Earlier this week, I posted a couple of blog articles about how people can start their own e-businesses even if they don't know much about technology or running a businesses. Our partner, SBI! Learning, has taught tens of thousands of graduates at prestigious universities across the country why e-businesses make good fiscal sense, how to start them, and, most importantly, how to run them.

As a lifelong entrepreneur born into a family full of entrepreneurs, the idea of starting CollegeRecruiter.com wasn't scary and I knew where to turn to for help with just about any issue. But the reality is that very few families are blessed with successful entrepreneurs and if your family is like that, then understanding how to start a business and how to run that business must seem overwhelming. Fortunately, SBI! Learning has the tools you need. They'll walk you through why e-businesses (businesses which are located on-line like a blog or other web site) are good ideas for many people, how to get the training and other help you'll need to get started, how to launch the business, and how to run it.

Intrigued? I don't blame you. There just aren't nearly enough resources out there like SBI! Learning for those who want to become entrepreneurs by starting their own on-line businesses. To learn more, visit their web site where you'll find links to their email address and toll free phone number or, better yet, watch this video first and then click through.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 29, 2010 at 11:08 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

A couple of days ago I wrote a short note about the immense respect that I have for how well the folks at SBI! eLearning have taught thousands of students through some of the nation's largest, most prestigious schools to create and run their own on-line businesses. But I recognize that my short note and related video may not have provided enough information for some people. Some, of course, want just a little information before they ask questions. Others want more information so they've got a more complete picture before they start asking away.

For those who want more information, watch the video below. It is slightly less than 10 minutes and does a great job of walking you through why an e-business is a great idea for those who are struggling to find work or just fed up with relying on employers or the government for their livelihood. Once you've watched the video, head over to the SBI! Learning site for more information or contact information so you can request information on-line, by email, or even through a toll free call with one of their career advisors.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 27, 2010 at 11:58 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

There's no doubt that the recession of 2008 and 2009 had a significant, negative impact on the recruiting industry but that was to be expected as money spent by employers on their recruiting efforts is always inversely correlated to the unemployment rate. Historically, as the economy weakens and unemployment increases, employers spend less on recruiting. Indeed, the money spent on recruiting tends to slightly lag the unemployment rate. The depth of this most recent recession was the worst since the depression of the 1930's so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the recruiting industry is now just starting to emerge from its worst two years in decades. But if there's one truth when it comes to the unemployment rate it is that even when unemployment goes up, it always goes back down again:

It is clear that as the economy and labor markets continue to strengthen, so will the recruitment industry in general. Also, while the labor market continues its rebound from the recession, the exodus from the labor market of the Baby Boom generation will continue and likely accelerate. The oldest of the Baby Boomers are now 65 years old and starting to retire. Many delayed their planned retirements when their investments fell in value during the fall of 2008 but as their investments continue to rebound and the generation's physical and mental ability to work continues to decline, we will see an increased exodus of this huge group from the workforce and that will put further staffing pressure on employers.

Indeed, in 2009 today's college students and recent graduates (Gen Y / Millennials) displaced the Boomers as largest generation in the workforce. As more Boomers retire and more Gen Y'ers enter the workforce, employers will increase spending on recruitment advertising and further ramp up their college hiring efforts in an effort to replace their retiring Baby Boomer leaders with members of Gen Y. I'm biased, of course, but I believe that CollegeRecruiter.com, as the leading job board used by college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry-level jobs, is well positioned to capture a disproportionately large share of this increased spending.

It is clear that the recruitment advertising industry is poised for significant growth both in the short- and long-term, but how much of that growth will be spent on traditional advertising vehicles such as newspapers versus job boards? The answer lays in a look at recent history. Only two years ago, employers spent about $30 billion on advertising, career fairs, and headhunters with about $8.5 billion of that spent on newspaper, job board, and other forms of recruitment advertising. As the recession hit in 2008 and 2009, the total spending on recruitment advertising dropped by about two-thirds to about $3.5 billion:

So as the economy, labor market, and recruitment advertising industry continue to emerge from this recession, how much of the $30 billion will be spent on job boards in general and specifically with niche job boards such as CollegeRecruiter.com? Investment banks Barclays Capital and Jefferies International conservatively estimated that the total amount spent on recruitment advertising was about $8.5 billion in 2005 and 2007 but only $3.5 billion in 2009 and, of that, job board revenues were about $1.5 billion in 2005, a little over $2 billion in 2007, and about $1.5 billion in 2009. As the economy rebounds, a simplistic estimate of likely industry revenues would be the same $2 billion that the industry generated in the last calendar year before the recession hit. But that analysis would ignore the rapidly increasing market share captured by the job boards at the expense of the newspapers:

In 2005, newspapers captured a whopping 60 percent of recruitment advertising revenues, leaving only 20 percent to job boards. But by 2009, the percentages were reversed with job boards capturing about 55 percent and newspapers 20 percent. With fewer and fewer employers purchasing newspaper ads and more and more newspapers going out of business, this trend is only likely to continue. But even if in the short-term the percentages stay the same, when recruitment advertising again hits $8.5 billion that will generate over $4.5 billion for the job board industry, an increase of some 300 percent from 2009 revenues.

