Boschcampus just launched its Facebook Fan Page. If you're a college student or recent graduate and looking for a great career opportunity in engineering or any of many other areas, join their Fan Page today so that you'll receive the most current information about their internship, co-op, and entry-level career opportunities.

Bosch is committed to developing top talent. They've seen that one of the best ways to bring in talent is through recruitment of high-potential students into their internships and co-op programs, and graduating students into their full-time Professional Development programs at both the Bachelor's and Master's levels.

The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. In the areas of automotive and industrial technology, consumer goods and building technology, some 280,000 associates generated sales of over 45.1 billion euros (over $66 billion) in fiscal year 2008. In North America, the Bosch Group has approximately 24,000 associates, and in business year 2008 achieved total consolidated sales of $8.6 billion (5.9 billion euros).

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 28, 2009 at 5:03 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

For more information and to preview video clips from the Guerrilla Job Search Home Study Course DVD web page, go to: http://tinyurl.com/crjobsearch

Guest post by Paul Bell, manager of e-learning:

I can speak from experience when it comes to Guerrilla Job Search. Not only have I worked in a previous life as a recruiter and performed a few for myself over the last several years, but I also had the pleasure of recently recording the first 4 in a series of webinars being released exclusively to us by the Guerrilla Job Search team of David E. Perry and Kevin Donlin. It's all being done in conjunction with CollegeRecruiter.com's offering of their Guerrilla Job Search Home Study Course DVD in our online bookstore.

In this first webinar in the series, David and Kevin begin by bemoaning the fact that so many people invest in years of university and college educations to advance their dreams of particular careers; and, then, immediately abandon their goals to take the first job offered, no matter what it is. With over 20 years in the search business, Perry introduces the investment in time and energy that should go directly into advancing your knowledge of and search for companies that support your career ambitions.

And that's where the "Guerrilla" comes in. While everyone is chasing the same classified ad or job posting for one company in your town, a proactive guerrilla job search will have you researching what companies will best meet your goals - and then contacting them, whether they're hiring or not. While the masses will be contacting HR, the guerrilla will be contacting former employees of the company, mining them for information that will assist in a well formulated plan of attack.

Together, Perry and Donlin discuss the best methods of research, how to use the social networks for valuable intel, the need to extract yourself from the keyboard to do a bit of legwork, the companies typically hiding in your own back yard, what to look for in an industrial park, and why the Business section is better than the want ads.

It's a webinar not to be missed by two experts that you'd be hard-pressed to top in terms of sheer experience. David E. Perry is Managing Director of Perry-Martel International, one of North Americas top executive search, recruiting and placement firms. A veteran of more than 950 executive recruiting and search projects who has negotiated over $164 million in salaries, Perry is the co-author of "Guerrilla Marketing for Job-Hunters 2.0" and author of several other books.

As President of Guaranteed Resumes, Kevin Donlin has written and edited more than 10,000 resumes and cover letters, assisted nearly 5,000 clients, and has written a Job Search column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune since 2000. He is a contributing co-author to "Guerrilla Marketing for Job-Hunters 2.0" and has authored several other books.

Together, David and Kevin have created the "Guerrilla Job Search Home Study Course." On DVD and now available through CollegeRecruiter.com for the first time, the course and its creators have been profiled and featured by The Wall Street Journal, NY Times, Fortune Magazine, ABC TV, CBS Radio, and many more media outlets too numerous to list here.

As Perry says that Donlin defines it, a "guerrilla job search" is all about zigging when everyone else is zagging. For film buffs like me, Donlin offered an Indiana Jones analogy. "Do you really want to get into the sword fight, or would you rather just shoot the guy to reach your goal faster?"

Good point. Is it smarter to passively wait for the one job to appear that everyone will be fighting you for? Being proactive to find the right job with the perfect company is a direct approach and investment that will pay dividends when you are the only one being considered for a job that - until they met you - may not have existed.

LINKS:

For more information or to download this FREE webinar video, go to: http://findthebestcompanieswebinar.eventbrite.com/

As with all of our webinar videos available to download, you'll receive the complete video and a slide show handout. For more information, video clips and purchase information, check out the Guerrilla Job Search Home Study Course DVD web page, located at: http://tinyurl.com/crjobsearch

To see a linked list of all currently available CollegeRecruiter.com webinars, go to http://www.eventbrite.com/org/228692721?s=1309493

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 28, 2009 at 11:24 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Anyone who has ever been unemployed or even under employed can appreciate the frustration that builds and needs to be vented. One of the places where that frustration is now being vented is against the job board industry. Many, although I don't think most, pundits believe that job boards are dead. According to Peter Weddle of the International Association of Employment Web Sites, "a recent Google search of the phrase "job boards are dead" identified 31,900,000 documents. Allowing for the search engine's mistakes (for example, including the Knock 'em Dead Job Search Guide), that's still a lot of fatal references to an industry that just five years ago was considered the state-of-the-art in employment."

Peter and I agree that the drastic change of opinion about our industry is in large part due to the repeated publication of bogus statistics. For example, the CareerXroads Source of Hire Survey found that job boards only account for 10 to 15 percent of hires made by employers yet those employers spend a far larger share of their sourcing budget on job boards.

Peter points out a huge problem with that statement:the CareerXroads survey collected its data on hiring trends from corporate recruiters yet those recruiters collect their data from their applicant tracking systems and of all of the things that applicant tracking systems do terribly, actually tracking the source of hire is probably the worst. The ATS industry has done a terrible job of overselling its ability to provide meaningful information on source of hire to its clients and, fortunately, many of those clients are waking up to that fact and realizing that there are other alternatives available to them, including Salesforce.com. Don't believe me? Just asking someone at Electronic Arts.

