I'm a fully recovered lawyer but before I made the tough decision to leave law, I interviewed for a summer associate position with a law firm back in 1990. Two interviewers and me in one of those awful on-campus interview room with air that smelled like it was imported every decade from the Soviet Union.

One of the interviewers greets me like a cold fish and tells me that she's the human resources manager. She definitely knew how to take the human out of human resources. But it gets better. The other takes over and explains that she's the staff psychologist (really) and wants to ask me a series of questions for 25 minutes and then I'll have five minutes to ask questions of them. Gee. How generous.

Continue reading "My Worst Interview Experience Ever" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 19, 2009 at 8:02 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

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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.

Continue reading "MonsterTRAK Died But Its Advertising Didn't" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 2, 2009 at 7:36 AM | 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.

Continue reading "10 Ways That I'm Just Like Brett Favre" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 20, 2009 at 8:17 AM | 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!

Continue reading "Win a $10 Starbucks Card for Finding a Mobile Job Board" »

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

Anyone who has ever been in sales has experienced the customer who wants what you have to sell but isn't willing to pay full price for it. They can come up with a million reasons why they want it for less, but rarely can they come up with a good reason for how selling it to them for less benefits not only them but also you. And in business it is critical for buyer AND seller to benefit from the transaction...especially if they want to continue to do business.

Gregg Booth of Net-Temps sent to me a link to a great video that shows just how ludicrous these "give it to me for free this time and maybe I'll pay full price the next time" requests can be by moving the requests out of a business-to-business and into a business-to-consumer context.

Continue reading "Some Clients Ask for Too Much" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on June 18, 2009 at 10:27 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

One of the most enjoyable blogs to read is the Official Google Blog. It is chock full of fun, interesting, and occasionally useful tidbits of information. Example:

In 1990, the very first web page was created at http://info.cern.ch/. By late 1992, there were only 26 websites in the world so there was not much need for a search engine. When NCSA Mosaic (the first widely used web browser) came out in 1993, every new website that was created would get posted to its "What's New" page at a rate of about one a day: http://www.dejavu.org/prep_whatsnew.htm. Just five years later, in 1998, web pages numbered in the tens of millions, and search became crucial. At this point, Google was a small research project at Stanford; later that year it became a tiny startup. The search index sat on a small number of disk drives enclosed within Lego-like blocks. Perhaps a few thousand people, mostly academics, used the service.

Fast-forward to today, the changes in scale are striking. The web itself has grown by about a factor of 10,000, as has our search index. The number of people who use Google's services every day is now in the hundreds of millions. More importantly, billions of people now have access to the Internet via computers and mobile phones.

Wow. Maybe this "interweb" thing isn't a fad, after all.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 16, 2009 at 9:47 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 14, 2009 at 5:13 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the most anticipated movie releases of the summer is finally here: the new Star Trek movie. It has been generating controversy since plans for it were announced a few years ago. Many Trekkers were outraged when they heard that the film would not include even a cameo by William Shatner but their outrage turned to grief yesterday when they actually watched the film and found it -- shockingly -- entertaining, understandable, and well acted. For those who grew up on the TV series and were devoted to the earlier movies featuring the rapidly and not so gracefully aging cast, the new movie was quite a jolt.

Continue reading "New Star Trek Film Big Disappointment as Not Cornball Enough" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 8, 2009 at 8:41 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

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

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

Continue reading "Making CollegeRecruiter.com Less Like the Wisconsin Dells" »

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

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

Continue reading "10 Worst Entry Level Jobs in Tech" »

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

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

Continue reading "Timmy Uses Facebook to Dump Alice " »

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

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

Continue reading "American Sweatshop Owners No Longer the Innovators" »

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

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

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

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

Here's the video. Enjoy, eh!