Assuming that job board revenues increase in the short-term only to $4.5 billion, how much of that will be spent with niche boards such as CollegeRecruiter.com? In 2007, the Wall Street Journal estimated that about $6 billion was spent with job boards and about $4 billion of that was spent with niche boards such as CollegeRecruiter.com. If two-thirds of job board revenues continue to be spent with niche boards, then employers will allocate a whopping 67 percent ($3 billion of the $4.5 billion) with niche boards.

Barclays Capital, Forrester Research, and even the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) believe that the estimates of $4.5 billion being spent with job boards in general and $3 billion of that being spent with niche boards is actually quite conservative because the estimates assume that the job boards will stop gaining market share. But the experts agree that the market share owned by the job board industry should increase from 55 to 74 percent by 2011:

In summary, as the economy rebounds, by 2012 employers will again be spending some $8.5 billion on recruitment advertising, of which $6.3 billion will flow to the job board industry and $4.2 billion of that to niche boards such as CollegeRecruiter.com.

Source: Jobing

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 26, 2010 at 12:44 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

As an owner of e-business CollegeRecruiter.com, I've always been impressed with the knowledge, teaching ability, and almost fanatical devotion to customer service shown by our partners at SBI! eLearning and its parent company, SiteSell.

SBI! eLearning is a 12-week online education course that takes you, step-by-step through the process of building your very own successful, thriving Web business with Site Build It! (SBI!).

Prestigious universities and colleges (ex., Penn State, Baruch College, The Citadel Military College) offer this course in the USA, Europe, Canada, Australia and Africa. SBI! eLearning now delivers the same experience and results online, to you, in your home. And if you order SBI! eLearning before February 1st, you'll save $100.

Other online courses in web marketing cost at least one full year of your life (often two to four years) and $15,000/year. Do you have a few hours a week for 12 weeks, at a fraction of that price, to learn more than theory and actually build your own business, like thousands of other graduates are doing? If so, then watch this video and then head over to the SBI! eLearning web site.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 25, 2010 at 11:36 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Every industry has its leaders, its thinkers, its strategists. The job board industry is no exception and one of those leaders is Gautam Godhwani of SimplyHired.com. Gautam is one of those guys who you look forward to seeing at industry events whether he runs a direct competitor or, in our case, an indirect competitor. SimplyHired.com competes very indirectly with CollegeRecruiter.com for job seeker traffic and employment advertising dollars, but we cooperate far more than we compete as we buy advertising from them to help drive additional job seeker traffic to our site. Perhaps the best word to describe our relationship is that are in coopetition.

Because of our cooperative / competitive relationship and because I just think that SimplyHired does a lot of things very well, I read their blog and keep an eye out for their innovations. And today there was a doozy. SimplyHired today laid out how it is now encouraging candidates to share the job postings running on its site with their friends and, more importantly, with those who may be in a position to help them get hired. Brilliant.

The enhancement that SimplyHired just rolled out brilliantly (did I already use that word?) enables job seekers to email job posting ads to friends and, more interestingly, share postings on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn with those in their network. I've often struggled with how to integrate postings with social media sites because, well, face it, what job seeker would be inclined to share a posting with a friend and therefore either potentially get too involved in that friend's search or invite even further competition for the job from their friend?

But Gautam and crew saw that job seekers wouldn't just want to share a job with their friends. They may also want to share them with people they know in the human resource office at the organization to which they're applying, or are hiring managers, or work for the employer and may be inclined to be your champion because there's an employer referral program, or may be just about anyone else who isn't going to compete but instead will cooperate to help you land that job.

Brilliant.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 22, 2010 at 7:08 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

In response to the sluggish economy, many corporations either froze or cut pay in 2009. Even as the economy starts showing signs of life, a majority plan to remain conservative when it comes to pay practices in 2010. The WorldatWork 2009-10 Salary Budget Survey, January 2010 Update, found that 52 percent of U.S. employers froze pay for some or all employees in the 2009 recession, while 13 percent cut pay.

Will employees see their pay restored in 2010? At least 22 percent of organizations that froze pay in 2009 are planning to prolong the freeze into 2010, while 54 percent plan to resume normal pay activities this year. More than a third said they were in a recession when the survey was taken in October and were not in a position to unfreeze pay.

Of those organizations that cut pay, 37 percent said they remained in a recession and were not yet considering recovery actions; 29 percent planned to restore pay in full, while 15 percent said the pay cuts were permanent.

"Employers are taking a `wait and see' stance when it comes to returning to normal pay practice," said Jim Stoeckmann, CCP, compensation practice leader at WorldatWork. "There are risks both ways. Moving too fast in restoring salaries and merit budgets leaves employers vulnerable if the recovery fails to materialize. Moving too slowly creates the risk of turnover as employees look for a better opportunity with another company. Even with jobs scarce, there are always opportunities for employees with the right skill set."

As salary budgets remain tight and employee satisfaction low, organizations are turning to other ways to motivate and reward employees. Employers are focused on providing or enhancing career development opportunities (33 percent), noncash rewards and recognition (28 percent), leadership training on employee motivation (21 percent), flexibility options (20 percent), monetary rewards for high performers (19 percent), and monetary rewards for mission-critical talent (15 percent).

