They graduated into one of the toughest job markets in years, so what types of jobs were graduates of the college Class of 2009 most likely to be offered? Teaching positions topped the list, according to a new report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

NACE's Fall 2009 Salary Survey report lists teaching, management trainee, financial/treasury analysis, consulting, and sales positions as the top five jobs offered to 2009 graduates. "The types of positions offered to new grads has remained fairly stable over the past five years," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. "In general, employers value graduates who have these the skills required for these types of positions, regardless of the economy."

What has changed is the importance the private sector plays in providing job opportunities for new college graduates.

Although teaching has consistently been an important opportunity for new college grads, private sector opportunities held the top spot until 2008, when teaching moved up the list. "From 2002 through 2007, the number one opportunity was management trainee or sales positions," says Mackes.

Besides underscoring the importance of the public sector as a "home run for new college graduates, the shift from private to public sector opportunities could have ramifications for salaries for new grads. "In general, public sector jobs pay less than those in the private sector," Mackes says.

In fact, the average starting salary offer to new college graduates fell this year. The average salary offer to a 2009 bachelor's degree graduate stands at $48,633; that's 1.2 percent less than the $49,224 average offer for the same graduate from the Class of 2008.

Top Jobs for the Class of 2009 by Starting Job Offer

• Teaching $35,496
  
• Management Trainee $41,353
  
• Financial/Treasury Analysis $52,043
  
• Consulting $56,472
  
• Sales $41,577
  
• Accounting (Public) $49,437
  
• Accounting (Private) $45,859
  
• Software Design & Development $63,798
  
• Registered Nursing $45,229
  
• Project Engineering $58,570
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 30, 2009 at 7:21 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Never in the history of advertising has there been a tool where virtually 100 percent of the people who receive the ad actually read the ad. Until now. Cell phone text messaging, also known as SMS for short message service, "may be the closest thing in the information-overloaded digital marketing world to a guaranteed read," according to the New York Times.

Cell phone text messaging has grown from nothing to 3.5 billion messages per day in a decade. More texts are sent and received every day, according to CTIA, the wireless industry trade group, the number of cellphone calls or emails. And interestingly, the demographic with the biggest increased usage are people who are over the age of thirty.

Why is SMS so popular? Unlike email, people receive very few unwanted text messages. Many and probably most of the hundreds of thousands of college students and recent graduates who use CollegeRecruiter.com each month do receive text which are advertisements but virtually all of those are permission-based, meaning that the person receiving the messages has explicitly requested them. Also unlike email or any other electronic device, it is the only device used by people practically 24 hours a day, seven days a week. People use and care about their cell phones much more than any other device, so if your message is delivered to a student's cell phone, your message will be seen and cared about far more than it would be if it were delivered to them in any other way. In fact, the latest research by the cell phone carriers indicate that 97 percent of all SMS marketing messages are opened and an incredible 83 percent are opened within one hour.

Jeff Lee, president of Distributive Networks, told the New York Times that he likes "to think of it as the certified mail of digital communications. When you want to be sure people see something, send it by text." Jeff knows a thing or two about cell phone text messaging. It was his company that partnered with Barack Obama's presidential campaign in August 2008 to announce by SMS that Obama had selected Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate. An estimated 2.9 million people registered to receive the text. According to the Times, the "promotion generated millions of new mobile phone numbers, which the campaign then used to send out more texts drumming up donations and volunteers."

So now that you're ready to use perhaps the most innovative, productive tool to reach today's college students and recent graduates, what should you watch our for?

First, be sure to use a carrier approved aggregator like CollegeRecruiter.com. If you don't and end up with a spammer that blasts out texts without permission then you may end up being on the receiving end not of great results but instead a great, big fine and permanent blockage from the carriers from sending out future messages through their valued networks.

Second, use a legitimate option, the best choice of which will be determined by your goals and budget. The simplest and cheapest approach is to send text coupons or other messages to people who are physically in the vicinity of your businesses. But this won't allow you to capture the cell phone numbers of those who you are targeting. Another option is to spend tens of thousands of dollars registering for your own "short code," which is the five- or six-digit phone number that dialers use to access a text marketing campaign. Think of it like an email address for your mobile marketing campaign. Obama's short code of 62262 was used in almost all of his marketing campaigns including print, web, and at rallies. Anyone who texted a message to 62262 was added to his marketing list. The third option, and the one favored by our clients, is to share our short code and have us deliver your messages on your behalf to the students, recent graduates, and alumni who have provided us with permission to send to them employment and other marketing messages by our clients.

