Most employees prefer to have more time as opposed to more money, and they're choosing jobs based on this preference. According to a recent survey from the Association of Executive Search Consultants, 85 percent of recruiters have seen candidates reject a job offer because it wouldn't include enough work/life balance, and 90 percent of recruiters say work/life balance considerations are more important now than they were five years ago.

Forbes, March 19, 2007

Labels: Industry News

My Marketing Assistant Gail, attends a lot of job fairs and expos to promote my job boards. She was at one yesterday in Westchester, NY. Afterwards she sent me a quick email letting me know how it went. She mentioned something that I've been hearing a lot of lately;

"It was busy and I did speak to a few employers regarding posting jobs with us...They all seemed to be looking for new places to post. Most of them used the newspaper and career builder."

I believe that employers are dying for alternative recruitment advertising tools. The above comment is proof positive and I can back it up by the number of calls I get with the same sentiment.

The job market is tight and getting tighter. Some employers are getting desperate. Some are grasping at straws. But the truth is, only the strong will survive.

Labels: Recruitment Advertising

Mobilewirelessjobs.com is the online employment job board career portal work site for mobile content wireless jobs and resumes. Visit their blog.

Labels: Job boards

You Know the Drill

...or do you? The latest training tools might surprise you.
By Mark Henricks
Entrepreneur Magazine - April 2007

A couple of weeks before starting work, each of Hugh Braithwaite's new hires receives an iPod loaded with greetings from some of the other 14 employees of Braithwaite Communications.

The unexpected gift energizes people new to the $3 million Philadelphia marketing communications firm. "They come in the door with much higher morale and positive energy," says Braithwaite, 46.

Podcasts, blogs, wikis and even video games can create, organize and disseminate internal training, says Anders Gronstedt, a training consultant in Broomfield, Colorado. The emerging channels address shortfalls of conventional training techniques and are more portable, flexible and fun than memos and lectures. Blogs, for instance, can be set up behind a company's firewall to encourage internal dialogues with employees. "A lot of companies are finding that tremendously valuable," Gronstedt says.

continue on magazine website

Labels: Random thoughts

Lets face it, the vast majority of Human Resources personnel don't get blogging. It's a foreign entity to them filled with myths and legend. It takes a special individual to start and maintain a blog and HR is just too busy.

Thats why I came up with the idea for Jobs in Pods. Not only does it allow employers to create audio job descriptions and promote their employment brand but it's also a blog. The blog aspect of the site adds value by attracting search engine traffic to each and every post. So any employer who does a jobcast will attract passive candidates through people doing keyword searches.

Just look at these examples;

A search for "vertrue jobs" shows that their podcast on Jobs in Pods is #3 result on google.

A search for "zoominfo jobs" shows that their podcast on Jobs in Pods is #1 result on google.

A search for "tmobile engineering jobs" shows that their podcast on Jobs in Pods comes up as the #2, #3 result on google, via feeds we setup on various podcast directory sites.

So my lesson for you today is that blogging is good, blogging is great. It's time for HR to outsource their blogging efforts to sites like Jobs in Pods. We know what we're doing.

Labels: Employer Branding, Jobcasting

Another "blogboard" has entered the fray. The well read Searchblog by John Battelle has added Simply Hired's plugin job site to its pages. Read about it here.

Labels: Job boards, Other bloggers

Bells & Whistles: The Official Blog of RCI Recruitment Solutions is authored by Amitai Givertz.

According to their site RCI is: "That's why here at RCI Recruitment Solutions we offer the gamut of recruitment products and services. We produce successful solutions that take advantage of our media services. We embrace the communications opportunities provided by the Internet. And we consistently revolutionize the staffing field by taking full advantage of the technological advancements of the 21st century."

Labels: Recruiter Blogs

Staffing technology company, The Code Works has some new blogs out. Visit them here.

Labels: Other bloggers

In addition to podcasting jobs, Jobs in Pods is starting a series of podcasts called "Career Paths". These short interviews with recruiters will explore different career paths from today's job market and give job seekers an inside look at working in that field.