"With lower than normal employee satisfaction levels, it is crucial for employers to center the employee value proposition on the entire total rewards package," said Alison Avalos, research manager for WorldatWork. "Employers can cultivate employee loyalty by highlighting noncash rewards, particularly for key employees. These programs validate the employee's time, effort and talent, even in the absence of salary increases."

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 22, 2010 at 9:12 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Twitter is a unique social media tool. It isn't like Facebook or even blogs where you're writing for the benefit of people who come to your page or actually are seeking out your opinions.

Twitter has followers but the nature of the service is that only those with very, very few followers can even hope to read everything that you've written. So it is much more akin to radio than it is a newspaper in that what you write is broadcast and essentially gone forever immediately. As a result, you want to write interest tweets often, include links to your site and others, and then wait for the magic to happen. The magic comes when your followers see your tweets, like them, and share them with their friends. That attracts more followers and more re-tweets. And the more re-tweets you get, the more clicks from Twitter and more SEO love you get.

Twitter has grown from virtually nothing as far as a source of traffic for us to one of our top sources of traffic. Two of my blog articles this week alone generated some 250 new links to our site and the Googles of the world love links. So forget about having a conversation. Those with the most followers don't even try because the understand that Twitter is a much better vehicle for speaking than listening. I trust that my 23,000+ followers agree.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 21, 2010 at 7:33 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? To those of us who are active on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, and other social media sites, a question that we will often ask ourselves is whether anyone is actually listening to the few nuggets of wisdom that occasionally spill out of our fingertips and onto our keyboards. And with so much competition for attention out there, how can we get our messages in front of the people that we most care about -- those with whom we're already doing business but with whom we want to do more?

One answer to this dilemma is to include links to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, and other social media sites in every email that you send out so that the people with whom you're already working with will regularly be reminded where and how they can find your tweets, updates, blog articles, etc. But short of including some nasty, "read my blog" and then linking to your main page, how do you remind them in a way that will entice them to click to read your content yet also not steal the thunder from the body of your email? The solution that I use is WiseStamp.

WiseStamp is a signature creator for those who use web mail programs such Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! mail, and AOL mail. It is available as a free download but the creators request a donation so they can eat. Features include:

• Personally designed signatures
  
• Easy setup and configuration interface
  
• Use multiple email signatures (Business and Personal)
  
• Rename signatures
  
• Signature Rich Text editor (WYSIWYG Editor-choose color and font)
  
• Add your personal feeds (rss)
  
• Add your logo or image to your signature
  
• Automatically insert your signature to your webmail services
  
• Supports to all webmail functions- Compose Mail, Reply, and Forward
  
• Easily Include all your IM (Instant messaging) ID's + Icons
  
• Easily link to all of your Social profiles & Services + Icons (see list below)
  
• Manually add your signature at mouse cursor location
  
• Preview while editing Signature
  
• Simple control- switch signature on/off
  
• Support for special characters
  

• Option to treat each signature as HTML
  
• Full Ltr & Rtl languages support
  
• Add your personal signature to any online Html supported page (Google Docs...etc)
  
• Supports Firefox 2 & Firefox 3 !!
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 20, 2010 at 7:55 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

"Playing dead not only comes in handy when face-to-face with a bear, but also at important business meetings."

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 19, 2010 at 9:10 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Competencies, interests, and values. Those are the three necessary characteristics when searching for a new job. Don't consider applying and certainly not accepting a new job unless you'll be good at it (competencies), care about it (interests), and that it is consistent with what is important to you (values) for if any of those critical three elements are missing, you'll soon be looking for another job.

Quarterback Brett Favre at the age of 39 came out of retirement (again) and in his first (hopefully of at least two) seasons with the Minnesota Vikings has had the best statistical season of his career. After today's trouncing of the Dallas Cowboys, Brett is also only two victories short of a Super Bowl win and therefore also his most successful season. Why do so many people care about this now 40 year old quarterback? Is it the success he's had on the field? No. It is the joy. The absolute joy with which he plays the game. His passion and desire to win and win well is infectious and elevates the performances of all of his teammates. How many of us are fortunate enough to work with Brett Favre's? How many of us are Brett Favre's in our workplace? Not enough.

In a pretty goofy but joyous tribute to a recent American Idol tryout, Brett and his Minnesota Vikings teammates celebrated today's win by singing the "Pants on the Grounds" song. Although the song is sure to be excluded from this year's Grammy Awards, Brett and his joy for his work deserve a special award from all of us...even Cowboy fans.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 17, 2010 at 5:25 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm looking forward to being at the happy hour, informal meeting for those who use or are interested in using Twitter for recruiting in Washington, D.C. in 1.5 weeks.

The Society for Human Resource Management and SmartBrief welcome HR professionals, recruiters and managers to a happy hour tweetup on Wednesday, January 27th, from 6-8 p.m.

You'll get the chance to connect with other rising stars and learn how SHRM's Chief Global Member Engagement Officer China Gorman is using social media to build HR's influence.

As an added bonus, SHRM and SmartBrief will provide delicious appetizers while you connect with HR and Recruiting professionals who use social media tools such as blogs and Twitter to build their credibility, establish their brands, and improve the image of HR and Recruiting in the marketplace. Among our guests: SmartBrief on Workforce Advisory Board members Laurie Ruettimann, Ryan Estis, Jessica Lee and Lance Haun.