Third, remember that when you're marketing your employment or other opportunity by text message that you can and should support that campaign with traditional marketing techniques. Include your short code in your brochures, on your business cards, in your job posting ads, etc. Anywhere you'd put your web page address, put your short code.

Fourth, remember to provide your target audience with a real, tangible benefit for opting in to receive your messages. It isn't enough to ask people to come to text you. They need to be convinced that it is a good idea for them. So provide them with an incentive of some type that goes beyond what they would receive if they just visited your web site. Free stuff always helps, as does exclusive or first access to content or opportunities.

Fifth, understand that just like any other marketing campaign, an advertisement sent to the cell phones of your target audience is not going to be effective if you do it only once. It needs to be integrated with your other efforts and be part of an ongoing effort. The most successful marketing campaigns are those which build relationships. Rather than going for the rare home run, go for lots of singles.

Finally, don't overwhelm your audience with more than a few cell phone text messages a month or messages which aren't written in your real voice. If you're 40 years old, don't try to sound like you're 20 years old. It won't come across as authentic and a lack of authenticity is a sure recipe for disaster with Gen Y consumers.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 29, 2009 at 12:51 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I love success. Who doesn't? We're often asked by potential clients for testimonials from satisfied clients and those are fine, but I find actual success stories to be more compelling because they provide the context that testimonials lack.

I asked Caddy Rowland, our director of sales for employment marketing, to assemble a few success stories for targeted email campaigns they've worked on for our clients. I wasn't terribly surprised when she and her account manager, Lisa Colbert, came up with three very representative yet great success stories:

1. Healthcare Client

Background: A localized children's hospital internationally known for its work in finding cures for children's diseases.

The Situation: This company frequently wants to target students in all class years, plus recent grad up to 24 months attending specified schools. They needed to drill down specifically to those majoring in biologist or chemist degrees.

The Challenge: The client wanted to send the campaign as quickly as possible to their select target. The target was difficult to populate.

The Solution: After obtaining the select target count we decided to include an expanded nationwide count of the target area and majors. The client decided to stay within their specific schools and not use the nationwide target. We were able to send this email within a few days to the specific target.

The Benefits: The client was able to find the exact candidates they were looking for and, as a result, has sent the same email campaign a couple of months later with CollegeRecruiter.com and pre-purchased email credits for future use.

Average Click Through Rate: 9.19%
Average Open Rate: 15.00%

2. Outsourcing Client

Background: A global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company.

The Situation: This company frequently works with clients who wish to target college students or recent grads with specific majors to take the pulse on who is interested in those respective fields. They need to drill down by specific majors and graduation dates.

The Challenge: The client wanted to send the campaign as a survey anonymously.

The Solution: After verifying that the client did not violate our rules of promoting alcohol, gambling, tobacco or pornography, we were able to drill down according to their parameters and send this email keeping the client anonymous. The targeted recipients were led through a group of questions of which if they did not answer according to the clients predetermined needs, the survey stopped. Those who fit their profile throughout the completion of the survey were given a gift card to a major online store.

The Benefits: The client was able to find the exact candidates they were looking for and, as a result, as done several other campaigns with CollegeRecruiter.com.

Average Click Through Rate: 13.05%
Average Open Rate: 12.69%

3. Government Agency Client

Background: A U.S. federal government agency.

The Situation: This organization frequently wants to target recent grads and grads with work experience living in a specific designated market area for U.S. federal government open positions. They need to drill down by specific majors and graduation dates to fill candidate pool quickly.

The Challenge: The client wanted to send the campaign as quickly as possible to their select target. The target was difficult to populate.

The Solution: After working with the client to expand the target area and majors, we were able to drill down according to their parameters. Once we drilled down, we were able to send this email within a few days to the specific target.