Continue reading "Kevin Donlin Wants to Wake Up Canadian" »

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

One of the greatest attributes that Gen Y'ers bring to the workplace is their enthusiasm. This generation is savvy enough to know that when they're looking for a job that they should look not just for jobs which match up with their competencies but also their values and interests. So when they come into your workplace, Gen Y'ers as likely as Baby Boomers to be good at their jobs (competency) but Gen Y'ers are more likely than Baby Boomers to value their work and be interested in it. So it shouldn't be any surprise that they're more enthusiastic about the accomplishments of themselves and their team members. And they shouldn't be criticized for that enthusiasm by their older co-workers, even when those co-workers are NHL hockey legends such as Don Cherry.

Continue reading "Too Many Boomers Like Don Cherry Doesn't Get Gen Y'ers Like Ovechkin" »

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

I must be nuts. Absolutely nuts. Tomorrow I fly from Minneapolis to Atlanta, sit there for an hour, get on a plane to Sarasota, sit there for an hour, get on a plane to Atlanta, sit there for an hour, then fly back to Minneapolis. Why? Because I can't get enough of the, ahem, love handed out by so many airline employees. Nah. Because I'm two round trips short of qualifying for Elite status again for 2009 and all the great perks that come along with that such as free upgrades to first class on many flights and virtually always at least exit row when first class is fully booked.

Computer? Check. iPod? Check. Book? Check. Ready, set, fly.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 27, 2009 at 5:40 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Given the terrible job market and the worse news that seems to come out almost every day, we all need to find a way to have a few laughs now and then. This should do the trick for just about anyone:

Continue reading "Silly Job Interview by Monty Python" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 6, 2009 at 6:54 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm about to leave for a trip to Washington, D.C. No, I'm not about to be announced as one of the new Obama Administration appointees. Thank goodness. What those people have to put up with is incredible. All the infighting, double crossing, political games, back stabbing. No wonder very little gets done by politicians in the Beltway and what does get done so often seems to be a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

My trip will be mostly business and perhaps a little time for a museum or two. I've got several client meetings lined up for Wednesday, I'm speaking at Brainstorm Consulting's very promising college recruiting conference on Thursday, then more client meetings on Friday, then home. This will undoubtedly be one of those trips when I fall asleep on the plane shortly after boarding and don't wake up again until we've begun our descent. It is pretty weird that I'll sometimes wake up and not even be aware that we've taken off. Ah, the romance of business travel.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 2, 2008 at 5:16 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Great blog article today at The Talent Buzz about the massive resources invested by Careerbuilder into its Facebook strategy and the less than stellar results seen to-date.

Careerbuilder has invested an incredible amount of time and money into its Facebook strategy yet its Fan Page only has 8,613 "fans" which are to the Fan Pages set up by organizations to what "friends" are to the personal pages set up by individuals. Let's put that into perspective. The "I have more Foreign Policy Experience than Sarah Palin" group has over 250,000 members and "My Pet Rock is more Qualified than Sarah Palin to be Vice President" has almost twice as many as does Careerbuilder's Fan Page.

Continue reading "Sarah Palin Has Facebook Figured Out Better Than Does Careerbuilder" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 10, 2008 at 8:47 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 28, 2008 at 7:53 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of my favorite days of the year is Halloween. I love going to pumpkin patches but they have to be real -- not just some farmer's field where pumpkins grown hundreds or even thousands of miles away are dumped so unsuspecting kids will think that the over priced pumpkins they're picking out were locally grown.

This year we didn't have time to go to a pumpkin patch but there was a nice assortment at one of our local grocery stores and the price they were charging was right: $4.99 for any pumpkin. Naturally I had to take the largest one. We weighed it when we got home: 90 pounds. Wow.

Continue reading "Now that's a big pumpkin" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 28, 2008 at 11:23 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Regular readers of this blog know that I grew up in Canada and even though I moved to Minneapolis for the weather, I still hold an affinity for some of the finer things that Canada has provided to the world.

But now it seems that the immigration trends are reversing and many Americans, at least many affluent Americans, are strongly considering moving north to Canada. Perhaps it because of a new program put into place by the Canadian government:

Continue reading "Affluent Americans moving to Canada, eh?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 10, 2008 at 5:18 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Okay, this has absolutely nothing to do college recruiting, jobs, internships, work, employment, or any other career related issue. I was just cruising Twitter for some ideas for today's blog article when I ran across a flurry of conversations regarding the newly registered domain name, VoteForTheMILF.com. Apparently, the quasi-pornographic domain name is owned by John McCain's campaign and takes visitors to JohnMcCain.com.