Register today at http://hrconnectdc.eventbrite.com as there is limited space. If you're not able to attend but would like to get together with me in D.C. during the week of January 25th, email me we should be able to connect as I'll be in town meeting with our major clients and recruitment advertising agencies that entire week.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 15, 2010 at 11:00 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Anyone involved in the world of human resources and specifically recruiting understands how incredibly different it is to recruit for a federal, state, or local government agency versus a non-profit, small business, or large corporation. So many critical points are different, including the rules, motivations, budgets, and more.

So I was very excited when my friends at Advanced Learning Institutes (ALI) announced that they were planning a new recruiting conference that would focus specifically on a topic for which I have a lot of passion -- social media recruiting -- and how it should be used by a group of organizations for which CollegeRecruiter.com does a tremendous amount of business -- government and defense.

If you're involved in the recruiting of new talent for any government agency, plan on being in Washington, D.C. on April 13th and 14th for the Social Media for Recruiting in Government & Defense: Using Web 2.0 Technologies To Attract, Retain, And Engage Top Talent To Become An Employer Of Choice. And if you can swing an extra day or two away from the office, add April 12th and/or April 15th to your calendar as those are workshop days and I often hear from conference attendees that the real nuts-and-bolts discussions tend to happen in the workshops.

I was so excited about the conference that I helped connect ALI to some of our government and advertising agency points of contact who I knew would make good speakers. And then I pretty much insisted that CollegeRecruiter.com needed to be a sponsor that I needed to present or participate in a panel discussion. I was very pleased when ALI welcomed our sponsorship and asked if I would moderate a panel discussion on how government agencies should use social media to help them recruit college students and recent graduates.

I was also pleased when ALI told me that any attendees who mentioned CollegeRecruiter.com when signing up would receive a $200 discount. Feel free to pass that around to your colleagues, Facebook friends, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, grandma, whoever.

Will I see you there?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 14, 2010 at 9:59 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the aspects that I most enjoy about my role as an owner of a high traffic, niche job board is that I get to meet a lot of people who are a whole lot more interesting and knowledgeable than I am about recruiting. One of those people is Chris Hoyt, the Associate Director of Interactive Recruiting Strategies & Metrics at AT&T. I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with him a few months ago at the OnRec / Kennedy Information recruiting conference for a panel discussion on how third party recruiters (headhunters) and corporate recruiters can and should use cell phone text messaging and other types of mobile marketing.

Chris posted a link to an article to Facebook yesterday that greatly intrigued me as it was about how corporate recruiters are using Twitter. Most of the articles that I read about how recruiters use Twitter refers to third party recruiters a/k/a headhunters and their jobs are quite different from corporate recruiters, as you well know. What makes sense for a headhunter to do often does not make sense for a corporate recruiter to do so an article like this that shows how Twitter makes sense for corporate recruiters is a breath of fresh air. Not only does it tell us how, but it also provides a number of real-life examples. Great stuff.

The Tweecruiting article at RecruitingBlogs.com provides great intelligence on how Twitter is being used by corporate recruiters at these leading organizations:

• Nickelodean Family Suites Resort
  
• PSA Healthcare
  
• Netflix
  
• Omnicell
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 13, 2010 at 8:31 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the keys to any successful employment, consumer, or other marketing campaign is to well integrate it with your other marketing efforts. The emergence of social media options this past decade created a real double-edged sword for a lot of organizations because few understood how to use social media and even fewer how to integrate their social media campaigns with the campaigns they were already running.

One of the most effective and efficient ways of reaching your target audience has been targeted email campaigns. For some organizations those campaigns take the form of emailed newsletters to internal lists while other organizations have their messages delivered by third parties like CollegeRecruiter.com. Either way, few organizations have figured out how to integrate their social media efforts with their targeted email campaigns. Yet the opportunity is tremendous as your email campaigns should help you build a bigger presence on the social media sites and your social media efforts should help you increase the number of subscribers to your email lists.

Unfortunately, the connections between email and social media campaigns are non-existent for most organizations. For example, eMarketer recently found that only 48 percent include a "forward to a friend" option in their email campaigns. As surprisingly low as that number is, it far exceeds the 13 percent who include features that make it easy for readers to share the content in the emails on social media sites. These 13 percent understand the value that Marketing Sherpa recently found when it studied the issue: the inclusion of social media sharing features in email campaigns resulted in a "25 percent boost in reader interaction, and a surge in inbound traffic from social networking sites." How much of a surge in traffic? How about 2,070 percent from LinkedIn, 1,680 percent from Twitter, and 1,351 percent from Facebook? I've got your attention now, I bet.

So now let's move from the why to the how. As suggested by Mashable, make sure that every article or other content in your email campaigns includes a prominent link to a web page and that you include "share this on" options pointing to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Those options should be setup to share the URL (web page address) of the content so that when people click the "share this on Twitter" button, for example, your article title and URL are posted to their Twitter account so that their dozens, hundreds, or thousands of followers will see the article and can get to it through a single click.

