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)

One of the greatest resources for corporate and third party recruiters is ERE.net. Today was certainly no exception. ERE published a great article by Jeff Dickey-Chasins about features that job board clients want and don't want in the job boards they use:

Continue reading "Great Wish List for Job Boards" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 14, 2009 at 1:24 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Yesterday and again today I was contacted by recruiting professionals asking for my assistance in helping them find a new job. Both were recently laid off by their employers after years of service. I feel for both of them. There is never a good time to be laid off, but especially not in a volatile recession like we're experiencing right now.

The point of this blog entry isn't to criticize these two professionals but instead to use their behaviors to illustrate a point. I've been trying to talk with both of these people for years about how CollegeRecruiter.com can help their organizations hire college students or recent graduates through one or more of our products including job postings, targeted email campaigns, cell phone text messaging campaigns, and more. Neither returned any of my calls or emails. Not even to say, "Thanks, but no thanks." Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Continue reading "Are You Sowing Seeds or Salt?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 10, 2008 at 1:17 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I had a very interesting conversation today with a corporate recruiter who wanted to connect with me so that we could compare our thoughts on some of the new tools available to recruiters such as social media and mobile marketing. Our social media discussions were primarily about blogging, Facebook and Twitter and how to integrate those with each other so they work together and support each other. Our mobile marketing conversation was all about how employers can and should use cell phone text messaging (SMS) to help them recruit candidates.

The recruiter made a lot of very good points about a lot of issues, but one that I wasn't happy to hear but glad that I did was that even though he is a fan of CollegeRecruiter.com and knew that we offered the leading mobile marketing product for recruiters, he had a lot of difficulty finding it on our site. I say (write?) that I wasn't happy to hear it but glad that I did because that kind of feedback is invaluable.

We re-launched our site five months ago with an almost entirely new back-end (database, software, etc.) and a brand new front-end (the look-and-feel). Our traffic increased and complaints decreased. Almost all of the feedback we have received to-date has been positive. Until now. His critique was spot on. It is too hard for our employer clients to find product and pricing information on our site. But that's going to change. Real fast. I promise.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 15, 2008 at 4:13 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

A question from several of the 500+attendees to our free webinar last week on how employers can and should use Facebook for recruiting was whether employers would encourage negative comments about their organizations if those employers started blogging, using Facebook, etc.

My advice was that the negative comments will be made whether the employer has a presence or not so they should blog, actively use Facebook, and otherwise participate in Web 2.0 sites. To do otherwise would be to allow the negative comments to be posted without the employer's side of the story. Don't get personal. Don't post comments saying that the blogger is an idiot. But do give your side of the story. If your organization could have done something better, admit it and provide details on what you'll be changing and when in order to rectify the situation.

Continue reading "Blog Comments Should Come Full Circle" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 19, 2008 at 5:13 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Here's the scenario: you're a hiring manager, recruiter, or other human resources professional and you're trolling the CollegeRecruiter.com resume bank (why would you possibly want to use any other?) in search of students searching for internships or recent graduates hunting for entry level jobs. You stumble across the resume of one of your organization's current employees. Do you forward a copy to that employee's manager to let her know that her employee may be looking to jump ship? Do you confront the employee? Do you ignore it because taking action would be akin to tattling?

I believe that that HR should inform a manager when HR discovers that one of the manager's employees in a job board's resume bank. However, I also think that HR should make sure that the manager understands that the existence of the resume does NOT mean that the employee intends to jump ship.

Continue reading "Telling a Manager You Found Their Employee's Resume On-line: Is It Tattling?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 18, 2008 at 9:32 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I had the extreme pleasure of sitting down with Peter Clayton of Total Picture Radio last week while at the Kennedy Information recruiting conference in Las Vegas. Peter and I discussed a wide variety of recruiting-related social networking topics including MySpace (4,300% traffic increase in two years, most visited networking site with an 80% share, third most visited U.S. Internet site, over 31.5 billion page views per month, and an average user age of 35). We also talked about topics such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Second Life.

Continue reading "Best Practices for Using MySpace, Facebook and Other Social Networking Sites" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 16, 2007 at 1:48 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

An corporate recruiter recently posted a question to discussion list in which he expressed concern that it may be too late in the school year for him to recruit college seniors who are completing their civil engineering program. Is it?

Continue reading "Is It Too Late to Hire College Grads for Entry Level Jobs?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 19, 2007 at 7:43 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Should a rejection be communicated via telephone voice mail? Well, if you want the equivalent of, "I just called to tell you that your mother [or insert title of any other significant in your life] died," then go ahead and leave that type of voice message. However, an employer of any quality would not do so.

Continue reading "Rejection Communications" »

Posted by Yvonne LaRose, CollegeRecruiter.com - Career Coach on January 7, 2006 at 6:42 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Great discussion in the College Recruiter group at the Electronic Recruiting Exchange regarding whether employers should communicate rejections to candidates via phone, email, or some other method. If by phone, how many times should the employer call before leaving a message with their regrets. Is or should there be a difference in the communication method between candidates based upon their education or experience level?

Continue reading "Rejection Communications" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 4, 2006 at 4:39 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Question from Employer:

With so many people using search engines such as Google to find all types of information, how important is it for candidates to be able to find our postings by running a Google search using a job title and location but not our company name?

Answer:

Job seekers frequently use search engines such as Google to locate job openings for specific job positions. In fact, it is likely to be one of the first places a savvy job hunter will try. This best practice is to ensure candidates can easily find your job postings using search engines even if they do not enter your company name in their search string.