Even amongst his most ardent supporters, few would consider McCain to be a MILF so what is going on? Well, it appears that visitors to JohnMcCain.com who are referred by VoteForTheMILF.com are shown a video of Sarah Palin. So could McCain be sending the message that he considers Palin to be a MILF? Given that McCain has admitted that he's a technophobe, I doubt he even knows what MILF means let alone was involved in plotting any type of strategy about what video to show visitors from the MILF site versus people who come to his site from other sites.

Continue reading "John McCain Considers Sarah Palin a MILF" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 29, 2008 at 1:31 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

This is definitely one of the most unusual press releases that I've run across in the 17 years since I founded this organization.

Press releases typically trumpet good news. You know, feel good stuff. But the folks over at WorkBlast apparently felt strongly enough about letting the world know that they've terminated their relationship with CareerTours that a press release trumpeting the not-so-good feeling stuff hit the wires.

Perhaps feelings hitting the wires isn't the best way of describing what appears to be a nasty break-up. Perhaps a better way of describing this announcement is something else hitting the fan. One has to wonder what happened between these two partners to cause that certain something to hit the fan. Here's the WorkBlast press release:

Continue reading "WorkBlast Terminates Partnership with CareerTours" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 2, 2008 at 1:24 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the best writers for the Wall Street Journal is Sarah Needleman. She writes a lot about employment-related issues and many of those focus on issues related to college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry level jobs. Yesterday's article was a beauty but surely read very differently to different readers. Perhaps that was the intent.

Sarah interviewed a number of employers and candidates about the emerging trend of college students and recent graduates using cell phone text messaging (SMS) abbreviations such as "thx" for "thanks" and "4u" for "for you" in their thank you letters and other correspondence to prospective employers and after they've been hired. Not surprisingly, the employers felt that such abbreviations were terrible while most of the students and recent grads understood that the employers didn't like it but also felt that those attitudes were dated.

Now I can understand why an employer wouldn't appreciate receiving a text message full of informal abbreviations as the employer would likely suspect that the candidate would then use the same types of abbreviations when communicating with clients and if the clients aren't likely to appreciate the abbreviations then the use of them will hurt the employer's business. But I was flabbergasted by a couple of the dislikes:

Continue reading "Employers Who Provide Cell Numbers to Candidates Angry Candidates Used Those Numbers" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 30, 2008 at 9:50 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

We're all pretty relieved over here as one of our favorite yet least productive employees had successful surgery yesterday. Seems that Maggy K. Neign had bladder stones but the surgeon was able to take care of the problem and Maggy is resting comfortably.

I suspect that the surgery will have little effect on her personality. She'll still be terrible on the phone, lousy at typing, and pretty much the laziest bitch you've ever met. Yet we all love her.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 15, 2008 at 5:38 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I was born and raised in Winnipeg, Canada and moved to the U.S. to attend grad school. I became a naturalized U.S. citizen a few years later. Since then, the first week in July has been quite significant to me for a few reasons:

• July 1st is Canada Day.
  
• Three days later is U.S. Independence Day.
  
• This is about the only week in the year when there's virtually no risk of snow here in Minnesota.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 3, 2008 at 3:38 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I'm looking forward to next week when I'll be in New Orleans.

On Tuesday I'm speaking at the Louisiana Association of Colleges and Employers annual conference and then going to at least three college recruiting events that evening.

On Wednesday I'm speaking at the National Association of Colleges and Employers annual conference and then going to at least one event that evening.

I fly home Thursday. I have a hotel room, of course, but I'm starting to wonder if I should have bothered...

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 22, 2008 at 8:21 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Way back in the dot com era the talk in corporate boardrooms often centered on creating buzz as the solution to any business problem:

• Revenues of $1,000 and expenses of $1,000,000 per month? Solution: more buzz!
  