WEDDLE's, on the other hand, conducted a survey that collected its data directly from the source: job seekers. The WEDDLE's study took a year to complete and generated over 13,000+ responses in 2008. The results didn't surprise me but may surprise those readers who have bought into the "job boards are dinosaurs" fallacy.

Respondents were asked "How did you find your last job?" The top five responses were:

• 35.4% - Responding to an ad or posting a resume on an Internet job board.
  
• 8.5% - A tip from a friend.
  
• 6.8% - A call from a headhunter.
  
• 6.6% - Responding to a newspaper ad.
  
• 4.9% - Referral by an employee of the company.
  

• 62.6% Responding to an ad or posting a resume on an Internet job board.
  
• 5.9% Sending a resume into the company.
  
• 5.5% A call from a headhunter.
  
• 3.9% Networking at a business event.
  
• 3.2% Responding to an ad posted on a company's Web-site.
  

Want an example? About 90 percent of job board revenues come from the sale of job posting ads and resume searching. Job posting ads are fast becoming a commodity in virtually every niche and especially amongst the big, general boards. So why would an employer pay $400 to post a job for 30 days to one of the big general boards when they can post that same job for free or at a fraction of the cost and get the same number of hires? The answer is they don't yet because they don't have the ability to track their hires so they rely on the bogus proxy of number of responses and fool themselves into thinking that a large number of responses to their posting means that it is working well. Wrong. A large number of responses only means a large number of responses and says nothing about the quality of those responses.

Resume searching is also a doomed product for job boards. In addition to all of the identity theft problems, there's this site that you may have heard of: LinkedIn. Could there be a better resume bank out there? Oh yeah, and it's free.

CollegeRecruiter.com has never relied on job posting or resume searching revenue. We don't even sell resume searching anymore. Our biggest products by revenue are targeted emails, cell phone text messaging, and other such innovative, non-traditional job board products. I sincerely hope that my fellow job board owners have the strength of character AND checkbook in order to turn away from postings and searching and instead embrace more innovative products that will allow them to more efficiently and effectively serve the needs or our employer clients. And I also sincerely hope that the ATS companies either get it together or get out of the way so that employers will actually be able to track the sources of their hires.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 27, 2009 at 3:13 PM | Leave a Comment (3)

Promise Phelon, the CEO of career management start-up, UpMo, provides some great advice to job seekers on how they can use their social network to find a new job.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 26, 2009 at 7:29 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Just about everyone has heard the expression, "Actions speak louder than words." But how about, "People may forget what you say, people may forget what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel." That quote, from David Eckoff on the High Velocity Radio Show, is profound.

Think about it for a while. Can you recall the words that were spoken or written to you during your job interviews and related interactions with prospective employers? Those who can typically remember only a very small percentage of the words. But we almost all remember how we felt during the process. And unfortunately, the way that we were made to feel generally wasn't very good.

If your organization wants to recruit and retain the best employees, then it needs to achieve for all of your candidates a feeling toward your organization that is so good that they will remember your organization forever for all the right reasons and share those feelings with their family, friends, and others.

Todd Schnick of the Customer Collective recommends that every member of your organization ask themselves a handful of questions each day to help ensure that the feelings they are leaving with their customers are positive and memorable. With a little paraphrasing, the same questions apply to everyone in your organization who interacts with candidates in any way:

• What are you doing - with every decision and action - to make your candidates have a wow experience?
  
• What was it about their experience with you that was and is memorable? Do you know what you want to your candidates to feel?
  
• Will they tell people in their circle about you?
  
• And if so, what will be the story they talk about?
  
• Are your employees EMPOWERED to make the candidate experience one to remember?
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 25, 2009 at 7:23 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

This is one of the most entrepreneurial generations in history. Some chose to start their own businesses for lifestyle reasons and some were forced into it because they were unable to find an organization willing and able to hire them. But all new businesspeople need help and as someone who started his business while in college, I feel well qualified to pass along some tips that I don't see in many of these lists:

1. Look beyond the business ideas which you see every day. Rather than starting a restaurant, retail store, or advertising supported web business, look for ideas which are business-to-business oriented as the competition tends to less and the financial rewards higher.
2. Don't spend any money which is unlikely to generate a substantial profit within six months. Don't buy new desks, computers, phones, or other overhead. If a $25 garage sale desk will suffice, go with that rather than the $1,000 nice, new desk in the office supply store. The reason? You'll need that $975 in order to eat because it is an almost certainty that your business will not be as successful as soon as you believe it will.
3. Don't over estimate the value of being first to market. One of the greatest myths of business is the first mover advantage. There is actually more of an advantage to being second or third as you can learn from the mistakes of the first movers and you don't have to spend as much time or money educating the market or even building a market.
4. Don't bring in partners if you can instead hire the same talent as an employee. If you want to bring in a friend because it will make you feel safer, get a dog.
5. If you do enter into a partnership, be sure that each of you bring different strengths to the business and that you have a signed partnership agreement negotiated with the assistance of your own attorneys. No partnership lasts forever and your relationship at the beginning will be better than at the end so if you're going to have a disagreement, better to have it now than later for you surely will have it later.
6. Have an exit strategy. Is your goal to run the business until you retire and then close the doors without selling it? Fine, but that's pretty unlikely. Think through whether you want to sell the business and, if so, when and why.
7. Don't create a business with the goal of selling it a specific organization. That is just about guaranteed to drive your decisions in ways that make no financial sense unless that organizations buys your business and that almost never happens.

   Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 24, 2009 at 7:24 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

A recent study indicates that 45 percent of employers use social networking sites to background check candidates. Sorry, but 45 percent is non-sensical when over 75 percent of employers also admit to using Google searches as part of their background checking process. Do employers not understand that Google searches many of the social networking sites and that when they Google a candidate that they are therefore including social networking sites in their background checks?

I speak with dozens and sometimes hundreds of employers a month about issues like this and it astonishes me how deliberately ignorant a small percentage are about technology issues. They remind me of Sgt. Schultz on Hogan Heroes -- "I know nothing! Nothing!" In other words, what I choose to ignore can't hurt me. Well, it will. If your firm's background checking company uses Google as part of their process then your organization IS using social networking sites to research job seekers.

Let me be clear: I feel that it is entirely appropriate for the vast majority of employers to Google candidates and therefore use social networking sites as part of their background checking process. It isn't what information you include anymore as the days are gone when we could deliberately and successfully wall off certain types of information. It is now what you do with that information.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 21, 2009 at 12:27 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

Anyone who has seen or heard one of my webinar or trade show / conference presentations has likely heard me say that employers and others in the recruiting space who want to enhance their marketing efforts need only look down the hall at the work being done by those in their marketing departments. Those in marketing tend to have far more years of formal training in marketing and much, much larger budgets than those in the human resource or recruiting departments.

I am such a believer in looking to the world of marketing to gain insight into what is likely coming to the world of recruiting that I subscribe to a number of marketing publications, including many of the SmartBrief e-newsletters. In one of yesterday's e-newsletters was a link to an article entitled, How to Persistently Educate Your Customer. The article included a number of great tips for marketers but with just a little effort the same tips can be made to apply to those who market job opportunities either directly to candidates or indirectly through partnerships with other organizations.

In the language of recruiters, hiring managers, and others whose jobs require them to successfully market employment opportunities, there are four necessary steps:

1. Know what's relevant. In other words, focus on the benefits rather than the features of the job. Rather than focusing your sales pitch on the hours worked, requirements, and responsibilities of the position, instead focus your sales pitch on what really matters to the candidate. That will differ position-to-position and candidate-to-candidate but get out of the "what would matter to me" and instead put yourself in the shoes of your ideal candidate as it is their needs and wants which are relevant, not yours. The best candidates, for example, can be hired by multiple organizations for pretty much the same job for pretty much the same compensation. So why should they work for you? What makes your opportunity better to that candidate? Whatever that is, that's what you need to focus on in your sales pitch.

2. Communicate something of interest. This actually implies two steps: (a) communicate and (b) be interesting. So email, call and otherwise communicate with your candidates regularly. Do you have an applicant tracking system? If so, use it to do more than just track the progress of your applicants. Also use it to communicate with all of those who are currently being considered and those who are no longer being considered. Did your organization just launch a new product? Land a big client? Overcome a significant obstacle? Communicate it. Candidates care not just about where they are in the hiring process, but also about your organization as a whole. After all, we all want to work with and for winners. Communicate how you're a winner or plan to become one.

3. Be persistent. How many organizations send out a monthly e-newsletter to everyone who has applied to work for them? Virtually none. But if you were interested in working for an organization perhaps today or even years from now, wouldn't you love to hear from them what is happening in their industry and their organization? It costs virtually nothing to create and deliver a monthly e-newsletter. All of the major job boards have them because the job boards understand that they need to continually and persistently communicate with their users in order to keep those users engaged and happy. Why don't employers? Because they don't think like marketers. Yet.

4. Make the calls yourself. When it comes time to extend an offer to a candidate to interview with your organization or even to extend a job offer, which will have a greater impact, an email from a human resources administrator or a phone call from their future manager? Definitely the latter. If you want to land the best candidates, you need to treat them with the respect that they deserve and that means making them feel as special as they are. If they're special, then the hiring manager should be happy to take time out to make those phone calls. If the hiring manager won't, then they don't deserve to work with special people but that's a topic for another blog posting on another day.
   

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 21, 2009 at 7:16 AM | Leave a Comment (2)

I just checked TweetDeck, the tool that I use to manage my Twitter accounts and noticed that Donald Trump sent out a tweet in which he mentioned me. Nice, I thought, if real. Fortunately, Twitter has added a verification tool so that high profile celebrities like The Donald can distinguish their actual accounts from those operated by impersonators. While looking into how that works, I noticed that Twitter offers what they refer to as a "badge." These are basically interactive widgets that you can post to your blog or any other web page so that your visitors can see your most recent tweets and easily follow you. Here's mine:

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 20, 2009 at 3:45 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 20, 2009 at 3:10 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

In case you missed the news, National Football League quarterback and future Hall of Famer Brett Favre came out of retirement (again) and signed a $25 million, two-year contract with the Minnesota Vikings on Tuesday. Many Vikings fans and football analysts believe that the Vikings other quarterbacks, Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels, both lacked reasonable first names and the ability to get the Vikings to the Super Bowl.

Yet Favre's best days are almost certainly behind him and his first comeback attempt with the New York Jets ended in failure last year when he suffered a serious shoulder injury halfway through the injury. Most players would have been out for the year but Favre, true to his uber-competitor spirit, played through the pain. It would have been a great story if he played well but he didn't. He stunk. After the season, he retired, the Jets released him, and then he and the Vikings danced together for months until he agreed to (again) come out of retirement.

