CollegeRecruiter.com Blog

Most job boards seem to operate under a typical 80-20 rule for revenue generation: about 80 percent of their revenues are generated from the sale to their employer clients of job posting ads and resume searching. The other 20 percent are miscellaneous items such as banner advertising, sponsorships, lead generation, and targeted emails.

CollegeRecruiter.com also operates under an 80-20 rule for revenue generation but for us about 80 percent of our revenues are generated from the sale to our employer clients of targeted email campaigns, cell phone text messaging, and other such non-traditional products. We generate revenue from the sale of job posting ads and for a very limited period of time will also from resume searching, but we've learned over the years how to effectively and efficiently target tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of candidates via double opt-in email and cell phone text messaging.

Continue reading "Subject Lines for Targeted Email Campaigns" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on May 7, 2008 at 6:40 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

It's been a year since Paul DeBettignies a/k/a the Minnesota Headhunter, Josh Kahn of Accenture at Best Buy, and I got together at Chipotle for some burritos and to plot strategy for how to increase the number of active recruiting bloggers in Minnesota. One thing led to another, which is often the case when you get three guys together over exceptionally good food, and the end result was the Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conferences.

Josh has been instrumental in getting the group access to the Best Buy world headquarters facilities. They have superb meeting rooms and the price is certainly right. Their in-house catering service also bends over backwards to make it as easy as possible to host an event in their building.

Joining the group later was Nicole St. Martin, who we affectionately refer to as Paul's wingman. She's the one who makes these volunteer-driven events happen so professionally that I have to believe that most attendees think that Tinkerbell must be involved as everything just magically works perfectly. She's an incredible asset to the recruiting world generally and the human resource search engine optimization community
specifically.

But it is Paul DeBettignies who is the driving force. He is the visionary and the face of the organization. My involvement has been negligible after that initial burrito fest. His involvement has been almost like a full-time job. His energy, enthusiasm, sense of humor, and wisdom are infectious. People just love to be around him. He must do incredible work helping his employer clients find outstanding I.T. candidates.

If you've never attended a Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference, you have another chance. Here are the details:

Continue reading "Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference Spring 2008 - Free!" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 30, 2008 at 2:22 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

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

I recently had the good fortune of being interviewed via webcam by Bill Vick of XtremeRecruiting.tv about how recruiters and employers can and should use Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites for recruiting.

Note the extremely classy Minnesota Wild pennant over my left shoulder.

Enjoy the video!

Continue reading "Social Networking Interview by Bill Vick" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 11, 2008 at 4:31 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I had the pleasure of being a guest on a Human Capital Institute webcast earlier this week with Kristine Rhodes, Executive Director Talent Strategy for NAS Recruitment Communications, and Kristy Seidel, Manager of Recruiting for Hyatt Hotels and Resorts. The discussion was why and how employers should stand out from the crowd if they want to be successful in their efforts to hire college students for internships and recent graduates for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

On today's college campuses, "eye-ball" time is at an all-time premium. Students are bombarded daily with credit card offers and philanthropic requests while employers are trying to communicate with them to fill their ranks with top-tier talent. The market is so saturated that investing dollars and effort may not guarantee success, but innovative strategizing will. Great employers struggle to stand out from the crowd and often don't have enough of their targeted students' bandwidth to communicate their differences.

Continue reading "Creating Employment Buzz On Campus: Standing Out In A Crowd" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 10, 2008 at 7:30 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

A job offer which is extended by an employer, accepted by a candidate, and then rescinded by the employer is often referred to as an exploding offer. Here today yet gone tomorrow.

There were a lot of exploding offers in the recession earlier this decade. College students who turned down great offers during the fall recruiting season in favor of even better offers were understandably devastated when spring rolled around and they received word that their employer had deferred their start date by months or sometimes even rescinded their job offer. Career service office professionals were livid and many banned the offending employers from conducting on-campus recruiting for a year or more. The lack of talent entering the management ranks of the employers seriously impaired and sometimes even crippled the employers five years later when the classes of 2001-03 would have been entering the ranks of middle and upper management.

Continue reading "Why Today's College Students Need Not Fear Exploding Offers" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 9, 2008 at 7:06 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

There aren't many training sessions designed specifically to help college recruiters become more successful at their trade and fewer still which have been around for 19 years but there is one: the popular Recruiting Workshops offered through Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

Since 1987, the popular Recruiting Workshops have provided training for thousands of college recruiting professionals across the United States. The format of each workshop is designed to accommodate a variety of experience levels, company sizes and individual needs. The interplay of general seminars -- conducted by outstanding professionals -- with small group and hands-on learning opportunities permits each participant the maximum flexibility to gain what he/she needs from the program.