The Benefits: The client was able to find the exact candidates they were looking for and, as a result, has pre-purchased email credits to use for several other campaigns with CollegeRecruiter.com.

Average Click Through Rate: 14.12%
Average Open Rate: 11.90%

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 25, 2009 at 5:19 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

My friends, David Perry and Kevin Donlin, recently published a great new resource for anyone searching for a new job in this difficult economy: Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 2.0. As part of that effort, they invited me to write the chapter on how job hunters should use job boards such as CollegeRecruiter.com.

Guerrilla is much, much more than just a chapter on job boards, so David and Perry thought it would be a good idea for me to re-publish my chapter here so that potential readers of the book can get a better feel for the type of content included in the book:

Job boards have been around almost since the dawn of the Internet and became popular in the mid-1990s with the birth of some of today's biggest and best job boards. They're wonderful tools for both job seekers and employers, yet like all tools they can be dangerous in the hands of someone who misuses them. The following tips will maximize your chances of finding a great new job as quickly as possible.

Keep repeating the process until you've been hired or excluded from consideration.

Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 2.0 is available now at fine bookstores everywhere, including Amazon.com.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 22, 2009 at 8:03 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Last week was a pretty brutal week of travel for me. I started in Nashville on Saturday, flew to Palm Springs through Denver and Los Angeles on Tuesday, flew back to Nashville through Los Angeles and Las Vegas on Thursday, then flew home to Minneapolis Thursday evening.

Four of my six flights featured ground and air crews who were delightful. It won't surprise many to learn that four of those flights were on Southwest Airlines but many will be surprised that the last one -- and most impressive -- was on a Northwest / Delta Airlines flight operated by regional carrier, Compass.

The Compass flight from Nashville to Minneapolis started out a little late due to weather issues and then our plane had a mechanical issue. Turns out that the AA batteries to the megaphone / bullhorn needed to be replaced by federal rules require a signed waiver from the aircraft manufacturer and they're in Brazil. So rather than waiting hours for a faxed signature, Compass moved us to a second, identical plane. But that plane had mechanical problems too. The circuit breaker in the smoke detector in one of the bathrooms needed to be replaced. That delayed us two hours so we ended up leaving three hours late.

No one likes departing late but I've had and will have worse. But more than delays what really frustrates travelers is the apparent, ahem, need by some airline crew to be less than candid with their customers and sometimes simply lie. Why they can't be open, honest, and transparent about the problems that occur and which travelers expect is beyond me. The Compass ground and air crew were awesome. They kept us informed. They told us how the rules made no sense but they had to follow them. They made arrangements for free hotels in Nashville or Minneapolis for passengers who would miss their connections. And they were nice. Really nice.

But to top it all off, they gave us vouchers as we boarded that entitled us to $100 towards another Delta flight or 10,000 frequent flyer miles. That voucher was not necessary but sure left a good taste in the mouths of each and every traveler that day. We knew that Compass had done everything that it could to make us happy and we'll re-pay that attitude by flying them again. Kudos!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 21, 2009 at 6:07 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I had the pleasure of attending and doing a presentation on the last day of the 2009 annual Pacific West HR Conference in Palm Springs. Attendance was down somewhat from previous years, but that's been the case at just about every recruiting conference since the start of the recession.

This year's conference was held in Palm Springs, California, which was a big change for a lot of the attendees as the conference has been held in Long Beach for the past five or so years. Getting the conference out of the Los Angeles metro area allowed attendees to make a better mental break from their normal work and personal lives and to focus on the presentations, exhibition hall, and networking opportunities.

My presentation was on how employers should use cell phone text messaging and other mobile marketing techniques to help them recruit college students and recent graduates. Attendance at my presentation and others held the last afternoon was pretty light but those who attended were engaged, interactive, and appreciative.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 18, 2009 at 11:07 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Employers expect to hire 7 percent fewer graduates from the college Class of 2010 than they hired from the Class of 2009, according to a new report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

Employers responding to NACE's Job Outlook 2010 Fall Preview survey expect to trim college hiring again this year, following significant cutbacks in hiring that affected the Class of 2009. The Class of 2009 saw employer hiring plans change almost overnight from a 6.1 percent increase to an decrease of more than 21 percent, thanks to the meltdown of the financial sector last fall. (See Figure 1.)

