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

Here is the message from Dr. Gardner:

Continue reading "Employers: Tell Candidates What You Think in This Survey" »

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "Ask the Experts: Answering Great Questions from Job Seekers" »

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

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

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

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

We've been receiving a steady diet of questions from college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry level jobs and other career opportunities since we re-launched CollegeRecruiter.com five weeks ago. The number of questions haven't been overwhelming but many are the same or very, very similar. Time to get more efficient.

We just added a short Frequently Asked Questions section to our Contact Us page. Now rather than the candidates having to wait hours or perhaps even a day or two to get an answer back about some issue, they will normally be able to have their question answered even before they ask it of us. That's better for us and better for them.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on June 26, 2008 at 5:31 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

There are approximately 50,000 job boards in the United States and about the same elsewhere in the world. Many are essentially cookie cutter boards with little to no traffic and little to no unique job posting or article content. But all serve employers and job seekers and to survive and thrive all must therefore listen to those visitors to understand what features, functionality and services they like best on today's job boards.

Fortunately, the industry has the International Association of Employment Web Sites to help us out with keeping up-to-date on issues like this. The executive director, Peter Weddle, conducted a survey between April, 2007 and April, 2008 and generated over 15,700 responses. The results were:

• 19.4% The caliber of the job postings on a site;
  
• 19.1% The number of job postings on a site;
  
• 16.7% Ease of access to employment opportunities on the site;
  
• 16.2% The job search tools and information provided on a site;
  
• 16.1% The fact that access to employment opportunities is free; and
  
• 12.5% The ability to network with others on the site.
  

Continue reading "What Job Seekers Want From Job Boards" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 30, 2008 at 10:27 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I recently received a resume from a student who was applying to our unpaid writing internship. He had virtually no experience listed in his resume, but his academic credentials looked good so I offered the position to him. He thanked me but asked why should he intern for no pay. I told him that he will need experience to land a great job that also offers great pay and that internships, paid or unpaid, will provide him with that experience.

He seemed convinced, yet I haven't heard back from him. Is his apparent lack of interest due to the lack of pay for the internship? Or is he a horse that can be led to water but can't be forced to drink?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 2, 2006 at 9:46 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Question from Candidate:

After 3.5 years working right after college, I decided to quit my job. Some people call it gap year, career break, sabbatical but I call it a sweet dream. In any sweet dream, one do have to wake up to reality. I was backpacking around Europe and also studied Chinese in China. But now, I have a problem trying to explain 3 years gap in my resume. Please help and give me some ideas how to...thanks

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 23, 2005 at 10:13 AM | Leave a Comment (4)

Question from Candidate:

I have an enormous problem in choosing my place of higher education because of my desired fields. First off, my anticipated majors are sports medicine (hopefully pre-med.), international business, or history. I have been accepted to the University of Illinois and United States Military Academy. At West Point I am limited to only business and history major due to the absence of courses offered. My decision lies in which will further my job placement upon graduation. Incidentally, I do not plan to attend the University of Illinois for all four years but hope to study abroad or transfer out east. At West Point, I have the obligation of five year upon my graduation. So in essence, my question is what will look better on my resume? Any sort of guidance would help. Thank you.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 10, 2005 at 7:29 PM | Leave a Comment (2)

Question from Candidate:

I have been working in restaurants for a while as a general manager. At the same time I was enrolled in an MBA/Accounting program. I graduated a few months ago but have been unable to find an accounting job. No one is willing to take a chance on my education. How do I get a job in accounting?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 18, 2005 at 9:49 AM | Leave a Comment (6)

Question from Candidate:

I am very lost. How exactly do minors work? I know they are an opportunity for you to learn more about something different than a major, but do you get a degree in your minor also? Does your minor show up anywhere like on your degree or would your official title be John Doe degree in Business and minor in Art? How do employers look at minors?