We're seeking recruiters to interview for this series. So please email me if you would like to appear in one. If you recruit in some of the following fields: sales, IT, accounting, health care, engineering, marketing, advertising or any other growing profession send an email to chris at jobsinpods.com

Labels: Jobcasting

The CareerJournal just ran a story in which I was quoted. "What Job Hunters Should Know
About Online Recruitment Videos".

Labels: Recruitment Advertising, Videos

Robert Half International's Resumania usually highlights humorous job seeker errors, but employers make mistakes too. This column looks at a few of those mistakes. Anyone else looking for an art dictator?

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Labels: Recruitment Advertising

This weekend while watching TV, a commercial from Verizon Wireless caught my eye. It was of those that feature employees who work there. Nothing much remarkable about it. We've all seen tons of commercials like that. But there was a URL at the bottom of the screen. So I went online to check it out.

And what I found was a comprehensive employment branding tool for the company. (with videos galore) See it here.

Labels: Employer Branding

According to Workforce magazine these are the top temporary staffing firms. Ranked according to revenue for last 4 quarters.

1. ADECCO - $26.4 billion
2. MANPOWER - $17.6 billion
3. RANDSTAD - $10.3 billion
4. VEDIOR - $10 billion
5. GOODWILL GROUP - $7.1 billion
6. KELLY SERVICES - $5.6 billion
7. ALLEGIS GROUP - $4.4 billion
8. ROBERT HALF - $4 billion
9. VOLT INFORMATION SCIENCES - $2.3 billion
10. SPHERION - $1.9 billion
11. MPS GROUP - $1.9 billion
12. EXPRESS PERSONNEL - $1.8 billion
13. LABOR READY - $1.3 billion
14. CDI - $1.2 billion
15. HUDSON HIGHLAND - $1 billion

Check out Las Vegas jobs at NV Job Search.com.

Labels: Industry News

Tales from the Digital Side is a blog about employment branding.

Laura the author says: "I’ve started this blog to join the discussions that are taking place on interactive recruitment. I’ve had a lot of experience helping clients take advantage of this medium, using the best solutions for recruitment to increase return on investment. Most people who know me know I have an opinion on everything, so this gives me a place to share it."

Labels: Employer Branding, Recruiter Blogs

I was unaware Skype had a recruiting blog.

Unfortunately it appears to be dying. No updates since Dec 6th of last year.

Why do recruiting blogs die?

-recruiter leaves company
-recruiter gets reassigned
-recruiter lost the will to blog
-recruiter did truly understand blogging

Any others? leave a comment

Labels: Recruiter Blogs

For those HR folks that dont know much about jobcasting or if you need to prove its worth to your boss, give them this PDF file: Making the case for Jobcasting.

In the first week, the existing podcasts on Jobs in Pods were downloaded or listened to over 300 times.

Labels: Employer Branding, Jobcasting, SEO tips

I found the following ad in my local newspaper the Connecticut Post. Its curious how they are marketing 3 different job boards instead of one. As a job seeker which one should I go to? A little confusing if you ask me. I think they are diluting their own brand.

Then check out what the New Haven Register does. Their masthead has a massive HotJobs logo. Before the Yahoo deal they carried a different logo for JobsinCT.com which the Journal Register purchased in 2005. What happened to that? They spent millions on that purchase only to seemingly bury it in favor of Hotjobs. They were also running commercials in CT for JobsinCT but I havent seen any recently. So what was the point of purchasing them? My guess is the JobsinCT foray into Connecticut did not go as planned and the HotJobs deal was too tempting.

Labels: Recruitment Advertising

Friday fun with photoshop starring Cheezhead, CM and the Recruiting Animal.

Labels: Other bloggers

Blogs are great for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Here's a case in point.

Job in Pods, which is only a few days old is already producing keyword search results. Take a look at the image below. A search for "rf engineering jobs march 2007" produced an organic link back to the post I did for some T-Mobile jobs. Just another reason to podcast your jobs.

Get the latest Internet recruiting scoop at Cheezhead.