Another important tactic is to include in your email creative prominent links to your Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook pages so that readers of your email can go to your Facebook page. Of course, your Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook pages should also link back to the page on your site where readers can opt-in to receive your newsletter or other emailed communications. Rather than just asking readers to "Follow Us on Twitter" or "Become a Fan on Facebook" or "Connect With Us on LinkedIn" instead give them a reason -- a benefit -- to taking those worthwhile steps. Why should they follow you on Twitter? If it is because you use that account to send out information on new job openings or pricing specials, tell them that they should follow you on Twitter to receive that information. If you use Twitter to make your first announcements of those job openings or pricing specials, tell them that they should follow you on Twitter to be first to learn of your newest job openings or pricing specials.

Finally, always remember that content is king. All of the social media and email campaigns in the world won't help you -- and could hurt you -- if you don't have content that is of interest to the intended recipients. Ask them to respond. Even though it may be obvious to your marketing team that a job posting announcement is something that qualified, interested applicants should respond to by clicking the apply button and completing your on-line application form, it is amazing how many more of those qualified, interested applicants will do just that if you explicitly and prominently ask them to do so.

Social media is not a competitor to job boards, content sites, consumer sites, or anything else used to market opportunities. Rather, it is another tool available to us all and therefore should be embraced and leveraged by marketers, not feared.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 12, 2010 at 10:23 AM | Leave a Comment (2)

Incredible. Just when you thought you'd seen everything along comes something that just blows your mind.

The U.S. Department of Labor, in partial response to the worst recession in seven decades, created the Tools for America's Job Seekers Challenge web site. Job boards and other organizations were asked to register and provide a description of how their services could be of benefit to the millions of job seekers who have been victimized by this terrible economy.

Quality, high traffic, general job boards such as Careerbuilder and Monster quickly complied as did niche boards such as CollegeRecruiter.com. Most of the well know, high traffic boards have received dozens of recommendations from users. The number of users is likely many times higher but there's little incentive to recommend a site and most job seekers have probably never heard of the DOL's initiative.

Then along comes ShortTask.com, which describes itself this way in the heading to its page, "Work @ Home, Make Money Online, Paid Work @ Home | ShortTask.com." Now I'm not saying that ShortTask.com is a scam or its owner, A. Harrison Barnes, a scumball but others certainly have and it is hard for me to believe that when a well respected site like Careerbuilder gets 18 recommendations that a no-name, scammy-looking site like ShortTask.com has already been recommended 193 times. Then again, have a look at some of the supposedly candid comments from actual job seekers:

• ShortTask is one of the best tool I have ever found to work from home with variety of small and simple assignments and earn handsome money.
  
• ShortTask.com is one of best site for Work From Home.
  
• It's a rely great and to all seekers and solvers! If you need people online to do a little job for you is right place there! Just great and amazing site! No.!
  
• ShortTask.com is amazing site for Wok from Home no one compare this site
  
• ShorTask.com is amazing site for Wok from Home no one compare this site
  

Harrison Barnes refers to himself as a "career guru." Yeah, right. His apparently self-written bio makes a lot of other, ahem, interesting claims:

A. Harrison Barnes is the founder and CEO of CareerMission, the parent company of more than 90 job-search websites, employment services, recruiting firms and student loan companies. CareerMission (originally Juriscape) employs several hundred employees in 14 offices throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe. These companies were literally started from Harrison's garage several years ago after Harrison quit his job.

Harrison resides in Malibu, California. He is a sought-after career advice guru and writes articles relating to the legal community. Harrison is an active philanthropist and advocate for people reaching their full potential in their careers. Given his passion for job seekers and them reaching their full ability, Harrison recently started offering a limited number of coaching engagements to job seekers.

How guys like Harrison sleep at night is beyond me.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 11, 2010 at 5:16 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm really excited to be a part of what promises to be an awesome recruitment conference in Washington, D.C. in a few months. Organized by Advanced Learning Institutes (ALI), this Social Media for Recruiting in Government & Defense conference will help federal, state, and local governments learn how to use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and more.

Here's the information from ALI:

Attend this conference to learn how to incorporate the power of social media into your organization's recruiting strategy, along with practical tools, tips and techniques to get started from leading government agencies and organizations, including:

1. Internal Revenue Service

2. U.S. Department of State

3. The Library of Congress

4. Booz Allen Hamilton

5. U.S. Army

6. Sodexo, Inc.

7. U.S. Air Force

8. Peace Corps

9. U.S. Department of the Navy

And more...

(Please mention EMAIL CODE "EB1-G" to ensure early bird rates and save $400.)

=============

For more information go to:
http://www.aliconferences.com/conf/social_media_recruit0410/index.htm or CALL: (888) 362-7400, x1 -or- (773) 695-9400, x1

SPECIAL DISCOUNTS:
***********************
1. EARLY BIRD Discount: Register by February 11th to save $400!