I'm thinking about getting a major in sociology and a minor in music. How does that sound? Is it useless to have your major and minor in two separate topics? I mean what does your minor really do?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 27, 2005 at 11:33 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Question from Candidate:

I have recently graduated and moved to the UK from the Netherlands. I’m actively looking for a job. I have no trouble getting invited for interviews, and I am often invited for second interviews as well. Not so long ago I have been rejected for one of the jobs I applied for on the account of that the interviewers found me “to confident of herself”. This is a reoccurring thing. My confidence and assertivity overwhelms people. I’ve heard this since nursery school. It’s not that I talk very loudly, or throw demands in people faces, I don’t jumps queues, I do not look down on people or offend people in any other way. I am just reasonably aware of things I can handle, things I need to learn, how long it will take me to learn them, what needs to be done when people start panicking etc. This means I’m mostly fairly at ease in every situation.

After hearing this from the recruitment agent that introduced me to the company I decided to tone down a bit for my next interview with a different company. I brought up my dominant personality as one of my weak points and explained that I’m aware of it and try to manage it. I thought the interview went really well, and upon leaving the HR manager confirmed this and let me know they wanted to invite me back for the second interview. After this I got a phone call from the recruitment agent, who had some feedback on the interview. She told me the HR manager, in the beginning of the interview, was actually scared of me...

I was kind of in shock to hear this. I deliberately wore a pastel cardigan, spoke in a soft voice, said thank you and please a lot, etc. I asked questions in an interested manner and tried to not sound bragging when my skills and expertise came up, but gave examples. Apparently after 15 minutes she warmed to me, and wants to see me back for second interview.

I am Dutch and therefore naturally taller then most English women and a bit heavyset as well, which will naturally contribute to me being scary. However, it apparently is mostly my personality and my way of speaking that is most frightening, as I have heard this from Dutch people as well. I hope you can give me some advice on how to overcome this problem. It didn’t bother me much during university, but now it is costing me my career.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 20, 2005 at 9:12 PM | Leave a Comment (4)

Question from Candidate:

I have an Associates degree in Health Information Management. I want to pursue my Bachelor's degree. I am undecided on my major. I still want to maybe work in the health care field. Do you think I should major in Finance or Health Care Administration? What kind of healthcare jobs are available if I was to major in Finance?

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 14, 2005 at 8:26 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Question from Candidate:

I have a question. I am a PhD in Indo-English Poetryfrom an internationally reputed Indian university. I have also got aPost Graduate Diploma in English Language Teaching with 2.9 GPA on afive point scale. I have published 15 post-doctorate research papers onAmericakn literature of Asian Diaspora in the USA. Before legallyemigrating from India to the USA, I taught English as distinguishedCollege Lecturer in University Professor\'s Grade for more than 35years. But I have not been able to find any teaching job in the USA eventhough I can teach English language and literature from School touniversity level. I can teach all other subjects at the initial level. Ican do meaningful research work in comparative literature and culturefields.Having been the Chief Editor of my college magazine for twentyyears, I happen to have both the verstle ability and experience of writing English precisely and prolifically. But I had to run abroad toteach English in China just because there was no break for me in theUSA. What should I do to find employment in the USA? I am already 62 andunemployed in the USA for the last two years.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 14, 2005 at 8:25 PM | Leave a Comment (2)

Question from Candidate:

I have just completed a master's degree in anthropology (from a top tier school), and until recently I had planned to continue for my PhD. After more careful thought, I have decided not to continue in academia and I would rather move into a more marketable field, eventually moving into business analysis and consulting. I have liberal arts degrees so far in my career and a year of full-time work experience in cultural resource management.

My question is, when switching into a degree that I do not appear to be qualified for on paper, how far down the ladder should I target? A friend told me to start out as a bank teller or customer service rep, but I'm worried if I start in these jobs with no related degree, I'll be pushing paper with little opportunity for advancement or learning new skills. Will this job downshift translate into enough experience to go back for an MBA in 2-4 years? Do I need to go back and take undergraduate finance classes to get the first job? Any advice would be appreciated.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 14, 2005 at 8:21 PM | Leave a Comment (4)