Continue reading "Duke University Offers Training for College Recruiters" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 7, 2008 at 6:35 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I was approached by Kristine Rhodes, Executive Director & Talent Strategist at NAS Recruitment Communications, this past fall with the idea of conducting a survey of college students and recent graduates nationwide so that we could better understand how they want employers to communicate with them. Well, the results are in and they're very, very interesting.

This Tuesday from 1:00pm to 2pm ET / 10am to 11am PT, Kristine and I will be joined by Kristy Seidel, SPHR, Manager of Recruiting, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts - North American Operations, for a free 45 minute webcast entitled, "Creating Employment Buzz On Campus: Standing Out In a Crowd." We'd love for you to join us.

Continue reading "Creating Employment Buzz On Campus: Standing Out In a Crowd" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 4, 2008 at 9:31 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I recently read an article at ERE and noticed a comment posted to it by Lisa Graham, Client Relationship Manager for FurstPerson / Sprint. Lisa's comment caught my eye because she wrote that she's made four good hires from MYSpace and had multiple potential candidates ask questions about her positions and express interest in them. She's had similar responses from Facebook. And to make her comment even more intriguing, she admitted to being a relative newbie as she's only been using MySpace and Facebook for about six months.

I emailed Lisa to ask her to share her wisdom and she very kindly obliged right away. Lisa hires for Sprint's contact center in Oklahoma City. They focus on tech support but have some customer service positions available as well but the customer service department is smaller and her group does not hire for it very often.

Continue reading "Do Employers Really Hire Candidates from Facebook and MySpace? FurstPerson / Sprint Does." »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 3, 2008 at 7:06 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the biggest frustrations in running an Internet job board like CollegeRecruiter.com is trying to accurately measure the value that we deliver to our employer clients. The problem, simply put, is that the most of them don't know either.

The vast majority of medium to large employers use applicant tracking systems and the vast majority of those do not properly track the source of those applicants. Most of them do a fine job of tracking the applicants from the point of application but for an employer to understand where their recruiting dollars are best being spent they also need to track the source of the applications.

The ATS companies and many of their clients insist that a drop down box listing different sources used by the employer suffices. The reality is that these candidate self-identification systems only suffice in providing inaccurate information to the employers. A recent study by Don Firth's JobsInLogistics indicates that self-reporting mechanisms like these notorious drop down boxes result in the misidentification of the source some 83 percent of the time. In other words, five out of six job seekers do not know how they found the employer's on-line career site even though the bulk of them probably just clicked through from a job board like CollegeRecruiter.com, a targeted email, cell phone text message, etc.

Continue reading "Internet Job Boards Number One Source of Hire" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 2, 2008 at 9:24 AM | Leave a Comment (2)

A tip of the hat to John Sumser of Recruiting.com and Dan Kurt of CareerCam for letting me know about an innovative recruiting program recently implemented by Steve Fogarty's team at Adidas.

Rather than flying a candidate to their corporate office in Portland, Oregon at a cost of about $1,000 a trip plus a couple of days for the candidate and the hiring managers, Adidas instead gives to the short listed interviewees an Adidas-branded web cam and tells the candidates to keep the web cam whether they're hired or not. Candidates are then interviewed in real-time through the CareerCam system.

The result? Faster turnaround for both interviewee and interviewers and I have to believe that Adidas is much more likely to therefore land the best possible hires and build significant good will amongst the candidates who were not hired yet remain in their talent pipeline.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 25, 2008 at 7:56 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Some advice great today about how to recruit the best interns in an article posted to our CollegeRecruiter.com Insights by Employers Blog:

1. Tell them they're going to work on interesting, real life projects and follow through on your promises.
   
2. Make offers as quickly as possible. If your organization takes weeks to decide, change your organization because your competitors are extending offers in days and sometimes hours or even minutes after interviews.
   
3. Assign a willing and able mentor to each intern and make sure that the mentors will not be traveling for more than a day or two now and then during the internship season.
   
4. Include your interns in organizational activities as if they were regular employees.
   
5. Hire students who are entering their sophomore and junior years, not just those entering their senior years. And consider hiring as interns those who just graduated. These positions used to frequently be referred to as externships but they're becoming more and more popular amongst recent graduates.
   