• Burn rate of $250,000 per month and $1.25 million left in the bank? Solution: more buzz!
  
• Crappy product and mass exodus of customers? Solution: more buzz!
  

Continue reading "Does Buzz Sell?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 13, 2008 at 10:58 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 25, 2008 at 8:34 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

1. Both are flat.
   
2. Both apparently have no hope of rising.
   
3. They have no spice.
   
4. They're full of holes.
   
5. You don't want to be involved with either of them anymore than absolutely necessary.
   
6. Pretend as much as you want that they're something better than what they are but they ain't.
   
7. Even the ancient Egyptians would have nothing to do with them.
   
8. They have an seemingly endless series of ripples.
   
9. Even when consumed in small amounts they both give you indigestion.
   
10. They're both too easily broken.
    

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 22, 2008 at 1:31 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

A tip of the hat to employment attorney T.J. Conley of Leonard, Street & Deinard for bringing to my attention a recent survey of hiring managers by research firm Harris Interactive. Harris asked the 3,061 hiring managers to describe the top mistakes made by job seekers during interviews:

Continue reading "Job Seekers Can Do the Stupidest Things" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 21, 2008 at 3:02 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

Just saw this video on RecruitingBlogs.com and thought it would be enjoyed by readers of this blog as well. For those who are on the sensitive side, consider it PG-13 for language.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 20, 2008 at 7:06 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Training new employees properly is critical to the success of any organization but especially in work environments where there can be significant safety issues. An example would be a prison. You wouldn't want, for example, to train a new prison guard to, well, watch the video and you'll see what you wouldn't want to do.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 19, 2008 at 5:52 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

According to America's finest news source, The Onion, the top ways of firing an employee are:

• 19% on the "while you were out" slip;
  
• 11% right before penetration;
  
• 20% with failed explosive vest still on;
  
• 28% embossed letter lowered into mine shaft;
  
• 10% pushed out of boxcar; and
  
• 12% in the Victorian style of firings.
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 4, 2008 at 5:22 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

In a development that must be causing fits of alarm in human resource offices everywhere, it appears that some college students and recent graduates are using cell phone text message (SMS) abbreviations and gaming slang in their job applications. This development has prompted some employers and education institutions to provide these candidates with special courses in written communication.

Now I can understand why I'd want to c if u or my bff r ok using abbreviations, but candidates of all ages need to appreciate that they need to demonstrate that they're the most highly qualified candidate for the job and to do that they need to speak the language used by the employer. It is most likely that the application will be reviewed by a Gen X'er or Baby Boomer and few of those understand SMS abbreviations and even fewer like to use them. So the best strategy is to use the abbreviations with your bff, but not with your potential employer.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 20, 2008 at 11:23 AM | Leave a Comment (2)

One of the biggest changes occurring right now in college recruiting is the emphasis on so-called green recruiting. College students and recent graduates increasingly favor those employers which demonstrate that they are environmentally friendly over those who just talk the talk. Employers who don't even talk the talk are having an even harder time convincing the best candidates that they're employers of choice.

So what does this have to do with our, ahem, friend Jeffrey Dahmer and other cannibals? Well, not much. At least not much in a serious way. But I was recently thinking about the trend towards a more sustainable, environmentally friendly lifestyle and some of the ramifications that such a shift entails. For example, few would dispute that the world is essentially divided into two sections with North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas creating environmental problems by over consuming and the rest of the planet creating environmental problems through over population.

Continue reading "Why Cannibalism May Save the World" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 5, 2008 at 3:34 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Interesting (and seemingly bitter) blog article at Hodes Q Trac about Gen Y / Millennial workers. The author, Jasmine Flowers, takes issue with stereotypes of this generation as being flip flop wearing, illiterate, hypersensitive, and unable to think critically.

Perhaps I'm biased but my experience with Millennials has been quite the opposite. For example, I find them to be incredibly literate but in a different way than Boomers or Gen X'ers. Millennials have an incredible ability to converse through cell phone text messaging and instant messaging with several and even dozens of people simultaneously. How can someone who regularly converses in writing like that with so many people be accused of being illiterate?