With that background behind us, here are the top 10 similarities between Brett Favre and me:

1. We both live close to 50th and France in suburban Minneapolis. I've lived in the Twin Cities since 1988. He's lived here since, well, Tuesday.


2. We were both born in the 1960's.


3. We have a lot of gray in our beards.


4. We both love southern food.


5. We've both spent time in Mississippi.


6. Both of us are really, really, really looking forward to the two games between the Vikes and the Pack.
   
7. We both own Vikings jerseys, although his is real and mine is a replica.


8. We both love NFL football, although I doubt that he likes watching it from the stands and I wouldn't live for two minutes as a player.


9. We recognize that almost everyone looks better in Minnesota Vikings purple rather than Green Bay Packers gold.


10. We're both unsure if Brett Favre will look better in Minnesota Vikings purple rather than Green Bay Packers gold.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 20, 2009 at 8:17 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the pleasures of managing a team of talented, dedicated employees is seeing one of their ideas take root and flourish. Case in point: content coordinator Candice Arnold recommended that we resurrect our Ask the Experts questions and answers feature using our blogging software and integrating it with our customer relationship management software, Salesforce.com.

Candice's vision was quite an upgrade over how we used to do it: email the questions to the couple of dozen experts, receive their answers back in the bodies of their emails and sometimes attachments, copy and paste their answers into html templates, and upload the web pages. The entire process took hours for our staff and the experts. The new process has saved everyone a ton of time and led to a ton of great answers by the experts who choose to address the questions being asked by students searching for internships, recent graduates hunting for entry-level jobs, alumni, and employers.

Each week, Candice sends out an email through Salesforce to the experts who have agreed to answer questions. None answer all of them. Some answer a lot and others answer a few. The choice is theirs. Here's the email that Candice sent earlier today:

I hope you're doing well. Thank you for contributing to CollegeRecruiter.com's Ask the Experts blog. Below, I have listed the five links and questions that I have posted for this week.

1. My company offers a telecommuting option and I'd like to try it. What do I need to know about working from home that will help me make a successful go of it?

http://www.collegerecruiter.com/ask-the-experts/general/successful-telecommuting/index.php

2. I have two employees who argue with each other constantly, yet the nature of their jobs requires that they work together sometimes. What can I do to resolve this?

http://www.collegerecruiter.com/ask-the-experts/general/no-bickering-allowed/index.php

3. I work in a hospital that is a little short staffed, so occasionally someone needs to work double shifts to cover for co-workers who call off or go on vacation. Lately, it seems as if I'm the only one working double shifts. I'm single and don't have any children so any time our supervisor asks for someone to volunteer to work a double shift, I step up if no one else does. After six months of this, I'm starting to feel resentful. Should I just start looking for another job or have a heart-to-heart with my supervisor first?

http://www.collegerecruiter.com/ask-the-experts/general/overworked-and-overwrought/index.php

4. I just got hired to work for a company that requires its sales associates to be "open to a little traveling now and then." What I didn't know is that a "little traveling" meant two or three trips oversees for anywhere from 3-12 weeks at a time. When I asked about this during the interview, the hiring manager actually said, "Oh, you'll only be required to travel two or three times a year ... on average." (a technically true statement) He said that some years I wouldn't have to travel at all, so I thought it would be all right. Now, I feel duped and stupid. Is there any way that I can fix this without going out to look for another job? I don't like the idea of being away from my family for two or three months at one time.

http://www.collegerecruiter.com/ask-the-experts/general/too-much-business-travel/index.php

5. What are some things I can do to save money on college expenses? I have already applied for FAFSA and scholarships and other financial aid; I want to know what I can do to save on the overall cost, please.

http://www.collegerecruiter.com/ask-the-experts/general/is-there-a-way-to-lower-colleg/index.php

Please feel free to answer as many questions as you like. There is no time limit, so it's all right if you answer within two minutes or two months.

If you want your name to serve as a link back to your Web site or blog, you can do so by filling in the URL field above the comments form. If you would like your title or company name to appear with your name, please include it in the name field and it will look like the following example: Candice Arnold CollegeRecruiter.com.

If this is your first contribution, be aware that your comment will have to be approved before it appears on the blog. There is no need to log in. Simply click on comment anonymously, fill out the fields above the comments box, then post your response.

You will receive a new set of links and questions each week. If at any time you feel that you are no longer interested in or capable of participating, just let me know and I will remove your name from the mailing list.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch with me should you have any questions, concerns or difficulties. It's my pleasure to help in any way I can.

Sincerely,
Candice M. Arnold | Content Coordinator
_____________________________________

CollegeRecruiter.com | College Career Connector
Selected by WEDDLE's as a Top Job Board 2007, 2008 and 2009"
Proud to be a woman-owned, small business
Web: http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com
Email: Candice@CollegeRecruiter.com
Main: 800-835-4989 x709 | Direct: 412-596-0693|efax: 702-537-2227
Facebook | LinkedIn

If you'd like to participate in our Ask the Experts feature, please contact Candice. You'll love working with her.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 18, 2009 at 10:37 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

CollegeRecruiter.com has been a pretty active user of Twitter for almost a year now and it has proven to be a valuable marketing tool for our job board. It is one of larger sources of traffic from college students seeking internships and recent graduates hunting for entry-level jobs. It is also proven to be a good source of leads for the employers and consumer marketers who use CollegeRecruiter.com to help them reach those students and recent graduates.

We have two accounts:

1. EntryLevelJob contains links to many of our newest articles, blogs, videos, and job postings. We have about 6,000 followers to that account.