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 17, 2008 at 10:31 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Gerry Crispin posted a short but great blog article about how employers sometimes deviate from their standard hiring practices and hire people who aren't qualified on paper yet prove to be exemplary employees. It reminded me that we did something similar about 1.5 years ago thing when we hired Mike Palmquist, our national account executive.

Mike was a good friend of mine and Faith, my wife. We had known his family for years. He happened to mention to Faith that he was looking to get out of his career as a potter (amongst other things he'd also been a sous chef) and really liked cold calling. Faith and I talked and agreed that we should see if Mike would want to work for CollegeRecruiter.com as a sales representative. He was interested and it didn't take long for him to start. And thank goodness that he did as he's been a wonderful addition to our organization.

We joke with Mike that we hired him for all the wrong reasons yet he's one of the best hires we've ever made. Working with Mike is a pleasure and we look forward to doing so for as long as he's willing to put up with me.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 14, 2008 at 11:26 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Those who meet me often quickly detect that I have a strange accent for someone who lives in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis / Saint Paul. Some people here think that I must have grown up in New York while others more accurately put my hometown somewhere up in the Iron Range of northeastern Minnesota. The latter is closer to the truth but not quite there.

I grew up in Winnipeg, Canada and became a dual citizen after moving to Minneapolis for school and the weather. One of the advantages of growing up in Canada is that you realize better than a lot of Americans do just how intertwined the countries are and aren't. Culturally they're pretty similar but they have some remarkable differences. Economically they're even more similar yet are still and probably always will be remarkably separated.

An example of that economic separation are recruiting conferences. Few American recruiters or other human resource professionals have ever ventured north of the border for a recruiting conference. That's a shame because there are some wonderful conferences in world class cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. And the lack of northern exposure shouldn't be the case because those cities are so incredibly easy to get to from just about every American city.

Continue reading "Search, Employment and Staffing Conference" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 11, 2008 at 3:37 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I was just reading a CollegeRecruiter.com Insights by Candidates Blog entry about how to overcome tough interview questions and it caused me to remember an answer that a friend of mine used to give interviewers who asked him what was his biggest weakness. He would answer that it was chocolate. That would end that silly line of questioning for most interviewers but for those who were better prepared and could actually explain what information they were after he would provide them with a more meaningful response.

When I interviewed for jobs in college and after graduation, it never ceased to amaze me how ill prepared both the interviewers and candidates often were. Interviewers often had little to no training and frequently knew nothing about the candidate until they had scanned their resume as the candidate was walking in the door. So rather than asking meaningful questions about the candidate's credentials, they would ask stock, open ended questions like, "describe your greatest weakness." What a waste of time for everyone in the room.

Continue reading "My Weakness is Chocolate" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 7, 2008 at 8:44 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I've been trading emails for a few months with Garett Howardson, a PhD candidate at The University of South Dakota. His thesis is on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace and employer selection practices. He needs some employers to take the short survey anonymously and will send the results to any participant who so requests.

According to Garett,

Continue reading "Social Networking Study by PhD Student" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 6, 2008 at 10:13 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I had the pleasure of attending the Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference this past Friday. It was again organized by Paul DeBettignies, again located at the Best Buy world headquarters, again sold out, and again attended by well over 100 recruiters and other human resource professionals. About 60 percent were corporate recruiters/HR, 20 percent consultants, 15 percent third party recruiters / headhunters, and five percent oddballs such as me. Next date is Friday, May 16, 2008. Be there or be square.

The first session was by TJ Conley, an attorney with Leonard, Street & Deinard. About the only thing that I can take credit for is that I helped to connect Paul and TJ.

The presentation by TJ covered a fair amount of ground but the area that was of most interest to me was about the legal risks to employers when they use Google or other Internet resources as part of their background checking process. Those risks include:

Continue reading "Reporting from the Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on March 3, 2008 at 12:15 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

I had the pleasure of speaking to about 75 students and staff at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, New York earlier this week. I was invited by the school to talk with the students about how employers are using the web to both include and exclude them from the hiring process. What an impressive group of students.

During the hour long and very interactive discussion we talked how many Gen Y'ers thinks nothing of posting photos and other information to sites such as Facebook and MySpace under the mistaken impression that employers either can't see it or won't care about it. I showed some examples of students using the web to enhance their employment opportunities and others who are killing their chances because of what they've posted on-line. We also talked about what candidates can do to remove harmful information that they've posted or which has been posted by others and to bury information that can't be removed.