Are they hypersensitive? Are they unable to think critically? Sometimes, sure. But who wasn't at the age of twenty?

Do they wear flip flops too often? Well, yeah. But even with that issue I find it amusing that foot attire criticism is being leveled by the very Boomers and Gen X who absolutely adored such fashion statements as super wide ties, acid washed jeans, bell bottoms, burning bras, and leisure suits.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 14, 2008 at 4:29 PM | Leave a Comment (3)

One of the reasons that I love working and hanging out with national account executive Mike Palmquist is that he's got a great sense of humor. For example, he loves the killer rabbit scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Live. So it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise to me that he found a career-related blog article that used that scene as an analogy by comparing co-workers to killer rabbits.

How can co-workers be like killer rabbits? Well, they come into your life as seemingly harmless and even friendly but then morph into horrible and frightening creatures. Unless you're an incredible judge of character, and most of us think we are but actually aren't, take it slow so that you can better understand if they're a mere rabbit or a killer rabbit.

Continue reading "Are Your Co-Workers Killer Rabbits?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 20, 2007 at 6:05 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the great new additions to the world of recruiting blogs a/k/a the recruiting blogosphere is Mark Liston of Valpak. He just posted a great blog entry in which he gave an example of how a Gen Y sales rep would handle his work differently than his Gen X and Baby Boomer counterparts:

Continue reading "Gen Y vs Gen X vs Baby Boomers" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 21, 2007 at 11:22 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I've had the pleasure of meeting Art Koff of RetiredBrains.com before but I've never been able to spend as much time with him as I have over the past two days at the great recruiting conference put on by the folks from Kennedy Information. Art is caring, smart, passionate, and funny. And does he know how to pick a dinner entree.

A group of speakers and attendees had a nice dinner together Monday evening at Orlando's Samba Room. Art ordered the yellow snapper special. People actually applauded. Wow.

Continue reading "Art Koff is the Big Fish" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 14, 2007 at 6:21 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

A tip of the hat to my friend and Recruiting Roadshow Unconference buddy, Ami Givertz, for alerting me (and other readers of his blog) to a great YouTube video that explains how social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace can help people find new jobs, mates, and other connections.

Continue reading "Social Networking in Plain English" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 25, 2007 at 4:25 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Just when you think you've seen it all, you're sent an email by Ami alerting you to a candidate who uses her MySpace blog to, ahem, expose not only her employment qualifications but also her under cleavage.

Continue reading "Under Cleavage Is Not Appreciated by Employers" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 16, 2007 at 10:14 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Dave Lefkow, formerly of Jobster, then his own consulting firm, TalentSpark, and now Bacon Salt entrepreneur, is featured prominently in this television interview about on-line recruiting.

The piece covers the gamut from revenues earned by job boards last year ($1.3 billion) to tips about how to find candidates or employers on-line including in virtual worlds such as Second Life. One great tip: if you're pulling a virtual resume out of your virtual pocket to hand to a virtual recruiter, make sure that you don't instead pull out a virtual beer.

Continue reading "Job Board Revenues and Second Life Recruiting" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 6, 2007 at 4:23 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Ever used Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia? It is written by some of the most brilliant and, ahem, not so brilliant people in the world in a collaborative manner that is truly remarkable. You can post an article about a topic you know a lot about, or about a topic that you know nothing about, and I can edit your words to improve, or damage, the quality of your article. The theory is that if enough people edit an article, the quality of the article will be improved. That's the theory and it usually works well. Usually.

The reality of Wikipedia is that because anyone can post an article or edit someone else's article, all articles must be read with some skepticism. The errors in the articles may be accidental or deliberate and very few of the contributors are scholars.

So along comes Scholarpedia, which takes the best of Wikipedia but using similar wiki technology but gets rid of the worst but only accepting articles and edits from actual experts. Here's how they describe their venture:

Continue reading "Size Matters Not" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 20, 2007 at 7:58 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of my favorite recruiting blogosphere characters is Joel Cheesman, the resident human resource search engine optimization expert. I really like Joel, except for the fact that he is apparently a cat person. Oh well. No one can be perfect.