Among employers responding to the 2010 survey, 40 percent anticipate cutbacks and just 17 percent anticipate increasing their hiring. However, the largest group--43 percent--plan to maintain their college hiring at 2009 levels.

Not surprisingly, the primary reason that employers gave for decreasing their new college hiring was the economy.

"Traditionally, employers tend to be conservative about their college hiring when the economy is in flux," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. "Although employers anticipate doing most of their recruiting in the fall, we are seeing some movement to recruit in the spring. This is likely due to anticipation that the economic recovery will be underway by then."

For the 2009-10 academic year, employers expect to conduct 60 percent of their recruiting in the fall and 40 percent in the spring. That's a slight change from the 2008-09 academic year, when employers reported conducting 63 percent of their hiring in the fall and 37 percent in the spring.

By region, the outlook is positive only in the Northeast, where employers report plans to increase hiring by 5.6 percent. All other regions report decreases: Midwest (-3.2 percent); Southeast (-9.9 percent); West (-36.8 percent).

NACE monitors the job market for new college graduates throughout the academic year with a variety of surveys. NACE will issue a report on employer hiring activity in November and its first report on starting salary offers for the Class of 2010 in January.

Figure 1: Employer hiring projections, Fall 2009 versus Fall 2010

Source: Job Outlook 2010 Fall Preview, National Association of Colleges and Employers

Posted by Candice Arnold on September 17, 2009 at 12:40 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 17, 2009 at 9:19 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Caddy Rowland, our director of sales for employment advertising, and I traveled down from Minneapolis-St. Paul on Sunday to attend the IPMA-HR 2009 annual conference, which is perhaps the biggest conference of the year for government human resource professionals. Here are Caddy's impressions:

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 15, 2009 at 1:31 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

The economy took a hit: So too did starting salary offers to new college graduates, according to a new report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

NACE's Fall 2009 Salary Survey report shows that Class of 2009 bachelor's degree graduates earned an average starting salary offer of $48,633--1.2 percent below the average $49,224 their Class of 2008 counterparts received.

On the surface, that decline seems small when considered in light of the changes that occurred in the economy. Moreover, more than half of all disciplines that experienced a change in salary saw those salaries increase. However, a deeper look at salaries shows there have been considerable consequences for the Class of 2009.

"In fact, year-over-year salary increases are what have come to be considered 'the norm.' The small decrease actually reflects a much greater loss," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.

For example, the Class of 2008 saw its average starting salary increase 7.6 percent over the average offer to Class of 2007 grads. Moreover, for the Class of 2008, 94 percent of the disciplines that experienced a change in salary saw salary increases.

The decline in salary reflects the drop in demand for new graduates, as does the decline in the number of offers reported.

"There are 20 percent fewer offers reported in the September 2009 Salary Survey than were reported in the September 2008 report--despite the fact that nearly the same number of schools reported offers for both reports," says Mackes.

The results confirm an earlier study by NACE that found less than 20 percent of the graduating class had a job at the time of graduation.

Not surprisingly given their relatively short supply, engineering and computer science graduates saw their average salary offers increase. Graduates in the business and liberal arts disciplines--fields that boast plentiful supplies of graduates--saw their average offers fall, although the drop was less than 1 percent, suggesting that employers chose to maintain salary levels even as they trimmed their hiring rolls.

The overall average salary offer to business majors as a group fell by a mere one-tenth of 1 percent, with nearly an even split of increases and decreases posted by each of the individual disciplines. Accounting, marketing, and finance majors realized increases, while business administration/management, economics, and management information systems graduates saw their average offers fall.

The average salary offer to accounting graduates crept up by less than 1 percent to $48,471, and the overall average salary offer to marketing graduates is up 1.8 percent to $42,260. Finance majors posted a 2.1 percent increase to their average salary offer, bringing it to $49,163.

Conversely, business administration/management graduates saw their average offer fall 3.4 percent to $44,607; the average offer to economics graduates fell 2.8 percent to $49,628; and management information systems graduates saw their average salary offer dip by 1.8 percent to $50,573.