Continue reading "Students Not Using LinkedIn" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 27, 2008 at 10:51 AM | Leave a Comment (9)

Jim Durbin recently posted a blog entry about an actress receiving a job offer through a cell phone text message (SMS). He makes a good point: if Hollywood is starting to extend job offers via cell phone text messaging, can the world of human resources be far behind?

...

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 22, 2008 at 8:40 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

There's little doubt that today's college students, most of whom are members of Gen Y, favor interacting with their friends via cell phone text messaging more than by phone and email. Phoning or even emailing a friend is seen as inefficient and even slow as you can't simultaneously and immediately communicate with many people. But does that mean that targeted email campaigns are no longer a great tool for employers and others who want to reach Gen Y? Hardly.

As stated in the Email Insider, we need to remember when we were teens and young adults and the tools that we used. Many of us got everywhere on our bicycles and even skateboards. How many of us still use those tools as our primary methods of transportation? As we age and mature, we change and we change which tools we use to best fit our new lifestyles. Given the reliance by organizations upon email, it is inevitable that Gen Y will use email more and text messaging less as more of them move into the workplace and more of those in the workplace move into positions of greater responsibility.

So what does an employer do if they want to reach a lot of college students about internship opportunities or recent graduates about entry level job openings? Well, several strategies come to mind:

Continue reading "Are Targeted Email Campaigns Dying?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 18, 2008 at 8:18 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

There are a number of theories for how to write an effective job posting ad but in order to answer what needs to go into the ad, one must first understand what you want to come out of the ad. Is it the most number of responses? Many employers measure the success of job posting ads by the number of responses because their applicant tracking systems are unable to automatically determine the source of the application. That's a travesty given how cheap and easy to implement that technology is today, but that's the subject for another blog entry.

I believe that the best job posting ads are the ones that result in a relatively low quantity but a very high quality of applications. If you want to hire one person, why would you want to receive 200 resumes if only 10 of them are well qualified? Wouldn't it be better to receive 12 resumes and have only eight of them be well qualified? So how do you get there? Write a job posting ad that is long enough so that the candidate understands your industry (first paragraph), your organization (second paragraph), your department or division (third paragraph), and the opportunity (fourth paragraph). That's it. Don't start getting into excruciating details on your wonderful 401(k) or dental benefits. Don't include your lawyer's definition of flex time or sick leave. And certainly don't tell the candidate that their job responsibilities are subject to change. Duh. What job isn't subject to change and even for the very few which aren't subject to change, do you really need to say that in a job posting ad?

Research shows that the best advertisements do not spell out every facet of the product that you want to sell. Less is more. You need to include enough information to peak their interest, but not enough that you bore them or, heaven forbid, turn them off.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 14, 2008 at 7:11 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

What are you doing on March 4th from 1-2pm ET? Want to learn about how the new concept of social networking is impacting the traditional practice of networking? I thought you would.

I'm thrilled to be one of the panelists for the free one hour webinar hosted by Kennedy Information's RecruitingTrends.com and sponsored by LinkedIn. The moderator will be Jeanne Sturges, Managing Editor of RecruitingTrends.com. The other panelists are Lizz Pellet, CEO of EMERGE International; Hank Stringer, Chief Evangelist of ItzBig, Inc., and George Seiters, Senior Director of Marketing of LinkedIn.

You'll learn:

Continue reading "Best Practices in Recruitment Networking" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 13, 2008 at 5:24 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Andy Headworth of Sirona Consulting says has a good reminder for employers who are considering hiring college students for internships or recent graduates for entry level jobs:

Generation Y'ers, with their 'different' approach to work, at the same time are demanding more from their jobs and their working environments. They are really looking for a sense of purpose and worth in their jobs, and because of this, the 'job for life' mentality has gone well and truly out of the window!

Continue reading "Gen Y Not Interested in Job for Life " »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 11, 2008 at 9:14 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

More than four of five hiring managers are willing to view a video resumes according to a survey by HireMeNow.com. Of the 300 human resource and hiring managers, 83 percent indicated that they would view a video resume.