2. PAST ATTENDEE Discount: Save $200 off your next conference registration!

3. GROUP Discount: Register 3 and send a 4th for free!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AGENDA SUMMARY
"SOCIAL MEDIA for RECRUITING
in GOVERNMENT & DEFENSE"
General Sessions
Tuesday, April 13 - Wednesday, April 14, 2010
http://www.aliconferences.com/conf/social_media_recruit0410/index.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AGENDA, DAY ONE, Tuesday, April 13, 2010

8:30 Chairperson's Welcome & Opening Presentation
Recruiting The Next Generation Of Top Talent In
Government: How To Generate Buzz And Build
A Community Of Talent Through Social Media
BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON

9:45 Break-Out Blitz!
Network And Discuss Social Media For Recruiting
Challenges With Your Fellow Conference Attendees

10:45 How To Make Social Media
Outreach A Sustainable Part Of
Your Recruitment Efforts - - Including
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, And LinkedIn
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

11:45 How Today's Peace Corps Employs
Social Media For 21st Century Recruitment
PEACE CORPS

2:15 Utilizing Social Media To Build Your
Employer Brand, Particularly In A Down Economy
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY &
CAMPBELL-EWALD

3:45 Panel Discussion:
Using Social Media To Attract Generation Y
And Recruit Top College Talent
COLLEGERECRUITER.COM - Moderator
BRAZEN CAREERIST
CAMPUSGOV

4:45 End of Day One & Networking Reception

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AGENDA, DAY TWO, Wednesday, April 14, 2010
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

8:40 Expanding Your Recruiting Communications
Reach Into Virtual Worlds And Social Networks
While Working Within A Limited Budget
INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE

10:00 Lessons Learned In Using
Social Media For Army Recruiting
U.S. ARMY

11:00 How To Convince Senior Leadership
That Social Media Can Help - Not Harm -
Your Recruiting Efforts
U.S. AIR FORCE

1:30 Group Exercise & Interactive Session

2:15 Legal Adventures In Web 2.0:
How To Work Effectively With Your
Legal Department When Diving Into Social Media
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

*Private Sector Case Study*
3:30 How To Effectively Incorporate Social Media
Into A Comprehensive Recruitment Strategy:
Practical Strategies And Usable Steps
SODEXO, INC.

4:30 Chairperson's Recap:
Key Takeaways And What To Do
When You Get Back To The Office
BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON

EXPAND YOUR LEARNING...
You may choose to attend one of more of these optional, practical,
& hands-on WORKSHOPS:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS:
MONDAY, April 12, 2010
Choose A or B or BOTH

PRE-Conference Workshop A, 8:30am - 11:30am

Social Media 101: How To Successfully Leverage
New Social Media Tools In Your Government
Organization To Find And Recruit New Talent

Facilitated By: Panetta Communications

* * * * * * * * * * * *

PRE-Conference Workshop B, 1:00pm - 4:00pm

Everyday Activities Government Organizations
Can Effectively Use To Maximize The Benefits
Of Web 2.0 Technology And Compete More Effectively

Facilitated By: Arbita, Inc.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

POST-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS:
THURSDAY, April 15, 2010
Choose C or D or BOTH

POST-Conference Workshop C, 8:30am - 11:30am

How To Develop And Implement A Manageable
Social Media Recruiting Plan That Strengthens
Your Overall Human Capital Management Strategy

Facilitated By: Booz Allen Hamilton

* * * * * * * * * * * *

POST-Conference Workshop D, 1:00pm - 4:00pm

How To Prove The Value Of Social Media
And Online Marketing For Recruitment:
A Step-By-Step Guide To Building Your
Own Measurement Framework

Facilitated By: Bold Interactive
* * * * * * * * * * * *

SPECIAL DISCOUNTS For
"Social Media for Recruiting in Government & Defense:"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
1. EARLY BIRD Discount: Register by February 11th to save $400!

2. PAST ATTENDEE Discount: Save $200 off your next conference registration!

3. GROUP Discount: Register 3 and send a 4th for free!

REGISTRATION FEES Include:
Conference attendance, a detailed conference workbook and all meeting
materials, including access to a conference wiki, continental breakfasts,
refreshments, and evening networking reception.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Conference Only (April 13-14th):
$1,299 (by February 11th)
$1,699 (after February 11th)

Conference Plus One Workshop:
$1,699 (by February 11th)
$2,099 (after February 11th)

Conference Plus Two Workshops:
$1,999 (by February 11th)
$2,399 (after February 11th)

Conference Plus Three Workshops:
$2,199 (by February 11th)
$2,599 (after February 11th)

Conference Plus ALL Four Workshops:
$2,299 (by February 11th) BEST VALUE!
$2,699 (after February 11th)

WORKSHOP TOPICS:
PRE A: Social Media 101: How To Successfully
Leverage New Social Media Tools In Your
Government Organization To Find And Recruit New Talent

PRE B: Everyday Activities Government Organizations
Can Effectively Use To Maximize The Benefits Of
Web 2.0 Technology And Compete More Effectively

POST C: How To Develop And Implement
A Manageable Social Media Recruiting Plan
That Strengthens Your Overall Human Capital Management Strategy

POST D: How To Prove The Value Of Social Media
And Online Marketing For Recruitment:
A Step-By-Step Guide To Building Your
Own Measurement Framework

To view more "Social Media for Recruiting in Government & Defense"
conference details or to register:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
CALL: (888) 362-7400, x1 -or- (773) 695-9400, x1
ONLINE:
http://www.aliconferences.com/conf/social_media_recruit0410/index.htm

-- Please mention EMAIL CODE "EB1-G" to ensure early bird rates and save
$400.