In the technical fields, graduates earning degrees in computer science saw their average offer rise just 0.6 percent to $61,467, and information sciences and systems graduates saw a 1.1 percent increase for an average offer of $52,886.

Compared to many of their peers in other disciplines, engineering graduates fared well. As a group, engineering grads saw their average offer rise 4.2 percent from $57,250 to $59,670. By specific discipline, chemical engineering graduates saw their average offer increase 3 percent to $65,675, and the average offer to mechanical engineers rose 3.9 percent to $59,222. Electrical engineering graduates posted a 5 percent increase to their average salary offer, which now stands at $60,509. All healthy increases--unless compared to jump in the average starting salary offer to petroleum engineers, which rose a whopping 13 percent to $85,417. Driving up that average: offers, ranging between $70,000 and $90,00, from petroleum and coal products manufacturers.

Average salary offers to liberal arts graduates held their ground; their average offer dropped just 0.3 percent from a $36,715 to $36,624. Overall, liberal arts grads were most likely to be offered teaching positions, which were among the top jobs for 2009 graduates.

By specific discipline in the liberal arts, there is a mix: English majors saw a 3.2 percent increase to their average salary offer, which now stands at $36,604. Political science/government majors saw a similar increase; their average offer rose 3 percent to $40,009. The average salary offer for psychology majors, up 1.4 percent, now stands at $34,573; the average offer for history majors is $38,445, just 1 percent over last year's average. However, the average offer to sociology grads fell 3.2 percent to $34,290, while the average offer to visual and performing arts graduates dropped 2.7 percent to $34,114.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 14, 2009 at 7:34 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Dr. Phil Gardner of Michigan State University asked if CollegeRecruiter.com could help him (and the college recruiting community) collect some information from employers of college students and recent graduates for his annual survey. I strongly encourage all employers, whether they're clients or CollegeRecruiter.com or not yet client of CollegeRecruiter.com (wink, wink), to complete this survey. If you do, he'll be happy to send a copy of the compiled results to you.

Here is the message from Dr. Gardner:

As the academic year begins, I am contacting you seeking your support for a very important project that provides the college recruiting community with an invaluable resource for our graduating students as they approach the world of work. We are assisting our colleagues at Michigan State University with their annual college recruiting survey. This year we particularly need your help! In the 40 years MSU has conducted this study, they have never been witness to as difficult a labor market as we are experiencing today. We hope you or someone in your organization can take a few moments and complete the survey. Even if you will not be hiring this year, the information you provide will aid us in helping seniors prepare for their transition into the workforce.

The survey constructs a profile of the hiring situation by economic sector, geographic location and company size. The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete. You have the right to refuse to answer any question. Your information will be treated with strict confidence. No individual or company is ever identified. Only group data will be used in reports and presentations. Your confidentiality will be protected to the maximum extent allowed by law.

Completing the survey is simple. Click (while holding down the control key) on the link to MSU's online survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=a5bv29zIikeszkSP6c8t6g_3d_3d

If you would rather have a paper copy, please contact Phil Gardner at 517-355-2211 or through email at gardnerp@msu.edu and a survey will be sent to you immediately.

MSU would like to receive your information by September 30th. For your participation in the study you will be sent the report, Recruiting Trends 2009-2010, shortly after it is released on November 20th.

If you have any concerns or questions about this research study, scientific issues, how to do any part of it, or if you believe you have been harmed because of the research, please contact Dr. Phil Gardner, 113 SSB Michigan State University, East Lansing MI 48824, (517)355-2211 or gardnerp@msu.edu.

On behalf of all graduating seniors, I thank you for your time and extend best wishes in all your endeavors.

Sincerely,

Dr. Phil Gardner, Director
Collegiate Employment Research Institute
113 SSB
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
phone: 517-355-2211
email: gardnerp@msu.edu
web: ceri.msu.edu

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 11, 2009 at 3:22 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Paul Bell, our manager of e-learning, and I just returned from a three day trip to south Florida to meet with a vendor, attend the annual member meeting for the International Association of Employment Web Sites, and walk through the exhibitors room at the ERE fall 2009 recruiting conference.