The survey also asked respondents how many minutes long a video resume should be. Some 78 percent said less than two minutes and a plurality preferred under one minute:

• 1 minute or less (54 percent)
  
• 1-2 minutes (24 percent)
  
• 2-4 minutes (18 percent)
  
• 4+ minutes (4 percent)
  

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 8, 2008 at 5:27 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the really nice things about running a job board is that you get to learn what candidates and employers each feel about the same issue. Case in point is internships. Employers typically explain that they want to hire for their internships college students who are well qualified, perhaps have some related experience, and are likely to make great permanent employees upon graduation. But what do students want?

A blog article was recently posted to our CollegeRecruiter.com Insights by Candidates Blog that succinctly explains what today's college students want to see when they're looking for an internship. Keep in mind that the article was written by one of our interns so this isn't some old guy like me writing about what a 20 year old college student wants from an internship. This is coming straight from the horse's mouth.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on February 6, 2008 at 12:09 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

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)

I had the pleasure this past fall of flying down to Dallas to tape a television show for CTN: The Energy Network. They produce a variety of training and educational shows for the natural gas industry. One of the big concerns for that industry is its rapidly aging workforce. Their recruiters and hiring managers are in the process of learning how to recruit Gen X'ers and Millennials rather than Baby Boomers.

The presentation that I did for them was designed to train their recruiters and hiring managers on how they can and should use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace in their recruiting process. Want to watch? Pull up a chair.

Continue reading "How Employers Can and Should Use Facebook and MySpace" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 30, 2008 at 3:20 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

We've all heard the stories about how social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook can be dangerous to job seekers when those people post on-line what most people would deem to be embarrassing photos or stories about themselves. After all, what employer is going to trust the judgment of a candidate who posts a MySpace page about herself and uses it to brag about how she likes to get drunk and have sex with strangers?

But what about candidates who make their political beliefs known in a low key way? One of the basic questions that Facebook asks, for example, is your political orientation. Your options include very liberal, liberal, moderate, conservative, very conservative, apathetic, liberatarian, and other. Unless you change your default settings, which most don't, your choice shows up for all to see. But what if your employer or potential employer sees your choice?

Continue reading "Employers Looking at Political Orientation" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 29, 2008 at 4:31 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of my favorite marketing gurus is Guy Kawasaki. He recently wrote a blog article with tips for companies wanting to increase their on-line sales. The same rules apply to organizations wanting to increase the percentage of candidates who apply to job posting ads:

Continue reading "14 Ways to Get More Candidates to Apply" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 25, 2008 at 11:34 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I recently received an email from an advertising agency in which they asked on behalf of one of their clients several very good questions about cell phone text messaging advertising campaigns. Underlying the questions, as you'll see below, is the client's concern that they don't want to have us deliver their message to the cell phones of tens of thousands or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of college students and recent graduates and have the message annoy or even offend those Millennials.

Below are the three questions from the client as passed along to me by the advertising agency and my responses to each. Note that I've slightly edited the questions and answers, in part to protect the identity of the agency and its client.

Continue reading "SMS Ad Campaigns Target Students, Not Parents" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 16, 2008 at 7:14 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Thanks to Super Dave Mendoza, I just learned that sourcing mavin Shally Steckerl recently interviewed Jason Davis about the value of the Recruiting Roadshow Unconferences. Jason was a third party recruiter when he started Recruiting.com, sold that business to Jobster, and is now running RecruitingBlogs.com and working to increase the number of recruiters who subscribe to the excellent Fordyce Letter.

Shally's interview of Jason took place this past fall in Atlanta at the second Unconference. I had the pleasure of being one of the keynotes and spoke about how recruiters can and should use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. They mention my presentation a few times during the 11 minute interview, but what I really got a charge out of came at the end when they were interrupted by one of the attendees. Her evaluation of the conference was candid and great. Have a look:

Continue reading "The Value of Recruiting Unconferences" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 15, 2008 at 8:44 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

A month ago I wrote about the success stories of five cell phone text messaging (SMS) consumer marketing advertising campaigns. Today, I'd like to share with you three success stories that we had with recruitment advertising campaigns.

Continue reading "SMS Success Stories for Recruitment Advertising Campaigns" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 10, 2008 at 3:30 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Well, that's what I hear from too many hiring managers and recruiters when I speak with them by phone, trade emails, and at recruiting conferences. The hiring managers tend to fall into two groups:

1. Those who are frustrated by Millennials who accept a job offer but then quit within months to take a position that offers a bit more pay from an employer across the street.
   
2. Those who are frustrated by Millennials who won't accept a job offer because the pay isn't enough even though the opportunity is otherwise perfect for them.
   