2. StevenRothberg contains some of the same content but is targeted more at our clients than the job seekers. We have about 5,500 followers to that account.

We've made our fair share of mistakes on Twitter, as almost all newbies on just about any type of technology, especially technology which didn't exist just a couple of years ago. So it was with great interest when I read on OpenForum an article about the five mistakes to avoid when using Twitter:

1. Fully fill out your Twitter profile. Twitter will ask you for your real name, photo, location, bio, and web page address (URL) when you registered. Provide them all. If you don't, you won't attract as many followers because they'll find it harder to find you and when they do find you they won't find you to be as credible if some or even all of that information is missing.


2. Every tweet is important. Newbies are usually pretty careful about what they post but every experienced user gets more relaxed over time. Don't get so relaxed that you accidentally post a tweet which could be embarrassing or even damaging. It is very easy and very quick to post just about any 140 character remark about anyone or any organization. Don't let your emotions get the better of you and don't get sloppy in how you write. Read your tweets aloud to yourself before you post them and test any links that you've included to make sure that they work.


3. Don't tweet something and then delete it. Deleted tweets still show up on Google and in Twitter's search results so even if you think you've removed it from public view, you haven't. Be careful to submit only when you're sure that you want that information on-line forever. If you do post something that you regret, consider carefully whether to delete it. The vast majority of tweets are like trees falling in forests in that they're never seen and so make no sound. But if you post something that you shouldn't have and delete it, someone who happens to find it may become more curious about why you deleted it and may re-tweet the post so their followers can see what you've deleted. And then some of them will re-tweet and, well, you get the idea. Mistakes happen. Don't magnify them. Remember, Richard Nixon resigned not because of the break-in at Watergate but because of the cover-up.


4. Don't tweet controversial information just to generate buzz. There's a school of thought on-line that the more controversial you are, the more people will pay attention to you and that's a good thing. Well, it isn't. Being controversial is fine if people pay attention to you AND that attention helps you. Just getting people to listen to you isn't enough. Are they buying your products? Are they applying to your jobs? Stay focused on your goal. Having a lot of followers isn't the goal. Traffic to your web site, sales, job applications, etc. are the goals that most tweeple should strive for, not simply who has the most followers. Let Shaq and Oprah battle that one out.


5. Beware of overusing hashtags. Hashtags are sort of short-hand on Twitter that helps users quickly identify content that may be relevant to them. In the old days of the Internet, webmasters would often add words like "sex" to their web pages in a way that regular people who viewed the page couldn't see the word. But if those people searched Yahoo or Google for information about sex, that page would come up. The result was a lot of visits to the page with the "sex" metatag but those visits were useless. Again, it isn't about the most visits or the most followers. It is about sales, job applications, and other such goals which advance your real goals. Some people are adding hashtags like #job and #jobs to just about everything they post in order to get job seekers to look at their tweets. If those tweets are about jobs, great. But if those tweets are about a new flavor of ice cream, not so great.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 17, 2009 at 12:19 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Do you like coffee, tea, or just about any other beverage? I thought so. And do you live or work near a Starbuck's? Again, I thought so. Would you like to win a $10 gift card to Starbuck's? Who wouldn't?

All you need to do is watch the two minute video below and post a comment to this blog entry. We'll announce the winner on September 1, 2009 and then contact them offline so we can mail the gift card right out to them. Enter soon and enter often. Good luck!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 14, 2009 at 2:07 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

As one of the owners of CollegeRecruiter.com, I feel blessed that we have some really wonderful, blue chip clients. Some of them are corporations and some of them are government. One of our government clients is the Internal Revenue Service. Through our work for them over the years, I've learned a lot of things about the IRS which astounded me and probably would be astounding to most people. For example, did you know that they're the largest accounting firm in the world? And did you know that they are one of the leaders in using virtual world Second Life to recruit candidates.

When I found out about Second Life, I knew that I needed to learn more so I asked Frank Stipe,Virtual Worlds & Social Networking Project Manager, for more information and dropped a pretty strong hint that his response would be blogworthy. Well, ask and ye shall receive. In Frank's words:

In 2008, the IRS project team established a presence in the Second Life virtual world with the goal of exploring the potential use of this environment for recruitment and training purposes. The team has created the IRS Careers Island and constructed a sky platform with an IRS Careers Center and an IRS Education Center. A number of building design configurations have been tested. A number of education and entertainment features have also been built to attract residents to the simulation (sim). All basic construction has been completed and the sim has been opened to the general population in Second Life since February 2009.

Inside Second Life, you can contact either our recruiter Robin Laviscu or our sim engineer RobinRasberry Sorbet.

Cool, huh? So next time you feel like complaining about the IRS -- and most of us do each spring -- remember that they have some really great people working for them and without a doubt, Frank is in that club.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 13, 2009 at 12:29 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I enjoyed the opportunity to speak with Kenrick Chatman on his Career Catalyst radio show about how college students searching for internships, recent graduates hunting for entry-level jobs, and experienced candidates searching for higher level positions should use job boards such as Monster, Careerbuilder, Dice, Jobing, and CollegeRecruiter.com.

Interested? Listen to the conversation and many excellent questions asked by Kenrick's listeners.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 12, 2009 at 3:18 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

The rules of back-to-school shopping have officially changed: buy only what you need, check for coupons and sales before hitting the stores, and, if you can find the perfect computer at the right price, grab it! According to the National Retail Federation's 2009 Back to School Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, the average family with students in grades Kindergarten through 12 is expected to spend $548.72 on school merchandise, a decline of 7.7 percent from $594.24 in 2008. Although total spending on back-to-college and back-to-school is down, it is still anticipated to total $47.50 billion.