Shortly after we walked into the exhibitor's room at ERE, Paul and I bumped into a few old friends: Chris Russell of AllCountyJobs.com, Ethan Bloomfield of JobTarget, and Mark Ezra of Honesty Online. They graciously accepted our request to be interviewed. Interestingly, all five of us agreed that the job market, job board industry, and recruiting industry have stabilized and that we're all seeing slow and steady improvements in the health of each.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 11, 2009 at 11:53 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 10, 2009 at 8:12 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

No one is born knowing how to look for a new job...or mistakes to avoid when looking for a new job. But there are some people out there who through experience and thoughtfulness are fountains of wisdom about what to do and what not to do.

Tom Gimbel, Founder & CEO, The LaSalle Network, is one of those people. Kathryn Kaysen Jackson, the Academic Internship Coordinator/Clinical Instructor at Loyola University Chicago and blogger, recently tipped me off to a four minute video in which Tom discusses how to avoid some common mistakes in finding a job. Enjoy!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 9, 2009 at 7:59 AM | Leave a Comment (2)

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Think that blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other social media are all the rage these days? You'd never know it by looking at how hiring managers and human resource professionals are doing their jobs.

SmartBlog on Workforce recently polled its readers and found that a whopping 72 percent were not using social media as part of their recruiting efforts. Even given that only 75 percent of Americans can place Canada on a map of North America, that 72 percent is really astounding to me. Well, both are astounding to me but I digressed and am trying to pull myself back to some degree of relevancy.

What is really troubling about these numbers is that if you asked the 72 percent who aren't using social media what their biggest recruiting challenges are, you'd probably find that most would answer finding enough qualified candidates. Yet they're likely also spending almost all of their efforts on their own web site, ignoring the atrocious problems that their applicant tracking system causes with making it easy for highly qualified candidates to apply and then actually tracking the source of those candidates, and wondering why they can't find enough good candidates on the job boards anymore. The answer is that the best candidates spend little to no time on job boards posting resumes or applying to jobs.

At CollegeRecruiter.com, we know that the best approach to reach the college students and recent graduate demographic isn't through resume searching (we don't even offer it anymore) or job postings (they're okay but not great). Instead, we recommend more innovative tools such as targeted emails and cell phone text messaging. And we're big supporters of using social media to reach and engage candidates. So employers: get with it by getting into the bucket with the 28 percent of employers who are using social media as part of their recruiting strategy.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 3, 2009 at 7:47 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Nine years ago, Monster purchased the leading college job board system, JobTRAK, for a reported $280 million. By early 2009, the since re-named MonsterTRAK had only three employees and only hundreds of job postings. On April 7, 2009, Monster formally announced that it had closed (killed?) MonsterTRAK. Contrary to what some may assume, I took no pleasure in seeing the demise of such a great business even though I'm one of the owners of a direct competitor.

I suspect that Monster is still cleaning up some of the loose ends from its closing of MonsterTRAK. Want an example? They're apparently still buying pay-per-click advertising to promote it.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 2, 2009 at 7:36 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I've long been a strong advocate that employers should not only blog, but blog on their corporate web sites. Why? Because search engines like Google love blogs. They love blogs for the same reason that people love blogs: they tend to be very current, frequently updated, sources of information. In short, they're relevant and search engines rank pages based upon relevancy.

The logic made sense to me and, I think, most of the people that I talked with about blogging but until now I didn't have the empirical evidence to back up my beliefs. Now I do because a study was just released by HubSpot which found that organizations with blogs on their web sites have:

• 55% more visitors. More visitors mean more people to convert to leads and sales if you're a consumer marketer or more candidates and hires if you're marketing your employment opportunities.
• 97% more inbound links. These are critical to your site coming up at or near the top of the search engine rankings because inbound links signal to search engines that your pages and therefore your entire site is authoritative.
• 434% more indexed pages. This is also important because the more pages you have on your site, the more chances you have of getting found by your target audience when they use Google or any of the other search engines.

So, if you'd like to blog to better connect with your audience but your I.T. or marketing people are fretting, tell them that you appreciate their concern, remind them who is the boss (you are as they are mere advisors) and then force them to do what is best for the organization, for which you now have cold, hard proof.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 1, 2009 at 7:21 AM | Leave a Comment (0)