Continue reading "Millennials Are Driving Me Crazy" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on January 7, 2008 at 9:55 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the greatest changes that I've seen since we became engaged in the world of college recruiting in 1995 is the rise of the formalized internship program. In 1995, few organizations had interns and those who did rarely made good use of them. It was unusual when you heard about an organization that looked upon its interns as strategic resources and converted even a bare majority to permanent, full-time employees. My position then is the same as it is now: if your organization does not convert at least 75 percent then you are failing your interns and your shareholders.

But how does an organization without an internship program or with a failing internship program reach such a goal? One way is to pick up a copy of Total Internship Management: The Employer's Guide to Building the Ultimate Internship Program and implementing the many views and tips that it includes. The book by Richard Bottner of Intern Bridge, Inc. is based on the New England Internship Study, which was one of the largest internship research projects ever undertaken. The book also is based on the real-life experiences of more than 6,000 college students and 240 employer organizations. It walks you through the steps from understanding if your organization is ready to start recruiting to properly evaluating your existing interns to identifying which ones should receive offers for permanent employment to retaining those future employees.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 24, 2007 at 10:16 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

What goes from zero to number two in a year? If you guessed the Dallas Cowboys then you've got a good imagination but you're way off base. No, what goes from zero to number two in a year is our targeted SMS (cell phone text messaging) campaign product because a year ago we did virtually zero dollars in sales with it and it will close 2007 as our number two product behind targeted email campaigns.

One of the most frequent questions that we get from potential clients of our SMS product is how have other organizations used it with success. Here are some examples of campaigns delivered either by CollegeRecruiter.com or one of our network partners:

Continue reading "SMS (Cell Phone Text Messaging) Success Stories" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 11, 2007 at 12:20 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the only certainties with on-line marketing is that there are no certainties. It is very fluid in the sense that almost everything changes all of the time. That makes on-line marketing fun for those of us immersed in it but at times frustrating.

Fortunately, many organizations are constantly studying the on-line marketing space and sharing their findings. One aspect that is often studied is the best day to deploy a targeted email campaign where the list owner, such as CollegeRecruiter.com, delivers an email on behalf of a client. We deliver multiple campaigns per week and sometimes per day to tens of thousands and sometimes even hundreds of thousands of candidates. All have double opted in, meaning that they signed up to receive the emails and then confirmed that request. All can remove themselves from the list with a single click. Both are the highest standards in the industry. But I digress.

Continue reading "Wednesday Afternoons Best for Targeted Email Campaigns" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 10, 2007 at 9:37 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Small businesses can leverage the recruitment process by integrating successful internship programs into their companies. The process is simple: develop an internship outline with objectives, provide students with career related experience, and recognize students whom excel within the program. The list is quite short, but the most innovative internships withhold these three necessities. Small businesses can use an internship to create a funnel of talented recruiters for future employment with their company.

Develop a program with learning objectives.

The first step to integrating a successful internship is by developing a program with learning objectives. While planning, the company must address its needs by surveying current staff of strengths and weaknesses. The survey will pinpoint aspects of the small business that needs improvement through human resource’s recruiting efforts. The best way to outline learning objectives (or milestones) is by evaluating the staff in each department of the small business. Without an understanding what the small business needs, the recruiting process may become blurred. With this said, successful internships must provide a clear objective so recruits experience career options the company offers.

Continue reading "Three Steps for Small Businesses to Integrate Internships to Develop Candidates for Future Employment" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 7, 2007 at 5:31 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the benefits of our partnership with CareerTV is that I've been able to learn a lot about how employers can and should use recruitment videos to help them hire the best possible candidates. So I was delighted when I recently read in Interbiznet's Electronic Recruiting News some great tips from Helen Luttemo, Director of Public Relations for CareerTV:

Continue reading "Best Practices for Recruitment Videos" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 5, 2007 at 6:40 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

One of the skills that is critical to the success of any entrepreneur or intrapreneur is the ability to see around corners. That is, to be better able to predict the relevant future than your competitors. Those who have the skill are at a huge advantage as they are able to better position themselves and their organizations than are their competitors. Corporate recruiters who want to peer around the corner to see what practices will soon be popular need only look at what the various branches of the U.S. military do, including the U.S. Army.