Continue reading "Ain't Transparency Great? Except When It Isn't?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 14, 2007 at 5:53 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

We recently partnered with Salary.com to offer the students, recent graduates, and employers using CollegeRecruiter.com a wealth of information about compensation. You can now research an amazing amount of information through these tools:

Continue reading "Barry Bonds Makes $15,000 Per Hour. How Are You Doing?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 30, 2007 at 2:10 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Think that your office is welcoming to Gen Y so that it helps your firm both recruit and retain this highly sought after generation of employees? Think again.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 24, 2007 at 7:25 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

This is one of the best times of the year. Late May. Clearly everyone in the civilized world is thinking hockey and specifically NHL hockey. For those who have been following the NHL playoffs, and I know that everyone has, the Stanley Cup finals are about to begin. Facing off in a best of seven games series are the Ottawa Senators and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.

Continue reading "Battle of the Goalies" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 23, 2007 at 4:04 PM | Leave a Comment (5)

The great retention failure in world history? Hint: it occurred thousands of years ago. Hint: it involved frogs, locusts, and skin disease. Hint: it occurred in north Africa. Drum roll please.

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Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 2, 2007 at 4:56 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I serve on the board for Nechama: Jewish Response to Disaster. During a recent meeting, one of the board members commented that if you ever want to hire someone with really great customer service skills, look for someone who enjoyed working as a barista. That got me to thinking about how many college graduates are working as baristas, how they can afford to do so even if they love the work and want to remain in that field, and what their parents think about their choice of occupation.

Continue reading "My Son: University Graduate and Full-time Barista" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 14, 2007 at 5:45 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I arrived late last night (actually, this morning at 2am) in Edmonton, Alberta for the retirement of Mark Messier's number 11 jersey by the Edmonton Oilers.

Continue reading "Mark Messier Jersey Retirement in Edmonton" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 26, 2007 at 5:57 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

I can't wait. Only two days until I fly from Minneapolis to Edmonton. Now that kind of a trip in February isn't normally a cause for celebration, but this trip will be because the occasion at the other end will be a celebration. On Tuesday, the Edmonton Oilers will retire the number 11 jersey of Mark Messier. Moose, as he's affectionately known to his fans, was one of the finest hockey players ever and an integral part of the 1980's Edmonton Oilers dynasty. That team had five of the greatest players ever to play the game: Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, and Grant Fuhr.

Continue reading "Moose Fest" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 23, 2007 at 7:14 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Much has been written about Monster targeting beer ads at unemployed workers ("Can't find a job? No problem! Have a brew. Or 10!") But now it appears that Bank of America is pitching credit cards to illegal immigrants. Why? Did they suddenly discover that college students don't own big enough wallets for the 25 credit cards they already have?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 13, 2007 at 5:29 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

If your organization is lethargic and being killed by your competition day after day, go out and find team members who are unlike the people you already have. Get way outside of your comfort zone. Take a chance and hire people who don't have a proven track record of being qualified. Instead, look for people who appear the have the skills and drive necessary to re-write the rules. If you find the right people, they'll turn everyone on your team into a winner. Don't believe me? Watch this clip from a great, ahem, documentary:

Continue reading "Doubt that three employees can transform your entire organization?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 3, 2007 at 5:10 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

Are you fortunate enough to live in a city with an NHL team? Are you smart enough to understand that hockey is the greatest game ever invented? If so, then you'll know and perhaps even cherish the name Alexander Ovechkin. Alex, as he prefers to be called, is one of the bright young stars who are leading the NHL back from the brink of failure. Another is Sidney Crosby, who I saw lead Canada to its World Junior Hockey Championships win in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Two years ago, the NHL season was cancelled because of a player strike. The players lost that battle but the fans won the war because the strike gave the players and owners the breathing space they needed to clean and speed up the game. As a former Canadian, I have a soft spot in my heart for the rough and tumble days of the NHL when games were often delayed because of the blood and Chiclets left on the ice after a bench clearing brawl. But as a hockey fan, I know that the game that the NHL is playing now is the best that it has ever played. And guys like Ovechkin are flashy, flamboyant, exciting, and they have a tendency to score goals which defy the laws of physics. Want an example? Have a peak at this video. Be sure to watch all the way through so that you can see the goal in slow motion.