According to the survey, the economy is having a major impact on back-to-school spending as four out of five Americans (85%) have made some changes to back-to-school plans this year as a result. Some of those changes impact spending, with 56.2 percent of back-to-school shoppers hunting for sales more often, 49.6 percent planning to spend less overall, 41.7 percent purchasing more store brand/generic products and 40.0 percent are planning to increase their use of coupons. Others say the economy has impacted lifestyle decisions, with 11.4 percent saying children will cut back on extracurricular activities or sports and 5.7 percent saying that the economy is impacting whether their children will attend a private or public school.

"The economy has clearly changed the spending habits of American families, which will likely create a difficult back-to-school season for retailers," said Tracy Mullin, President and CEO of NRF. "As people focus primarily on price, strong promotions and deep discounts will ultimately win over back-to-school shoppers this year."

Spending in most back-to-school categories is expected to decrease, with one bright spot: electronics. With personal laptops and desktop computers increasingly affordable for most families, spending on electronics and computer equipment is expected to increase 11 percent. According to the survey, the average family plans to spend $167.84 on those purchases, compared to $151.61 last year. Families will also spend an average of $204.67 on clothing and accessories, $93.59 on shoes, and $82.62 on school supplies.

While discount stores (74.5%) will be the most popular destination for back-to-school shoppers, the number of people planning to buy school items at drug stores is expected to rise substantially. According to the survey, nearly a quarter (21.5%) of families will shop at drug stores for back-to-school, an 18 percent increase over last year's 18.2 percent. Drug stores have become more popular recently as their merchandise mix has broadened beyond health and beauty products to include school supplies, small electronics, and even groceries.

In addition to discounters and drug stores, more than half of back-to-school shoppers will head to department stores (54.4%), nearly half (48.4%) will shop at a clothing store and 41.2 percent will visit office supply stores. Additionally, 22.2 percent will shop online, 20.8 percent will shop at electronics stores and 18.2 percent will shop at a thrift store.

"Americans will be looking far and wide for the best back-to-school deals, using newspaper ads, online promotion codes, and a lot of comparison shopping before making decisions," said Phil Rist, Executive Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, BIGresearch. "This year, many parents hope to begin back-to-school shopping early to spread the spending out over a longer period of time."

While the first days of school may seem eons away, many Americans have already started shopping. According to the survey, the majority of Americans (44.4%) will begin their shopping three weeks to one month before school starts, trying to take advantage of retailers' early promotions and spend over time. An additional 31.8 percent will shop one to two weeks before school starts and 2.5 percent will shop after school starts, hoping to take advantage of clearance sales and postpone purchases as long as possible.

Average College Spending Increases Slightly, Students More Likely to Live at Home

Even with the uncertainties the economy continues to present, college-bound students and their families are prepared to shell out a little extra this year. NRF's back-to-college survey found that college students and their parents will spend an average of $618.12 this year, up three percent over last year's $599.38. With fewer people planning to attend college this fall, total college spending is expected to decrease to $30.08 billion. While the number of people attending undergraduate schools is not expected to change significantly, according to the survey, the amount of people who say they will participate in an advanced degree program is expected to drop this year (48.1% of respondents last year versus 38.9% this year).

"The economy is forcing young adults to make hard decisions about which schools to attend, where to live, and what's really a "necessity" for college," said Tracy Mullin, President and CEO of NRF. "This year, college students are just as focused as their parents on finding good deals and making smart choices with their money."

As with people who have school-aged children, 83 percent of Americans with students already in or planning to attend college say they the economy is impacting back-to-college plans. According to the survey, back-to-college buyers say the economy will cause them to spend less overall (48.0%), shop for sales more often (46.1%), and comparative shop with ad circulars/newspapers (30.8%). The economy will also cause some students to make do with last year's school items (33.6%), share or borrow textbooks instead of buying new ones (17.4%), and will impact students' choice of college (15.0%).

In addition, 12.8 percent of survey respondents say the economy will impact where a student lives, with many choosing to save money by living at home. Nearly three out of five (58.5%) college students will be living at home this year, compared to 54.1 percent last year and 49.1 percent in 2007. As a result, fewer students will live in a dorm room or college house (15.8% vs. 18.0% in 2008) and in off campus apartments or homes (22.4% vs. 24.3% in 2008).

"Parents want to give their children everything necessary for the best education, but, this year, living at home may need to be a concession students need to make," said Phil Rist, Executive Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, BIGresearch. "The trend of students living with their parents will disproportionately impact home furnishings retailers, as fewer people may be purchasing kitchen items, home decor and furniture."

Much like back-to-school shoppers, families of college students will heavily increase their dependence on drug stores this year. According to the survey, 23.4 percent of back-to-college buyers will shop at drug stores, a 38 percent increase from last year's 14.3 percent. Back-to-college shoppers will purchase from discounters (53.4%), college bookstores (44.5%), department stores (43.1%), and office supply stores (32.5%) most frequently.

As in previous years, families of freshmen will spend the most on back-to-college purchases ($820.77 on average), largely due to major purchases of computer and dorm furnishings. Sophomores will spend the second-highest amount ($496.16), followed by juniors ($470.56), then seniors ($442.00). College students and their families will spend an average of $118.56 on apparel, $57.85 on shoes, $34.52 on collegiate gear, $61.05 on school supplies and $80.06 on dorm or apartment furniture. Spending on electronics or computer-related items is increasing for students ($266.08 on electronics compared to $211.89 last year) as laptops become a requirement for many colleges and universities across the country.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 12, 2009 at 7:40 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

We've been involved in college recruiting since 1995 so we've seen a lot of fads and trends. One of the more interesting trends -- I don't see this as a fad -- is the growth in the number of students who pay for internships. That's right. Students are paying for internships rather than being paid to work as interns.