THIS CONFERENCE PRESENTED BY:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Advanced Learning Institute,
Your Government Training Partner since 1997
8600 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue, Suite 920N
Chicago, IL 60631
Phone: (773) 695-9400
Website: http://www.aliconferences.com/

CONFERENCE SUPPORTERS:
--------------------
- George Washington University's Center for Excellence in Public Leadership

- OhMyGov!

- Mashable - The Social Media Guide

FORWARD TO A COLLEAGUE!
If you know of anyone tasked with streamlining and improving their
recruitment and retention strategies by incorporating social media
channels, please forward this email to a colleague who may benefit from
best practices and lessons learned in using social media for recruiting
in government.

SOCIAL MEDIA for RECRUITING
in GOVERNMENT & DEFENSE:
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Using Web 2.0 Technologies To
Attract, Retain & Engage Top Talent
To Become An Employer Of Choice
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 12-15, 2010, Washington, DC

Agenda details:
http://www.aliconferences.com/conf/social_media_recruit0410/index.htm

* 20 speakers sharing their strategies and experiences in using social
media for recruiting

* Your choice of 4 hands-on, how-to, practical and interactive workshops

* The chance to benchmark best practices with your colleagues from other
government agencies

P.S. Register by February 11th to lock in EARLY BIRD rates and save
your organization's training budget $400.

P.P.S. Take advantage of our team discount -- register 3 and send a 4th
for free!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 8, 2010 at 2:38 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Judging which organizations have the best careers sections on their web sites is a very subjective process. Twenty-three years ago, MerComm, Inc. was founded with the principal purpose of advancing the arts and sciences of communications in an international arena. MerComm strives to establish and promote high standards of individual and collective achievement by recognizing the multi-disciplines involved in professional communications.

Nine years ago, MerComm created the International iNOVA Awards Competition to honor excellence in corporate websites. "This prize endorses all the hard work put into a site's creation and development," said the competition's founder, Reni Witt. "Winning an iNOVA Award is a tribute to the creative team which does outstanding work." Some 3,800 entries were received from 11 countries: Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

For the Careers / Recruitment category, the winners were:

• Gold - The Ernst & Young career web site, which was created by JWT Inside / VML.
  
• Silver - The UBS web site for MBA candidates, which was also created by advertising agency JWT Inside.
  
• Bronze - The UBS web site for undergraduate students and recent graduates, which was also created by JWT Inside.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 8, 2010 at 10:34 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Although the number of new unemployment claims held steady from November to December, the number of jobs added/lost was expected by analysts to finally be positive after 24 straight months of job losses. Some analysts were projecting a couple of hundred thousand jobs added in December but the preliminary numbers released yesterday were that 85,000 fewer jobs were added in December than cut.

For further analysis from the Wall Street Journal, watch this video:

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 8, 2010 at 10:15 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

While the job market for new college graduates remains tough, there are signs that the job market is improving, according to results of monthly polls conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

NACE's latest poll, reported as an index, shows that the index for college hiring stands at 98.2--up from 87.2 in the November poll. (See Figure 1, below.) The current poll covers employer expectations over the January, February, and March time frame, but is updated monthly to reflect expectations on an ongoing basis.

"The college Class of 2010 is facing a tough job market, but there are signs that college hiring has turned the corner and has stopped receding, as we've seen improvement in the hiring index for the third consecutive month," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. "This suggests that we may have hit bottom and are now slowly starting to rebuild."

In addition, there has been steady improvement in the number of employers that expect to increase their college hiring: Approximately one-third (33.4 percent) of the employers polled in December said they expect to increase their college hiring, compared to 28 percent in the November poll and 26 percent in the October poll.

Currently, 26.7 percent reported plans to reduce college hiring--a lower percentage for reduction than has been seen in some time, according to Mackes.

"For the first time since August 2008, the percentage of employers planning to increase college hiring has outpaced the percentage planning to decrease," says Mackes.

The current poll, conducted December 2, 2009 - January 4, 2010, also shows that employers plan to be more active in recruiting new college graduates for their work forces. Currently, the recruiting activity index is at 95.4--up from 89.8 in November. However, much of that increase reflects the timing of the November and December polls.

"Employers typically don't recruit over the winter holidays, but start to gear up again in January," says Mackes. "While this is a positive sign for colleges that have developed relationships to connect their students with employers, it's also important to recognize that we're still not where we were two years ago, in terms of recruiting activity."

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 7, 2010 at 12:00 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

The U.S. Air Force recently deployed an innovative mobile marketing campaign to help it reach its target audience for recruiting: 16 to 24 year olds. The campaign was designed by mobile advertising agency Crisp Wireless and ran on the mobile web site of MTV Networks.

Users of iPhones who visited the MTV mobile site during the nine day campaign in December saw a full page, rich-media (animated) ad that made it look like an A-10 fighter jet was crashing through the screen of the user's phone while rock music played in the background. At the end of the interstitial ad, users were shown the Air Force logo, slogan, and link to AirForce.com. The Air Force chose not to ask users for their contact information as the campaign was about creating a branding experience rather than to generate leads.

So how did the campaign work? There's no way of knowing as the Air Force, MTV, and Crisp declined to share results.