Continue reading "Let's Play Hockey" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 24, 2007 at 10:15 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Stephen Murmer is like almost any other high school art teacher. He is loved by his Richmond, Virginia students and a gifted artist. He's also a Marine Corps vet and former Teacher of the Year. So what makes his story unusual? It seems that Murmer also enjoys painting with his butt. Literally. It seems that Murmer's idea of art is to rub paint on his bare buttocks and genitals and then rub himself against canvas. The imprints typically sell for hundreds of dollars a piece.

Continue reading "Teacher Suspended for Making an Ass of Himself" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 21, 2007 at 9:41 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

There's been a lot of buzz in the Recruiting Blogosphere about Jason Goldberg's video in which he stated that Monster has a crappy product. Be that as it may, it now appears that Monster's accountants are even crappier. Apparently, from 1997 through 2005 the site overstated its profits by some $272 million.

What do you think? Could this lead to additional SEC and shareholder problems? Maybe? Just maybe?

Continue reading "Monster Apparently Has Crappy Accountants Too" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 14, 2006 at 5:44 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 13, 2006 at 7:46 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 12, 2006 at 10:38 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the nice things about being a self-employed human resource search engine optimization expert is that you get to work from home as much as you want and spend lots of quality time with your new baby boy. While that is all true, there is no truth to the rumor that this video shows baby Cheesman being prompted by proud papa.

Continue reading "Cheesman's Baby" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 3, 2006 at 9:58 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I knew that the economy in Japan has been through some rough spots, but I didn't realize that it was this bad.

Continue reading "Think Your Job is Bad?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 11, 2006 at 11:01 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Jason Bentley, a member of Gen Y, created a video recently to help him get some of his job hunting frustrations off of his chest. Watch as he pokes fun a some of the big job boards, interns screening resumes, resume formats, emailed responses from human resources, benefits (or the lack thereof), and more.

The story has a happy ending. Shortly after shooting the video, Jason was hired. Awesome!

Continue reading "And You Thought That You Were Frustrated By the Big Job Boards?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 3, 2006 at 11:00 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

A tip of the hat to Jason Davis of Recruiting.com for spotting this Monty Python classic management training course interview video. For anyone who has ever been subjected to ridiculous psychological interview techniques, this is a must see.

Continue reading "Management Training Course Video" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 29, 2006 at 9:56 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

RepVine, an on-line reference and reputation management service, has an amusing video about the dangers to candidates when employers use MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites as part of their background and reference checking process.

Continue reading "Employers Using MySpace for Background Checking" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 20, 2006 at 7:27 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

If you think that your job can be boring or even terrible, you'll have to admit that you don't have it bad after you check out the video to watch the temporary job that this guy has.

Continue reading "Worst Job Video" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 3, 2006 at 3:59 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

For years, Microsoft had a reputation of being a no nonsense, top down, corporate giant. Interesting how fast things changed from the days when they were run from a garage by a few geeks and how fast things are changing again as they embrace new media to help them with their recruitment efforts. To really see the new Microsoft, you need to watch this awesome recruitment video hosted by Ed Helms of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.

Continue reading "Ed Helms Investigates Microsoft -- Sort Of" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 1, 2006 at 4:54 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Finding the right candidate for the right job can be tough. I am a firm believer that it is better to not hire than to hire wrong. Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) firm Accolo apparently agrees.

Continue reading "Accolo Says Don't Hire This Guy" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 30, 2006 at 7:07 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

When we last saw the Sith Lord in Star Wars Episode III, he had just been tossed down a shaft and left for dead. So what's next for a guy with an impressive background in politics and building evil empires? Interviewing at Temp Corps for a variety of entry level jobs!

Continue reading "Entry Level Job Search by the Sith Lord at Temp Agency" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 30, 2006 at 6:43 PM | Leave a Comment (0)