The New York Times recently ran an interesting article about this trend. The article, entitled, "Unpaid Work, But They Pay for the Privilege," did a nice job of laying out both sides of the issue with a number of quotes from college career service office professionals criticizing the practice and a number of quotes from people like Eric Normington, the chief marketing officer of University of Dreams. They're a leader in the industry and advertise "a guaranteed internship placement, eight weeks of summer housing, five meals a week, seminars and tours around New York City for $7,999. It has a full-time staff of 45, and says it placed 1,600 student interns in 13 cities around the world this year, charging up to $9,450 for a program in London and as little as $5,499 in Costa Rica."

So are paid internships good or bad, or perhaps good for some and bad for others? I feel the latter is closer to the truth. Let's tackle the easy one first. They're clearly good for University of Dreams and the other organizations who sell these services.

Are they good for students? Yes, if the student can afford them. Students who can afford the services are more likely to land a quality internship than if they didn't use the service and a quality internship is critical to the ability of the student to find a quality position upon graduation.

How about the parents? If the programs are good for their kids, and they generally are, then they're good for the parents. If you can invest $8,000 to help your kid get a good job upon graduation from their $100,000 to $250,000 college, isn't that a good investment as that kid will be off your payroll a lot quicker?

Are they good for the employers? Absolutely. As quoted in the Times, "They make the search process a lot easier," said Sarah Cirkiel, the chief executive of Pitch Control Public Relations, a small New York firm that started four years ago and has taken in 20 summer interns, all from the University of Dreams. "I feel like they hand-select their interns for the specific agencies to make sure it's the right fit. They just show up at our doorstep, ready to go."

So who's left? Seems to me that the only other stakeholder are the schools. One complaint that a lot of career service office professionals have about these programs is that they are unavailable to those who can't afford them. Well, how is that any different than their school? When colleges are charging $25,000 a year in tuition and more and saddling with huge student loans the vast majority of students who don't have that kind of coin laying around, it is pretty disingenuous for those same schools to complain about other organizations who are charging students fees to help them advance their careers. Or perhaps that's the problem. Maybe some of the schools would be okay with the programs if it were the schools who were collecting the fees. Hmmm.

Let me be clear about my thoughts on these programs. I wish that they were available to all students regardless of their financial means. But I also wish that everyone in the world had access to perfect food, shelter, medical care, etc. The reality is that there will always be some with more and some with fewer. And in that reality, should those who have more not use their assets to take care of themselves, their families, and their communities by furthering their education and careers? I do find it interesting that the stakeholders who are complaining the loudest about these programs -- the career service offices -- are the ones who are the most threatened by them. If University of Dreams and its competitors continue to grow, what's to stop a number of colleges from weighing their investments in their career service offices whose missions state that it isn't their responsibility to find jobs for any student or grad and comparing that outlay of treasure to what it would cost them to retain a private organization to find all of their students internships and entry-level jobs upon graduation?

If you were a high ranking university administrator, continually faced with budget shortfalls, and trying to figure out ways of making your alums happier, wealthier, and bigger donors, which model would be more appealing to you? The traditional career service model which is grossly underused by students and which helps students learn how to find employment but doesn't find them employment or the University of Dreams model which guarantees employment in return for a set fee?

Tip of the Hat for Sending the New York Times article to me: Art Koff of RetiredBrains.com.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 11, 2009 at 10:42 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

By Lindsey Pollak

As the largest and most vibrant professional social network, LinkedIn provides a wealth of opportunities for career services professionals. But LinkedIn doesn't work unless you work it.

How can you make the most of LinkedIn? I am currently leading a series of official, free LinkedIn training webinars designed exclusively for career services professionals (you are invited to register at http://careerservices.linkedin.com/webinar). As I teach in the webinars, the most important place to begin is by creating a strong LinkedIn profile. The more complete and robust your profile (LinkedIn will alert you when you've reached 100 percent completion), the more professional contacts will find you, the more opportunities will come your way and the more students will have a model for creating their own professional online presence.

Here are some tips for creating a profile that will impress employers, parents, students, administrators, professional colleagues, conference planners and more:

Include keywords in your summary statement. The Summary portion of your profile provides a chance to share the highlights of your bio in your own words. It's also a place to include key words and phrases that someone might type into a search engine to find a person like you. Be sure to include relevant keywords such as "career services," "conference speaker," "employment expert" or other terms you want your name to be associated with. Not sure what words are most compelling and search friendly? Check out the profiles of other careers professionals you admire and use some of the same terminology.

Write for the screen. LinkedIn, or any website for that matter, is not the place for long-form prose. Present your summary statement in short blocks of text with lots of white space. Bullet points are great, too.

Post a friendly photo. Campuses are primarily in-person communities, so a friendly-looking LinkedIn photo can help students recognize you around the quad and feel comfortable approaching you. If you don't have a photo you're fond of, ask a student to snap your picture with a camera phone.

List all experience. One of the most valuable aspects of LinkedIn is the way it connects you with former colleagues and classmates--which, as we all know, are some of our best networking contacts. It would be a shame if a long lost former colleague, who happens to be a recruiter now, couldn't find you because you hadn't listed that shared employment in your LinkedIn profile.