For decades, the Army has used the promise of money for college as a recruiting tool. But starting this January, their message will change. Rather than promising tens of thousands of dollars in money for college, the Army will instead promise up to $40,000 towards the purchase of a home or the creation of a business. And rather than directing the messages at the potential enlistees, the Army will direct a significant portion of the messages at the parents and other adult "influencers" of the enlistees. "If you want to get a soldier, you have to go through mom, and moms want to know what kind of future their children will have when they leave the Army," Lt. Col. Jeff Sterling, the program's architect, told the Wall Street Journal.

Continue reading "Army Targets Influencers: Why Don't All Employers?" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on December 4, 2007 at 1:43 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Innovative internship programs are the number one concern for students interested in gaining experience in their desired fields. You can integrate a great internship program into your company, but you need to learn the basis of how to succeed with the first intern. In this blog entry, I will review four ways to succeed with the first intern in all sized companies, primarily small or mid-sized businesses.

Continue reading "Four Ways to Succeed With Your First Intern" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 27, 2007 at 8:03 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Many of our largest clients are federal government agencies. They include the Internal Revenue Service, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and all branches of the military. As different as each agency and their respective employees can be, they all share one startling characteristic: their employees are amongst the oldest in the country.

Thankfully though, the situation isn't as dire as it might first appear. Although the oldest Baby Boomers are now able to draw Social Security benefits and therefore retire, there is growing consensus amongst those of us who are fascinated by generational trends that many and perhaps most Baby Boomers will not actually retire but will instead change who they work for, how much they work, and what work they do. Rather than busting their butts to get a promotion, they'll work reduced hours or perhaps even work seasonally. They'll do work that fulfills their emotions rather than fills their pocketbooks. And they'll be joined by Gen Y.

Continue reading "Gen Y Rescues the Fed" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 21, 2007 at 7:14 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of participating in the Kennedy Information 2007 recruiting conference in Orlando. Virtually every employer engaged in the recruitment of college students for internships and recent graduates for entry level jobs and other career opportunities was focusing their attention on two topics: recruitment videos and green recruiting.

As eloquently stated by John Sullivan,

Continue reading "Green Recruiting Becoming a Force in Recruiting Interns and College Grads" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 19, 2007 at 6:57 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

On Wednesday, November 28th, I'll have the pleasure of serving on a panel with Jason Davis, founder of Recruiting.com and RecruitingBlogs.com; Matt Martone, manager at Yahoo! HotJobs; and Craig Silverman, EVP of sales & marketing at HireAbility. Together we'll discuss topics which should be of great interest to virtually everyone in the recruiting space including how to start blogging and increase your candidate flow, how to quickly drive more traffic to your web site, why there are already 100 million blogs, how you can stand out in your niche, and more.

Interested? Follow the instructions below to sign-up today.

Continue reading "Secrets to Blogging for Recruiting Professionals" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 16, 2007 at 6:23 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Gerry Crispin has a great blog article over at ERE about how employers can use social networking sites such as Facebook to source candidates.

Gerry's idea is that, with the permission of the recent hire, the employer would market their employment opportunities to the friends of that recent hire. What he doesn't say but should be made clear to those who have little to no experience with sites like Facebook is that a "friend" on a social networking site is quite different from a friend in the non-digital world inhabited by most Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers. To those of us who are from those older, non-Millennial generations, our friends are usually in the dozens. To Millennials or those less discriminating older users of social networking sites, a list of friends can easily reach into the hundreds or even thousands.

Continue reading "Using Recent Hires and Facebook to Source Candidates" »

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

It has been pretty well documented that about 75 percent of employers admit to looking at information that candidates post to Facebook, MySpace, and other web pages as part of the hiring process. In other words, today’s college students and recent graduates are often finding in their race to find career opportunities that the finish line is being blocked by the risqué photos or stories about drunken parties that they or their friends posted on-line. What has not been as well documented is that the this same generation is often finding that the starting line is also blocked.

A recent study by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth found that 25 percent of college admissions offices admit to using search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN to research potential students and that 20 percent look for the same information on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. The reality is that the percentages must be even higher because colleges and universities have little incentive to overstate their reliance on these digital dirt web searches but they have a significant incentive to understate their use due to a fear of negative public relations and likely backlash from many Gen Y candidates who view information that they post to MySpace and some of the other social networking sites as somehow being private even though it is accessible through a quick Google search.