A major consideration for your site design team is based on typical search terms for job postings. Once the postings requested by the job candidate are displayed, your company's postings must appear on the first page or two. Why? Only the most persistent of candidates will venture past this point because, quite frankly, it's not worth the effort.

Search terms or keywords must be integrated throughout the posting and key pages on your employment site. If this is done haphazardly or not at all, your posting will not be ranked high enough to appear on the first couple of pages displayed by large search engines. Your critical posting may never be seen by the most qualified candidate!

Keyword coding for your employment web site should be performed by search engine optimization experts. They understand how search engines rank web pages and will translate this knowledge into top rankings for your site.

Take the example of a highly qualified candidate looking for an illustrator's position. This candidate knows from experience that the search term "illustrator" is much too general. So, based on his knowledge of the different types of illustrators in the current work environment, the candidate adds the adjective "multimedia." The motivation is to get specific job postings using the search term "multimedia illustrator."

Once this term is entered into Google, the site ranked first in the results for job postings is the U.S. Army's employment site. There may be hundreds of companies worldwide searching for the ideal candidate, but the Army beat them all to the top of the list.

Here's an example of a less desirable Google ranking from the company's perspective. In this case, a pharmaceutical firm is currently looking for specific expertise to ensure systems are in compliance with FDA regulations. This position, "computer validation specialist," requires specialized skills most computer specialists normally do not possess.

Unfortunately for both potential job candidates and the company, this posting can't be located on the first five pages of Google results when the logical search term "computer validation specialist" is used. Since the company's employment site's search engine rankings are not optimized, eligible job candidates may not get the opportunity to view this posting using the Google search engine. A major avenue to eligible job candidates is unavailable to the company.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 14, 2005 at 12:46 PM | Leave a Comment (1)

Question:

Upper management does not want to include a link on our home page to our jobs page. How do I convince them that we need to add that link?

Answer:

A prominent link to "jobs" or "employment" — or better still, "careers" — should appear on the home page of all organizations. The link should lead directly to the main page of your site's employment section.

If you put this link on the "About Us" or some other interior page, you will frustrate job candidates. There is solid evidence via web usability studies that frustrating website visitors increases the chance that they will leave your site without completing their objective — finding the right job for them. And it does not help you achieve your own objective — finding, screening, and hiring qualified candidates.

Using the word "careers" as your link name implies that you view employees as valuable assets and expect them to grow within the workplace. Simply put, a "career" is much more appealing to a job candidate than a "job."

The best way to demonstrate the effectiveness of this best practice is by example. Pfizer's corporate website contains a "Careers" link clearly marked on the employer's home page. Not only is this link prominent on the initial site page, it appears in an area where the visitor's eye naturally goes first — the top left section of the page.

If you navigate to this site and click the "Careers" link, you'll see a menu for the "Careers" section of the site in that same familiar position on the page. Site designers use this positioning to "train" the visitor to view the most important links first.

Another example is the home page for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Instead of a set of vertical links, you'll see links listed horizontally. This arrangement caters to the reader's instinct to read from left to right. On this site, the "Careers" link is the second link from the left. In this case, the job seeker is very likely to see this link as soon as the page displays.

In case you're looking for an example of a site where the link is difficult to find, check out General Electric's. The employment link is buried in the lower-left corner, which is the least visible location on a page. If you were seeking a career with General Electric, what would you infer from the placement of that link? Think about the message this employer may be sending to job seekers!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 12, 2005 at 9:43 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

Question from Employer:

I have a friend (we'll call her Sherry) that told me this story yesterday. I am completely flustered about this and want to make sure that I am not being unreasonable in thinking that this is the most disrespectful, inappropriate behavior by a boss.

Sherry has become close with her boss David. She has worked for him for approximately 9 months. David is a very religious man and is married with 2 kids. While working together in a small office, they have begun to talk about their personal lives. Sherry's husband is not very supportive. He has a bad temper is very close-minded. Over the months, Sherry has confided in David and he is very aware of the situation that Sherry is in. Sherry, to the best of my knowledge, has accepted her husband's behavior and has no plans for divorce. David, her boss, has told her that he wants to become more than her boss-he'd like to become her friend. He'd like to become the type of friend that shows her how she deserves to be treated. In a purely platonic way of course.

Yesterday, Sherry and David went to a business meeting off-site. After the meeting, David told her that he had planned the day for her. He told her that he didn't want her to feel uncomfortable, that she should just trust him and that he would NEVER do anything to hurt her. He drove her to a hotel where he already had a room. Took her up to the room that was filled with candles and had a jacuzzi. He lit the candles and said the room was hers to enjoy and that he'd be back in an hour. She enjoyed a bubble bath while he was gone. He returned and they shared lunch in the room with nothing happening. Sherry felt fine with all of that.

They had to leave b/c he had made a reservation for her to have a massage. He dropped her off at a spa where he bought her a Swedish massage. Again, he picked her up afterward. In total, David paid approximately $250 showing Sherry how she 'deserved' to be treated.
It was made clear that this day would stay between the two of them and noone else should know.

In Sherry's mind, b/c David did not try anything, he was just being 'nice'. In my opinion, as her boss, this behavior is unacceptable, inappropriate, and completely disrespectful. I think Sherry needs to inform David that she can never again receive gifts of this sort from him. Ideally, I believe she needs to look for a new job. Please, tell me your opinion.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 16, 2005 at 3:55 PM | Leave a Comment (3)