consulting. These are all areas in which a typical student can excel, make good money, and get great experience.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 7, 2009 at 10:15 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Jennifer McClure did a few minute long video interview of me at the Society for Human Resource Management 2009 annual conference in New Orleans. We talked about CollegeRecruiter.com in general; our new partnerships with America's Job Exchange and TwitterJobSearch; our new webinars for students, career service office professionals, and employers; and my impressions of the SHRM conference.

Want to watch? Click the video below.

CollegeRecruiter.com Interview - SHRM 09 from Jennifer McClure on Vimeo.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 2, 2009 at 2:21 PM | Leave a Comment (0)