Labels: SEO tips

The real value of podcasting your jobs is the way we maximize their exposure across the internet.
a) Podcast Sites & MP3 Players: a number of podcast directories exist which let users promote their audio. We have setup distribution channels with over two dozen of them. This is how many passive candidates will find them. In addition, MP3 players like Apple’s iPOD are proliferating. Users of these portable devices will be able to download them directly from iTunes.

b) RSS /XML Feeds: RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and XML feeds allow internet users to take our “feed” of podcasts and add them to their “feed reader” or add them to their own web sites for listening. This puts the power of listening in their control. They won’t have to come to JobsinPods.com, rather they can listen to your podcast right from their feed reader.

c) Blog & Technorati tags: Jobs in Pods is not just a web site. It’s a blog and it comes with built in advantages for attracting search engine traffic. Each of your podcasts will be posted to this blog, categorized and tagged. The search engines will pick up on these tags and drive traffic to it. For example, a post entitled “Sales Jobs with XYZ Company in White Plains, NY“, will aid in attracting people typing in the words “sales jobs ny” in a search engine.

Using the blog search engine Technorati we’ll also “tag” each podcast with the keywords from our interview. If you are looking for marketing people, we’ll add tags that say “marketing jobs” and “marketing manager”.

d) Your Site: Working with your webmaster, we can setup a feed of just your podcasts that you can simultaneously broadcast on the career section of your corporate web site. Wouldn’t it be great if potential canidates could hear you speak about the jobs on your site?

Labels: Employer Branding, Recruiting Software, Recruitment Advertising

Who'd a thunk it? I just came across this little nugget.

"Yahoo's strategy of snagging newspapers partnerships is working, according to a note released by Wachovia Equity Research senior analyst John Janedis and his team.

The Internet company's recruitment arm, HotJobs is catching up with its two major competitors. Delving into comScore data, a third-party that measures Web site traffic, Wachovia found that Monster and CareerBuilder are losing share to HotJobs.

"We estimate that Yahoo HotJobs gained over 5% [points] of share among the top three sites in January 2007, which happens to coincide with the initial rollout of HotJobs on some newspaper partner sites," wrote Wachovia analysts. "We think this is a trend worth watching."

For the same time period -- December 2006 to January 2007 -- CareerBuilder lost approximately three percentage points. Monster's share fell too, down about 1.5 percentage points.

Granted, HotJobs is working off a smaller base. In December, HotJobs claimed a little more than 6 million unique visitors, while CareerBuilder and Monster had more than 10 million and 11 million, respectively. But in January, the gap was closing, with more than 10 million unique visitors for HotJobs, more than 12 million for CareerBuilder, and more than 14 million for Monster."

full article >>

Labels: Job boards

Ok in parts I & II I talked about how HR needs to think more like marketers when it comes to recruiting. Now I’m prepared to show you how.

Podcast your jobs.

Microsoft is doing it. So is Accenture. So why aren’t other companies?

Well the problem is that most HR folks don’t know how, nor do they have the time to learn. But I have a solution for that.

JobsinPods.com

Jobs in Pods is a new marketing tool for employers. We advertise your jobs and promote your employer brand through audio podcasts which we conduct over the phone with your HR staff & other employees.

We do all the work and your podcast is published throughout the web on various podcast directories including iTunes where passive job seekers can discover your company and download episodes to their iPods.

We even give you a widget so you can place the podcasts on your own career site. Here’s a couple of examples from a couple of companies who have become early adopters of this new way to market your jobs.

Here's what Dennis Smith, Sr. Recruiting Manager for T-mobile says about Jobs in Pods:

I connect daily with the customers and job applicants of T-Mobile via our blog. The podcast talks about what we do at T-Mobile and the types of candidates I'm looking for and it's just one more opportunity for me to connect with those people that I care about - our customers and our candidates!

Here's what Martin Burns, Recruiting Manager for ZoomInfo has to say:

1. For awhile now, I’ve struggled with deciding the value of podcasting from a business perspective. That said, once I heard what you were doing I had one of those “ah-ha” moments. This is a natural way for ZoomInfo to increase our employment branding.
2. For employers in general, this is a great way to reach a broad audience. It’s quick and painless, and it’s much easier to convey passion about a workplace verbally as opposed to in a print job ad.