"As this campaign shows, the strategy is to shatter prior conventions used in mobile Web advertising," said Tom Foran, chief revenue officer of Crisp, New York to Mobile Marketer. "Crisp Wireless provides MTV and their agencies a turn-key rich media solution--ad units and detailed reporting. Crisp sees 2010 as the year brands take mobile seriously. The rapid growth of smartphone Web and app usage, proliferation of rich ad forms and enhanced reporting will pave the way for greater investment in mobile from brand advertisers and their agencies."

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 7, 2010 at 9:57 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One word: video.

I just read an incredibly enlightening article by Steve Strauss, lawyer, author and speaker who specializes in small business and entrepreneurship. In the article, Steve makes the case that the proper addition of video is the best way to move your web page to the coveted first page of the Google search results and therefore capture three to four times the clicks that it would receive on page two and many more times the clicks that it would capture on even lower pages.

Steve's advice is not to simply put a video on your web page because the video alone won't be search engine optimized (SEO). He also advices not to simply upload your video to YouTube and then use the embed code from YouTube because the videos people who find that video on Google or other search engines will click through to YouTube to watch the video rather than to your page.

What Steve brilliantly recommended was to use video SEO. According to Steve, "video SEO is the process of using SEO tools with your video and then submitting the SEO videos themselves (not just the pages where the videos reside) to the various search engines." The videos will likely end up on the first page and perhaps in the first spot on the first page because search engines like Google and Bing are increasingly using blended search results where articles, blogs, video, photos, and other content all appear together in the search results. Because there are fewer videos than web pages or photos, there's less competition for video results and because few of the videos are submitted with SEO, there's even less competition. "You end up being a big fish in a very small pond."

Four steps to success:

1. Create great video for your site. Realize that pulling people to your site with crappy but search engine optimized video is likely to do more harm than good as you'll turn off everyone who watches the video. And many will. Research shows that up to 80 percent of your visitors will watch a video on your home page before they do anything else.
   
2. Post the video prominently on your site. That may mean on your home page or, if your video is designed to help your organization recruit new talent, then on the main careers page.
   
3. Search engine optimize the video. This means using keywords and phrases in the video file name, captions, etc.
   
4. Submit the video to the search engines using their XML tools. For this step, Steve recommends using Fliqz.com as it easily and affordably indexes your pages and video and then properly submits them to the major search engines. Also, according to Fliqz, their SearchSuccess tools are very effective as "more than two-thirds of all videos submitted produce a first-page Google search result, and up to 25 percent have resulted in a number one Google ranking."
   

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 6, 2010 at 3:29 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

The best job is being an actuary. The worst job is being a roustabout. To find out what the other great and terrible jobs are, watch this video:

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 6, 2010 at 7:30 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Americans of all ages and income brackets continue to grow increasingly unhappy at work-a long-term trend that should be a red flag to employers, according to a report released today by The Conference Board.

The report, based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. households conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, finds only 45 percent of those surveyed say they are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61.1 percent in 1987, the first year in which the survey was conducted.

"While one in 10 Americans is now unemployed, their working compatriots of all ages and incomes continue to grow increasingly unhappy," says Lynn Franco, director of the Consumer Research Center of The Conference Board. "Through both economic boom and bust during the past two decades, our job satisfaction numbers have shown a consistent downward trend."

Fewer Americans are satisfied with all aspects of their employment, and no age or income group is immune. In fact, the youngest cohort of employees (those currently under age 25) expresses the highest level of dissatisfaction ever recorded by the survey for that age group.

"The downward trend in job satisfaction could spell trouble for the overall engagement of U.S. employees and ultimately employee productivity," adds Franco.

"These numbers do not bode well given the multi-generational dynamics of the labor force," says Linda Barrington, managing director, Human Capital, The Conference Board. "The newest federal statistics show that baby boomers will compose a quarter of the U.S. workforce in eight years, and since 1987 we've watched them increasingly losing faith in the workplace." Twenty years ago, some 60 percent of that generation was satisfied with their jobs. Today, that figure is roughly 46 percent. Barrington adds: "The growing dissatisfaction across and between generations is important to address because it can directly impact the quality of multi-generational knowledge transfer-which is increasingly critical to effective workplace functioning."

The drop in job satisfaction between 1987 and 2009 covers all categories in the survey, from interest in work (down 18.9 percentage points) to job security (down 17.5 percentage points) and crosses all four of the key drivers of employee engagement: job design, organizational health, managerial quality, and extrinsic rewards.

"Challenging and meaningful work is vitally important to engaging American workers," adds John Gibbons, program director of employee engagement research and services at The Conference Board. "Widespread job dissatisfaction negatively affects employee behavior and retention, which can impact enterprise-level success." In fact, 22 percent of respondents said they don't expect to be in their current job in a year. "This data throws up a big, red flag because the increasing dissatisfaction is not just a 'survivor syndrome' artifact of having co-workers and neighbors laid off in the recession," says Gibbons.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 5, 2010 at 1:20 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Those of us who live in cities without subway systems do not often encounter rats and I've often wondered why I haven't seen any during my many trips to New York City. I'm a regular rider of its subway system while there yet my trip this past week was the first time that I encountered any rats. Turns out that all you need to do is look carefully and be on a quiet platform. Yuck.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 4, 2010 at 8:27 PM | Leave a Comment (0)