Collect diverse recommendations. Nothing builds credibility like third party endorsements. The most impressive LinkedIn profiles have at least one recommendation associated with each job a person has held. Think about soliciting recommendations from fellow career center staff, employers you've worked with, former students and professional association colleagues.

Share your news. The best way to stay on other people's radar screens is to update your status on LinkedIn (the box near the top of your profile) at least once a week. Tell people about events you are hosting or attending, major projects you've completed, books you are reading, student successes you are celebrating or any other news that you would tell someone at a networking reception or on a quick catch-up phone call.

Finally, I invite you to share these tips with your colleagues. LinkedIn profiles are a great way to build credibility for every member of your staff and to give students and alumni several touchpoints to connect with your career center. And, of course, I welcome you to connect with me!

Guest post by Lindsey Pollak is the author of Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World and campus spokesperson for LinkedIn. She is currently facilitating a series of official, free LinkedIn training webinars for career services professionals. Register at: http://careerservices.linkedin.com/webinar.

Posted by Candice Arnold on August 6, 2009 at 2:11 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Talk with any job seeker for more than a few minutes and you'll hear horror story after horror story about how they can't get their resumes noticed by employers. Many employers refuse to extend the most basic courtesy of an automated email acknowledging the receipt of a resume despite the fact that virtually every employer with more than a few hundred employees has easy, free tools built into their applicant tracking systems that allow them to send automated emails to every job seeker at every step of the hiring process. Any recruiter who works for a mid- to large-sized organization who tells you they don't have the time to email rejected candidates is either lying or a fool.

So what should job seekers do if they're well qualified for a position being offered by an organization and can't get the attention of that organization's recruiters? One answer is to go around the normal, failed hiring channels by building a web site about why that organization should hire you.

As reported by IndyStar.com, Mark Webster worked as a creative director for Internet startups and was unable to generate any good leads through his traditional job search. Rather than continue to bang his head against a brick wall, he switched strategies and bought the web site domain, ShouldHireMe.com, and then built a customized subdomain such as XYZCorp.ShouldHireMe.com -- to make it easy for the organizations he was targeting to find him.

But he didn't stop at building a series of sites. Instead, he also placed ads on Facebook. He set up the ads to display only the screens of people who worked for the companies he was trying to interview with. He targeted 18 companies that way and got phone calls from ten. "Out of all the normal resumes and cover letters I sent out, I didn't get one response," Webster said.

Webster's strategy was brilliant. Instead of continuing to send his resume into the black hole of applicant tracking systems, he made his availability and interest known in a creative way to ordinary people who already worked for the organizations he was targeting.

So how's the job search going? "I stopped my job search a couple months ago, and I'm now doing freelancing and consulting work," he said.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 6, 2009 at 7:08 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

I'm often asked by clients, vendors, and other stakeholders in CollegeRecruiter.com about the amount of time that we spend on social media such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. One person recently said to me that we seem to be everywhere all of the time. I took that as a compliment. But not all comments about our social media efforts have been so complimentary. Some have said that their organizations would never waste so much time playing when they should be working. But is it playing? And if not, what are the business reasons to use social media?

Mike Figliuolo, managing director of thoughtLEADERS, LLC, a leadership development firm, just posted a blog article in which he thoughtfully summed up three primary reasons that businesses should use social media:

1. It's a sales and lead channel. He recently wrote a blog post that was then picked up by SmartBrief. His organization immediately had 700 new blog visitors. One of them read the post, then went to his corporate homepage. They requested information on his training programs and coaching services. Cost to Mike's organization? About 30 minutes of effort writing that blog post -- for a lead they never would have found through traditional means.
2. It's a credibility builder. Mike's organization teaches and trains. They refer prospects to their blog to give them a view into how they approach business. Once there, they either love Mike's organization (and hire them) or shy away (which is fine, too).
3. It's a CRM tool. For Mike's organization, "CRM" stands for Continuous Relationship Management. They may only see a participant in one of their courses once. But if they subscribe to the thoughtLEADERS blog after the class, Mike's organization maintains a weekly relationship with them. When they have a training or keynote speaker need, thoughtLEADERS will be top of mind.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 4, 2009 at 9:14 AM | Leave a Comment (2)

Now I've heard just about everything.Trina Thompson, who may win the award for making the stupidest career move ever, has sued her alma mater, Monroe College, for $70,000. Her claim? She's been unable to find a job since she graduated with an information technology degree in April and she blames the school's Office of Career Advancement (a/k/a career service office) for not trying hard enough to find her a job.

Trina's mother -- surprise, surprise -- is pretty vocal in all of this and completely backs up her precious daughter and completely slams the college. Pathetic.

Do career service offices work for all students? Definitely not. Do they work for even most students? At some schools yes and at some schools no. But did anyone promise Trina a job within four months of graduation? Only if they were on crack.

Colleges used to have placement offices because they felt that it was part of their job to find their graduates employment. But those days disappeared decades ago and they aren't coming back. Colleges today are more realistic and understand that they're better off helping their students learn how to find jobs as that's a skill that they'll need throughout their adult lives. Kind of a "it is better to teach a man to fish" theory.

If you really, really want to roll your eyes really, really hard, then watch this report on Trina and let me know if you agree with my disgust in how she refuses to look in the mirror, acknowledge that perhaps she's part of the problem,and understand that she had the misfortune of graduating into the worst labor market since the 1930's.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 3, 2009 at 9:18 PM | Leave a Comment (3)