Podcasting your jobs is a smart, unique and memorable marketing tool. Now lets get started. Contact me.

Labels: Recruitment Advertising

Stay tuned tomorrow as I unveil a brand new way to market your jobs.

Last time I expressed concern that HR professionals don't understand that recruiting is marketing. It couldn't have been more perfect timing as two respected authors recently noted.

First Seth Godin says this in his post entitled Marketing Your Jobs;

Here's what's missing from the hiring equation: organizations try to treat jobs like commodities and as a result, often end up treating themselves as commodities. All jobs are the same, our job is a little closer and we pay a little better, call us. Sure, companies all brag about the work environment and benefits and such, but when they come right down to it, they're not so different...

Let me really understand who the boss is going to be, what the office is like, what the work is like. Sell the job, not the job opening.

Then Lou Adler wrote its time to blow up the job description. He gives 12 different reasons why you don't need one. But I think this quote sums it up;

As more good candidates go online to look, the objective of a job description should not be to pre-qualify the person, but rather to generate interest in the position and company. You don't need a job description to do this.

He continues...Once you have a particular job in mind, it's better if you emphasize the results, opportunities, and challenges involved in the job, rather than composing a laundry list of specific skills and desirable characteristics.

Recruiting is marketing. Job postings are just a commodity. They all look and sound the same. It's time to take your recruiting to the next level. It's time to start acting like a marketer. Stay tuned tomorrow for a way to do just that.

Labels: Recruitment Advertising

Can someone tell this guy not to blatantly rip-off other job boards? This is an obvious attempt at copying Simply Hired's logo.


According to Whois records, Marlon Pow of Vancouver B.C is the owner. I say we sick the animal on him.

Labels: Job boards

When Danny Sullivan, 'the king of all search media guy' talks, I listen. His daily search cast is a daily ritual for me each weekday. Anyway he wrote something on his blog recently which caught my eye.

What's significant about personalization, however, is the direction that it sets for Google in the future. Google has been very cautious about introducing personalization into the search experience but expect the degree of personalization to increase as Google gets more confident in their ability to present truly personalized and relevant results. And that signals the end of the universal or monolithic search result. As I've said a number of times, that has significant implications for search engine optimization.

Once Google starts making personalized search results a part of everyone's page, SEO is going to take a giant turn. Where's it going? I cant say for sure. But it should be an interesting ride.

Labels: SEO tips

Ask the Headhunter has a thing for HR and the job search industry. In this post he yawns at the sources of hire study and laments HR's lack of actual recruiting. Love it or hate it, his comments make for interesting drama.

"Gimme a break. The problem is industry pundits, consultants, and experts who rake in the bucks "explaining" Internet recruiting to pie-eyed personnel jockeys who won't get off their duff to go out into the professional community to actually recruit. While industry veteran and job-board apologist John Sumser pontificates on his site that, "It [isn't] really the fault of the job boards," half an inch away is an ad for Monster.

Ben Franklin said, The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

The definition of stupidity is paying someone to prop you up while you do it. How much money is in your company's Stupid Budget this year?"

Labels: Other bloggers

One of the things I learned from the recruiting conference circuit I traversed last year was recruiting is marketing - and HR pros just don't get that.

I'd say job descriptions are the biggest victim in this scenario. They just don't talk to candidates like they should. Seen one job description, seen them all.

The same could be said for most company career pages. They bury their jobs under a maze of pages and dont give job seekers a glimpse of life at the company. Or worse, they don't list jobs at all.

So whats a company to do? How about hiring marketing people to augment the recruiters? Get a copywriter to write your job descriptions. Hire a marketing manager to develop your employer brand. Design your career site with best practices in mind.

There, I said it. Now who among you will do it?

Labels: Employer Branding

I didn't realize the lumber and millwork industry needed a specialized recruiting firm but they do indeed exist. Welcome the Windmill to the recruiting blogosphere.

"As recruiters specializing in the Building Materials Industry, speaking to hundreds of industry professionals on a weekly basis, we wanted to find a way to provide an easy and effective way to communicate and keep as many people within the industry we know and talk to informed on a more frequent basis."

Labels: Recruiter Blogs