Continue reading "College Admissions Officers Using Facebook, MySpace, and Other Social Networking Sites to Block Students" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 2, 2007 at 12:17 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

My friend and fellow recruiting blogger, Jim Stroud, posted an article earlier this week that contains a list of the top 200 universities worldwide as ranked by recruiters. Thankfully Jim didn't indicate his agreement with the list or even that such a list is relevant to anyone who is actually recruiting at universities.

Jim is a smart guy and a great recruiter so I trust that he understands that how one organization's recruiters rank a school bears little relationship to how that school will or should be ranked by another organization's recruiters. Let me explain.

Continue reading "Recruiters Rank Top 200 Universities: What a Load of Crap" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on November 1, 2007 at 7:06 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Open source software, including web sites, allow customers, vendors, partners, and other third parties to add onto or customize the software that your firm offers. Think Facebook. Until this past spring, Facebook was closed source so any modifications or enhancements to their web site needed to be done by their developers. Then they moved to open source and within weeks doubled their traffic. Why? Because their millions of users became even more engaged with Facebook because Facebook became even more relevant to the needs and wants of its individual users. Call it mass customization.

Now Google and some partner sites are getting in on the act in an apparent attempt to fight back against the massive traffic moving to Facebook. As amazing as it is, Facebook, which didn't exist just a few years ago, is now the sixth most popular web site in the world. Google and its partners are opening some of their source code to encourage third party developers to create applications that will be able to run on any web site anywhere in the world. So unlike Facebook's strategy, which allows third parties to develop software to run on Facebook, Google's strategy seems to be in line with the adage of a rising tide lifts all ships. The more sites that use these new apps, the more engaged we'll all be with those sites. And because so many commercial web sites, including CollegeRecruiter.com, use Google to sell at least some of their banner advertising inventory, those rising ships will generate more traffic which will generate more ad impressions for Google to sell.

So why do I feel that Gen Y is largely responsible for this? Because they're powerful advocates of transparency. You can see it in how they approach their careers. They're going to post their nasties to their Facebook and MySpace pages and if you as the employer don't like knowing that they get drunk on the weekends, too bad. That just means that you weren't a good fit for them anyway. If Gen Y doesn't like your site or some aspects of your site, they're going to modify it through your open source program or they're going to abandon you. Anyone remember Friendster? While it continues to be popular overseas, it was replaced by MySpace and now Facebook as the social networking site of choice by Gen Y. And that move was due in large part to Gen Y being able to customize their presence on MySpace and Facebook more than they could on Friendster.

Transparency. Scary but exciting. Embrace it or perish.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 31, 2007 at 9:21 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Mark Liston, the director of recruiting and new franchise development for Valpak, just posted a great blog entry to CollegeRecruiter.com.

Mark argues that the problems that Boomers like him and Gen X'ers like me (had to get that jab in -- sorry Mark) have with recruiting and managing Gen Y are due to our behaviors, not theirs. Mark lives and breaths these issues day after day for our valued client. If you want to benefit from the insight of someone who is in the trenches, read his entry.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 30, 2007 at 10:05 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

A tip of the hat to Rich McIver for bringing to my attention a great blog article on how to attract, retain, and leverage talented women. For any organization which is struggling in one or more of those areas, which means virtually all organizations, this is a must read piece. Enjoy!

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 26, 2007 at 6:36 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)

On-line social networking utility Facebook just received a $240 million investment from Microsoft for 1.6 percent of Facebook's stock. That values Facebook at some $15 billion. Wow. Keep in mind that this site didn't exist four years ago and was started by a few college kids in a dorm room at Harvard. Heck, they didn't even have their own web server initially as they stole space and bandwidth from Harvard.

So what does this mean for candidates? More of the same. Facebook and sites like it provide tremendous opportunities and threats to college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry level jobs and other opportunities. But any financial rationing that Facebook was experiencing will now disappear so it will now be more free than ever to market itself, enhance its infrastructure, hire more staff, enter into more partnerships. The investment will, in short, accelerate Facebook's already tremendously accelerated growth. Students, recent graduates, and other candidates will find Facebook even easier and more enjoyable to use.

Because Facebook has virtually 100 percent penetration on-campus and is expanding its reach into people who graduated a few years ago or even many years ago, look for the average age of its user to increase from the current 25 years of age. The risque photographs and other content that caused Gen X'ers and Baby Boomers to tut tut their Gen Y children and grandchildren will now creep into the profiles of those same Gen X'ers and Baby Boomers, although probably not to the same degree. Employers who winced at seeing content that they traditionally have self-shielded themselves from will see more and from a broader cross section of candidat